Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/246

 240

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. SEPT., ms.

This is an ambiguous comment. 1 cannot trace any public sale of these derelict furnishings, and the Crown retained pos- session until the passing of the Act 15 Geo. III., which settled Buckingham House upon the Queen " in lieu of Somerset House."

In 1784 "A Constant Reader" calls attention in The Gentleman's Magazine (April, 1784) to a large piece of old tapestry

" hanging in the shop of Mr. Walker, a broker in Harp Alley, which waa supposed to represent the triumphant entry into London of one of its sovereigns, probably Henry VII. after the battle of Bosworth."

The subject of this piece of tapestry (10 ft. by 15 ft. or so) proved to be (from the old French inscriptions upon it) the history of Hainan and Mordecai.

" It seems these hangings made part of the furniture of the chapel of Somerset House, whence they were sold a short time before its demolition. Mr. Walker has disposed of several portions of them, and asks one guinea and a half for this."

These references are cited by Crofton Croker in ' A Description of Rosamond's Bower, Fulham,' 1843, p. 32.

AI-ECK ABRAHAMS.

BISHOP JOHN BOWLE AND THE AUSTIN FAMILY. In the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' it is recorded that John Bowie, Bishop of Rochester, died " at Mrs. Austen's house on the Banckside the 9th of October, 1637, and his body was interred in St. Paul's ch., -London, in the moneth following " ; but, although a list of authorities is given, I have failed to verify the quotation. Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q.' will kindly help me. The lady must have been Anne, widow of William Austin, author of that rare book ' Certayne Deuout, Godly, and learned meditations,' who died in 1633, and to whose memory, and to that of his first wife, there is a fantastic monument now on the west wall of the north transept of Southwark Cathedral, which also commemorates his mother, Jocosa, Lady Clarke.

PHILIP NORMAN.

SAMUEL FREEMAN : BISHOP BEVERIDGE. " Samuel Freeman, an engraver, was born in 1773, and" died in 1857," as we read in Bryan's ' Dictionary of Painters and En- gravers.' He is recorded also in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.' In neither of these brief memoirs of his life and works is there any mention of his engraving of the portrait of " William Beveridge, D.D. Lord Bishop of St. Asaph." It occurs as the

frontispiece of the eighteenth edition of ' Private Thoughts,' by that learned philo- logist, published in London in 1803.

EDWARD S. DODGSON.

[This engraving is not included among those of Beveridge recorded in vol. i. of the B.M. 'Cata- logue of Engraved British Portraits.']

ASKARI, AN EAST AFRICAN LEVY: LASCAR, A NATIVE MERCANTILE SEAMAN. Though at first sight there would seem to be no connexion between these two specific terms, careful inquiry will, I think, establish the fact that they possess a common origin.

Yule and Burnell's ' Hobson-Jobson ' de- rives the name Lascar from Pers. Ioshkar, a camp or army, whence comes Pers. lash- kari, a soldier. In the sense of camp or army, Gwalior, the city of Central India, still retains its alternative appellation, Lashkar ; see Longman's ' Gazetteer,' s.v. Portu- guese writers in the sixteenth century adopted the word in the forms lasquarin, lascari, lascar, under which style their Indian, Abyssinian, and Negro levies soon became known ; and in Ceylon the word " lascareen " was in use as late as the nineteenth century for a native policeman.

In India "Lascar" has changed its meaning for the most part, and has come to signify an artilleryman of inferior grade, a tent-pitcher, and, at the coast ports, a sailor. Except in this last sense, which has taken root in the English language to typify native Indian, or more commonly Malay, seamen serving on board mercantile ships, the word has got confounded in Anglo-Indian with khalasi, which in its syncopated form " classy " has much the same meaning, viz., camp-follower or servant.

It was formerly very generally believed that the Persian noun was a derivative from Arabic aVaskar ; but more recently the contrary view has obtained that Arab. askar, an army, is nothing but a loan-word from the Persian.

Writing in 1610, Pyrard de Laval says :

" Mesmes tous les marinicrs et les pilotes sont Indiens, tant Gentils que Mahometans. Tous ces gens de mer les appellent Lascars, ct les eoldata, Lascarits." Quoted in ' Hobson-Jobson.'

From the distinction here drawn I think it safe to conclude that, through the Portu- guese, Dutch, and English use of the word, " Lascari " or " Lascarit," denoting a sepoy, would easily be truncated into " Askari," either through the spoken or the written language, especially as the Spanish definite articles el, lo, la, los, las, become in Portu-