Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/113

 12 8. II. AUG. 5, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

107

" DEAD SECRET." In the preface to the 1861 edition of ' The Dead Secret,' Wilkie Collins wrote :

" ' The Dead Secret ' was admirably rendered into French by Monsieur E. D. Forgues, of Paris. The one difficulty which neither the accomplished translator nor any one else proved able to over- come was presented, oddly enough, by the English title. When the work was published in Paris its name was of necessity shortened to ' Le Secret ' because no French equivalent could be found for such an essentially English phrase as a 'dead secret.'"

It is curious that what the novelist con- sidered " an essentially English phrase " should have no earlier quotation illustrative of its meaning as an absolute, complete, entire, thorough, downright secret, than a letter of April 12, 1805, from one Scot to another Sir Walter Scott to J. Ballantyne remarking, " This is a dead secret."

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

BENTLEY ON MILTON. In his ' Springs of Helicon,' Mr. J. W. Mackail has an interesting reference to one of Bentley's whimsical interpretations of Milton's text. The pas- sage under discussion is ' Paradise Lost,' fok. ix. 11. 62-66. Satan's flight from Eden is described :

Thrice the equinoctial line He circled, four times crossed the car of night From pole to pole, traversing each colure.

Bentley's suggested reading was " cone of night, ' " car " being regarded by him as a mistake of the printer's. Mr. Mackail thinks that

" the matter is not easy to decide, especially if we consider that Milton may have have had some- where in his mind an echo of the last line of the second Idyl of Theocritus."

Is it not more probable that the poet used the verb " cross " in the Shakespearian sense, as equal to " pass in front of ? Compare the well-known usage : "I'll cross it, though it blast me " (' Hamlet,' I. i. 127).

W. B.

WILLIAM HACKET. The Second Diary of the English College at Douay, under date of Sept. 12, 1591, after recording the arrival of four students who had lately left England, has this paragraph :

" Hi referunt tres in Anglia esse, quorum alter se Jesum dicit, a quo si perconteris quo nomine appelletur, respondet, Sum qui sum ; sin vero replices, Ergo Jesus es tu, respondet, Tu dicis ; 2" fle prophetam dicit et Misericordiam vocari : tertius item se esse prophetam asseritet Vindictae nomine usurpandum. Horum unus dicit reginam Angliae lioc anno morituram, de regni solio deturbandam quidem, sed animam tamen ejus ad ccelos subvola-

turam. Idem dicit Whitgiftum, paeudo-episcopum Cantuariensem, h'de et religione a se discrepare et tamen saivandum esse."

The false Christ was William Hacket, the subject of a notice in the ' D.N.B.' Mercy was Edmund Coppinger, who starved himself to death. Judgment was Henry Arthington, who was released from prison on conforming. Interesting documents about these persons are printed in Strype's ' Annals,' iv. 95-101. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

(items.

WK must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

CALDECOTT. One Thomas Caldecot born about 1771 in Huntingdonshire, probably at Ogford changed the spelling of his name to Cawcutt, evidently because of the still older Calcot. He was the son of William and Mary Caldecot, and I do not think the family was really of Huntingdonshire. Their arms are the same as those of the Caldecotts of Rugby Lodge, Warwick, &c., originally of Abingdon, Berks. It is probable that William was of this family and quarrelled with them.

The arms are : Quarterly, 1 and 4, Argent, a fesse azure, f rety or, between three cinque- foils gules ; 2, Argent, three bends sable ; 3, Gules, a chevron between three leopards' faces or (Parker). Crest : A demi-lion ram- pant gules, charged on the shoulder with a cinquefoil argent. Motto of branches : " In utrumque paratus."

I have seen some old book-plates with " A. Caldecott, Esq re ," engraved thereon.

Thomas Caldecot (or his parents) paid a sum of money in 1784 for leave to change his name. He lived at various places in Cam- bridgeshire, including Boxworth (where all his children were born) and Impington. Later he became possessor of Longstanton Hall the home of the Hattons, his relations which after his death was accidentally burnt to the ground. He died in London, July 5, 1843, and was buried at Longstanton. I should be glad of any information con- necting him with other branches of the family. O. A. E.

SIR DAVID OWEN, KT. An old 1784 print represents a monument of a mailed recum- bent knight of this name in a niched recess in Eastbourne Church. Can any particulars about him be given ?

ANEURIN WILLIAMS.