Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/142

 136

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 3. V. MAY, 1919.

family. It seems to have been written not consecutively, but at two periods, separated by a long interval. The former section is dated, in one place, 1555 ; the latter section, in which the verses occur, is a product of the Earl's imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, forerunning his martyrdom at York. The imprisonment lasted from Christmas Eve, 1569, till Aug. 22, 1572. This dates the Bl. Thomas Percy's lines as at least twenty - ^ight years earlier than those I quoted from .John Hamilton, ante, p. 20. Known English versions of PROF. BENSLY'S rood -beam inscriptions reach, therefore, to within forty years of the beginnings of the Reformation fin this country. L. I. GUINEY.

"DRINK BY WORD OF MOUTH" (12 S. v. 98). This saying was in common use 'here some sixty years ago. Often a bottle of beer came into a hayfield unexpectedly. A search would be made under every coat and shawl lying on the ground for a glass or mug to drink: from. Should this search prove unsuccessful, and no small receptacle be found to pour the beverage into, then it was said, " We must drink by word of mouth." This meant to drink from the bottle by turns, which naturally gave a great advantage to the old toper accustomed to absorb his liquor from the bottle.

The origin of the saying was probably the Fleet prison, about 9 miles west of our town ; thus this notorious locality would make it of Cockney derivation.

It has some authority as used by Thos. Shadwell (who succeeded Dryden as Poet Laureate) in his comedy 'The Squire of Alsatia.' His characters in Act V. sc. i. speak thus :

Hackum. But I'll go fetch some

-Cherry Brandy, and that will comfort us. Here's the bottle, let's drink by Word of Mouth.

Cheatly. Your Cherry Brandy is most sovereign and edifying.

Shamwell. Most exceeding comfortable after our Temple pickling.

My copy of the play was printed for .James Knapton, at the Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1699. Shadwell died in 1692.

W. W. GLENNY. Barking.

DICKENS' s TOPOGRAPHICAL SLIPS (12 S. v. 37). To the interesting instance con- tributed by MR. F. A. RUSSELL there can be added " Tells on' s Bank," so vividly de- scribed in ' The Tale of Two Cities.' The novelist, when planning or writing this work, saw the old bank building of Child & Co. next to Temple Bar, and, impressed toy its appearance of great antiquity and

the careful preservation of its antiquated methods, at once accepted it as a survival of the period of the story (1780) ; but un- fortunately the building was of a later date, having been erected in 1787 (see Hilton Price's * The Marygold by Temple Bar,' 1902, p. 110), when 2 Fleet Street and a row of houses called Child's Place were erected on the site of the old Devil Tavern.

The building described by the novelist survived until April, 1878, and very many illustrations of it exist (notably in The Illustrated London News, Jan. 19, 1878). That he was not familiar with the history of the bank and its building is obvious. Apart from the inaccurate attribution of date, his reference to the use ot cheques is at least haphazard ; and surely the romantic elopement of the bank's heiress Sarah Child, almost at the period of the novel, would not have been omitted. Even sixty years later, when Dickens wrote his vivid pen- picture, the story must have survived as a well-preserved tradition of the bank.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

"CAMOUFLAGE" (12 S. v. 42, 79, 108). The Apaches of Paris no doubt did use this word before the war, but it is doubtful if they coined it. Sir Israel Gollancz in an article on ' War Words ' in The Star con- nects camouflage with camouflet, a well- known word going back to the fifteenth century, and originally meaning " a puff of smoke blown into a man's eyes through a horn of paper," pnd hence " a stifler " or mine of asphyxiating gas or smoke. The ' Grand Dictionnaire Larousse,' Littre, and Hatzfeld-Darmesteter all give the origin of camouflet as uncertain, although the last- named suggests it may be formed of cat, moufle for mufle, and the suffix et. But the ' Nouveau Larousse Illustre ' mentions a verb camoufter, meaning to disguise, derived from the Italian camuffare, to paint the face. And the ' Larousse Mensuel ' for July, 1917, derives camouflage from this verb. DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE.

CHESS : THE KNIGHT'S TOUR (12 S. v. 92). B. B. is mistaken in surmising that there is a " doubt whether it has hitherto been shown that the tour may start from any square that all the squares of the board will serve the Knight's purpose equally well." A certain Dr. Roget so long ago as 1840 demonstrated that it can be done in a twofold manner. One exhibits what may be described as the re-entering route, where the initial and final squares are only one leap apart, no, matter what initial square