Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/319

 d S. N 16., APRIL 19. '56.]

NOTES AND QUEEIES.

311

If this plan had been carried into execution, Germany would have probably been deprived of an author belonging (as he himself said) to the sphere of a world-literature. D. J. LOTSKY.

15. Gower Street. ',

Early Revolvers.

" After dinner was brought to Sir W. Compton a gun to discharge seven times: the best of all devices that ever 1 saw, and very serviceable, and not a bauble, for it is much approved of, and many therefore made." Pepys' Diary, July 3. 1662.

" There are several people trying a new-fashion gun, brought my Lord Peterborough this morning, to shoot off often, one after another, without trouble or danger." Ibid., March 4, 1664.

MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.

The Oath of Abjuration. As this subject is now under discussion, I send you a note taken from a pamphlet, entituled Maynooth, its Sayings and Doings, by the Rev. R. J. M'Ghee, and pub- lished recently by Shaw. He says :

" Let those who talk of the extinction of the Stuarts attend to the following facts : In that remarkable book, Hiliernia Dominicana, a history of Ireland of the Order of Dominican monks, which, in the title page, is said to be printed at Cologne in the year 1762, but which was printed bv Edward Finn at Kilkenny, written by Thomas de Burgh, Roman Catholic bishop of Ossory, there are (pp. 513, 514.) the letters of appointment of this same Thomas de Burgh to .that bishopric by Clement XIII. In this work, in the seventh chapter, which has in most copies been suppressed, but which is in the copy in my possession (p. 148.), the author states the succession of the House of Hanover, and mentions the accession of George III., which was two years before the book was printed. He states that the heirs of Sophia of Hanover were placed on the British throne, as being nearest of kin to the family of the Stuarts who were Protestant. ' But,' says this writer, ' there are fifty and more Catholic princes of either sex who enjoy the right of nearer blood to the Stuarts, which that most accurate genealogical tree of celebrated lineage which I hold in my hands distinctly exhibits.' He gives in proof the affinities in the lines of Sardinia, France, Spain, &c."

CHARLES REED.

Paternoster Row.

Passage in Heywood. The recent editor of Lamb's English Dramatic Poets, for Bonn's Clas- sical Library, does not notice that the idea in the passage from Heywood (p. 104.) is borrowed from Athenaus, n. 5. p. 37 &., where we find that a house at Agrigentum was called the Trireme from a circumstance similar to that in Heywood. P. J. F. GANTILLON.

Take care of old Boohs. We may owe some- thing to the following canon of the Third Council of Constantinople in 719 :

"That nobody whatever be allowed to injure the book of the Old and Xew Testament, or those of our holy preachers and doctors ; nor to cut them up ; nor to give them to dealers in books, or perfumers or any other person to be erased, except they have been rendered useless by

moths, or water, or in some other way. He who shall do any such thing, shall be excommunicated for one year."

B. H. C.

Legislation for Ladies 1 Dresses in the Olden Time. By the following extracts, taken from Brook's History of Medford, it would appear that the good people of Massachusetts, more than two centuries ago, were compelled to make some severe laws, for the purpose of preventing the ladies of their families from dressing in an extra- vagant manner. From these singular public ex- posures, it is very evident that the fathers of the colony did not have any respectful deference paid to their wishes at home when fashion was con- cerned ; and hence their legislation on this subject, which is thus recorded in the legal acts of the time.

Under date of September 3, 1634, the General Court said :

" That no person, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woollen, silk, or linen, with any lace on it, silver, gold, silk, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said clothes. Also all gold or silver girdles, hat bands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats, are prohibited. Also immoderate great sleeves, slashed apparel, immode- rate great rayles, longwing," &c.

The lawgivers of the colony, having thus effec- tually prevented the extravagance of their wives in articles of dress, next turned their attention to the fashion which should positively regulate the length and width of the sleeves of their garments.

On September 9, 1639, the General Court de- creed, that

" Hereafter, no garment shall be made with short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of the arm shall be discovered in the wearing thereof; and hereafter, no person whatever shall make any garment for women, or any of their sex, with sleeves more than half an ell wide in the widest part thereof, and so proportionally for bigger or smaller persons."

As the Puritan mothers of New England had not been long in this country when the first de- cree respecting their dress was made public, might I ask what is the meaning of the words great "rayles" and " longwing," as applied to their gar- ments ? W. W.

Malta.

[A rayle, or rail, is a garment of fine linen formerly worn by women round the neck. "Rayle for a woman's necke, crevechief, en quarttre doubles " (Palsgrave). " Any thing worne about the throat or necke, as a neck-kercher, a partlet, a raile " (Florio, p. 216.)- The night-rail seems to have been of a different kind, and to have partially covered the head (Halliwell's Dictionary'). See also Bp. Corbet's Poems, " To the Ladyes of the New Dresse, that weare their Gorgets and Rayles downe to their Wastes ; " " The Ladies' Answer ; " and " Corbet's Reply." Long- winy is an unregistered word.]

James Moffitt, M.D. Died

" On the 6th inst., at Dovonport, after a long illness, James Moffitt, Esq., M.D., first class surgeon. He served