Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/140

 110 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2S.ix.Aua.6,io2i. THOMAS GAGE. I should like to obtain gome information regarding the birthplace of Thomas Gage (1597 ?- 1656) the author of ' A New Survey of the West Indias,' (1st ed., London, 1648). Thomas Gage was the second son of John Gage of Haling, in Surrey, and a great-grandson of Sir John Gage of Firle, Sussex. The 'D.N.B.' does not mention the place or date of his birth, and some old French and Spanish and also a few English biographical notices state that he was a native of Ireland, which seems to me very doubtful. Sir Henry Gage, his elder and better known brother, is supposed to have been born in 1597. There are references to Gage and the Gage family in ' N. & Q.' 1 S. vi. 291 ; vii. 609 ; viii. 144; 10 S. vi. 468; vii. 102; viii. 241-2 but his birthplace is not mentioned. Is anything known regarding his residence as rector of Acrise (1642) and Deal (ap- pointed about 1651) in Kent after his con- version to the Protestant faith ? Gage died in Jamaica in 1656, after taking part as chaplain in Oom well's unfortunate expedition to Santo Domingo. Gage's ob- servations upon his stay in Mexico and Guatemala between the years 1625 and 1637 are of great value to students of the Colonial period of Mexican history. G. CONWAY. Apartado 490, Mexico, D.P. SHAKESPEARE'S CHEESE -LOVING WELSH- MAN. The majority of the references to cheese made by Shakespeare will be found in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and they centre round the character of the Welsh parson and schoolmaster, Hugh Evans. Evans goes back to the dinner table for " there's pippins and cheese to come," but Nym the Englishman loves not " the humour of bread and cheese." Ford states that he would rather trust " Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese . . . than my wife with herself " ; and Falstaff: cries out in respect to Parson Hugh Evans: " Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese." Again, we have Falstaff and Evans sparring :-> Falstaff'. "Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too ? i Shall I have a coxcomb of frieze ? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese." Evans : " Seese is not good to give putter, your pelly is all putter." Falstaff: "'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one [that makes fritters of English?" We are told that in 1542 "the naturall disposicions of Welshmen " were towards good rosted chese," and in 1607 we learn that " the Northern man loves white meats, the Southern man sallats. . . the Welshman leeks and cheese." In Shakespeare's days the cheese -pro- ducing countries were Essex, Suffolk and Cheshire. Wales did not produce cheese, and toasted cheese was a rare bit in Wales now indicated by the degenerated term a " Welsh rabbit." What grounds were there for Welsh- men and cheese to be coupled together ? The Englishman used to couple Frenchmen and frogs together. It was a generaliza- tion that was inaccurate. Can it be said that coupling Welshmen and cheese to- gether had a more natural basis, even when it is done by Shakespeare ? R. HEDGEB WALLACE. DAIRIES AND MILKHOUSES IN 1594 AND 1624. In ' Archseologia,' vol. 48 (1885), there is a paper on Inventories of Household goods and Farming stock at Walton and Grilling Castle, Yorkshire, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At Gilling, in 1594, the " Darye " contained among other things : " 2 mattresses, 2 bowlsters, 5 coverlettes, 1 cheese presse, 7 leades for mylke, 24 bowles, 2 chirnes and cheese fattes." In 1624 there was at Gilling " in the milkhouse," among other things, "5 butter kittes, 20 milk bowles & 3 cream pottes," " in the landry " " a cheese trough, 3 kyrnes " and " 1 frame for a kyrne to run in & 2 iron crookes to turne it about with" ; and " in the wash-house " "6 ches fattes, 1 sinker & 3 chees presses." At Walton, in 1624, the " milkhouse " contained, among other things, " a bed stockes, a paire of sheets stopt with new feathers, a bolster, a paire of blanketes, 2 coverlettes, and a matteresse," also "16 boweles, 8 ches fattes, 2 synkers, 4 skeeles, 1 kyrne, 4 butter kittes, 2 creames pottes, 1* scummner, 1 cheese trough and a syle," and " in the store chamber " there were " 5 butter kittes and a wheele kyrne." At this period, did dairymaids and milkers use dairies and milkhouses as bedrooms ? The ordinary kyrne or chime would, I suppose, be the upright plunge churn ; what kind of churn was it that needed a frame to run in, and iron crooks to be turned by, and what kind of churn was the " wheele kyrne " ? R. HEDGER WALLACE.