Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/366

 302

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi. jc*> 12, 1920.

nation of the Jews, but Judas Iscariot, upon conceit he hanged on this tree " a curious reason why it should have " become a famous medicine in quinses, sore throats and strangulations." Evelyn refers to the original treatise of Blochwich, and, ii I remember aright, endorses his praise oi the elder as a remedy in many common disorders. The learned doctor represents it as almost an universal remedy. He prescribes in more or less detail for about seventy diseases, or classes of diseases, and cites authorities for his opinions, besides giving examples from his own practice.

I see Ellacombe gives the date of the English version as 1644, but says it went through several editions ; the copy from which my notes were taken was probably of one of these later issues being dated 1655.

C. C. B.

WAS DR. JOHNSON A SMOKER ? (12 S. vi. 206, 279). The suggestion in MR. WHITLEY'S note is very ingenious ; but I think Mr. Butt must have been writing figuratively, inasmuch as it is stated in Boswell's ' Life of Johnson ' that, although the sage had a high opinion of the sedative influence of the habit, " he himself never smoked." See Croker's edition, p. 106 (Murray, 1860). In a foot-note, we find :

"Hawkins heard Johnson say that insanity had grown more frequent since smoking had gone out of faahion."

It is strange that it should have done so. At p. 282 the Doctor is credited with the remark : :

"Smoking has gone out. To be sure it was a shocking thing blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes and noses, and having the same thing done to us. Yet I cannot account why a thing which requires so little exer- tion, and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity, should have gone out. Every man has something with which he calms himself ; beating with his feet

r S -" ST. SWTTHIN.

CURIOUS SURNAMES (12 S. vi. 68, 196, 238, 282). A transcriber of registers very soon notices the tendency that unfamiliar groupings of letters, forming a name, have of gradually shaping themselves into familiar groups as, for instance, Vis de loup becomes Fiddler ; Tallebois, Tallboys ; Olle- renshaw, Wrencher, &c. ; and I have always imagined the not unfamiliar name of Gotobed to be a changeling descendant of Godebert.

Also if MR. ARCHIBALD SPARKE (ante, p. 37) will turn up in his Bible Acts v. 36,

he will read that : " Theudas rose up, boasting himself to be somebody," most likely " Tubus " is this " somebody " a. name given to promising children, and bound to be misspelled aud corrupted in, early registers. H. A. HARRIS.

Thorndon Rectory, Eye, Suffolk.

M" (12 S. vi. 186, 235). The Rabelais quotation given by MR. WAINE- WRIGHT is from ' Pantagruel,' Prol. to book 3.

The Lucian reference is TTWS Set urropiav,. &c. (quomodo historia sit conscribenda) 4 or cap, 2, sub. fin., Plutarch, ' De Iside et Osiride,' cap. 48, m.p. 370rf. (Didot ed., vol. i. p. 433), has :

'H/aa/cAetTos avriKpvs TroAe^ov ovo/xa^t epa. KCU /JcurtAea KCU Kvpiov iravroiv,

I have a note on Rabelais: I.e. correcting " Heraclitus " " C'est Priscien qui avance cette opinion " : but I have not access to Priscian and cannot verify.

1 can see nothing in ' Plat. Theaet.' 179 ad rem. H. K. ST. J. S.

LORE OF THE CANE (12 S. vi. 252). The- statement as to rosin being a pain-killer is correct. When I was a schoolboy I received a very fair share of " handers." My father being a watchmaker and jeweller in those days I had access to his rosin, which I used to apply in a liberal manner to my fingers. M. L, R. BRESLAR.

Some of us had an idea at school that orange or lemon peel rubbed on the palms^ would have the effect of splitting the cane or neutralising the sting.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Streatham.

PETLEY FAMILY (12 S. vi. 275). The following notes, not necessarily armorial, may be of use to MR. PRICE.

A rubbing of a brass, (figure in civil costume, with inscription), of W. Petley, 1528, at Halstead, Kent, may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Several Petley abstracts occur in Chesters' London Marriage Licences' (Quaritch, 1887), mentioning Edmond, gent., of Wandsworth, 1618-19 ; Elias, clerk, 1624 ; Thomas, of Shoreham, s. and h, of Michael, of same, gent., 1646-7; Ralph (Pettley) of " Sea- venock," 1667-8 ; and Grace (Pettley),. widow, of St. Martin-in-the- Fields, 1669.

F. GORDON ROE. Arts Club, 40 Dover Street, W.I.