Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/449

 128.1. JUNE 3, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

443

So we have the story complete enough for our purposes. On Nov. 22, 1444, Henry vowed a hundred nobles (say 33Z. 6s. Sd.] for the Chapel altar ; and most of the money was eventually spent in procuring from Wynne, a London goldsmith, a pair of basins which, according to the inventory, cost 29Z. 3s. 9df. At the time when the vow was made, the Marquess of Suffolk had recently left England to escort to this country the King's bride, Margaret of Anjou, who had been betrothed to him (Suffolk acting as his proxy) on May 24, 1444, in St. Martin's Church at Tours. She arrived at Portsmouth on April 9, 1445, and, after the marriage at Titchfield on April 23,* was at Winchester on May 2 in the course of her journey to West- minster to be crowned. The King's vow having (as it would seem) been conditional upon the safe arrival of the Queen, he now fulfilled it. Parke rode to London in May to bespeak the basins, and they were de- livered at the College in the following September.

Having ascertained the facts, we must apply them to the fourth and fifth verses x which Chandler sought to amend. I would suggest this reading :

C junctis mille quater, x tot et i quater, ille Annus erat Domini : bis suiis x, ter et i.

The only change here made is the substi- tution of " et " for the second " x " of the inventory. But that change has a> twofold effect : the verses become historically cor- rect ; they also become capable of scansion of such scansion as would satisfy the fifteenth-century poet. " Mille," though, not declinable in the classics, has its second syllable lengthened by him, to show that it is in the dative ; and the second syllables of " quater " and " suus " are short before " x," because " x " is to be pronounced as if it were " ex."

The reason why the scribe wrote " x " in error for " et " may have been that the verses were being dictated to him. The " et " of his " ter et j " is badly written, and possibly Blackstone mistook it for " ii." Kirby had no luck with his handling of the King's visit in November, 1444. He as- signed some of its above-mentioned incidents to 1442 (p. 192), and others to 1445 (p. 193) ; we have already seen how he dealt with its chief incident, the gift which furnished the Chapel altar with a pair of silver-gilt basins.

H. C. Winchester College.

but cf. xxvi. 59, where April 22 is the date given.
 * I take this date from ' D.N.B.,' xxxvi. 140 ;

" PAMPHLET": THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD.

EXPLANATIONS of the origin of the purely English word " pamphlet " have differed widely, and those of Dr. Johnson and the ' N.E.D.' can by no means be reconciled.

According to the ' N.E.D.' the word " pamphlet " is derived apparently from " a generalized use of Pamphilet or Panflet, familiar name of the 12th c. Latin amatory poem- or comedy called ' Pamphilus, seu de Amore ' (in O.F. Pamphilet, M. Du. Panflet [sic, panflette]), a highly popular opuscule in the 13th c. Cf. the- familiar appellations of other small works simi- larly formed with dim. -et, e.g., Catonet, the Distichs of (pseud o-) Cato, Esopet, the Fables of

^Esop, etc Hence in 17th-18th c. adopted in

French and other langs."

No proof is given of the supposed " generalized use." * Pamphilus ' has nothing in common, either in matter or in form,, with any of the earlier pamphlets. The poem is not known to have been called anything but 'Pamphilus' in England.- Chaucer and Gower both thus allude to it.

For his earliest instance of the adoption- into French of the English word " pamphlet," Littre cites Bayle, under the date of 1704.. France, in all probability, was the first country on the Continent to adopt the word..

The writer of the article ' Pamphlet ' in the ' N.E.D.' seems to have had some mis- givings about his definition, for he appends a long note to his article, from which it appears that, in the inventory of the Library of the Louvre (temp. Chas. V. and VI. )* dispersed by John, Duke of Bedford, the poem is termed ' Pamphilet,' and that the Middle Dutch writer Van Assenede's ' Floris ende Blancefloer ' mentions ' Pam- philus ' as ' Panflette ' (not ' Panflet ').. The writer then goes on to add :

" To connect the work [' Pamphilus '] with our pamphlet,' we have to suppose that here also, as in France and the Low Countries, it was familiarly termed ' Pamphilet ' or ' Panflet ' [sic Panflette], and that this name was in course of time extended to other opuscula produced or circulated * in pamphlet form,' i.e., as small detached works. This transference of sense must have been complete before 1340."

But was ' Pamphilus ' produced in pam- phlet form ? I wish to submit to the readers of ' N. & Q.' a new theory, with some evidence in support of it.

J. Morgan (the writer's Christian name has not survived) published a collection of old pamphlets in 1732, entitling his book ' Phoenix Britannicus.' On p. 553 there is a 'etter by William Oldys, the antiquary and Nbrroy King-of-Arms, about whom the-