Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/339

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s. i. APRIL 23,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

331

Christian Magazine, upon which extinction followed. In its whole course it singularly lacked (unless perhaps in some degree in its latest stage) all the elements of " popularity " as now understood. It was alike heavy and feeble, while uncompromisingly positive in assertion, with the positiveness which feeble- ness often assumes. Some of R. S. Hawker's rses are found in it. W. D. MACRAY.

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HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD" (9 th S. i.

287). A few months ago, on again reading Cardinal Newman's 'Apologia,' first pub- lished in 1864, I came across this expres- sion, with which I had long been familiar. He uses the form petar, which at first I thought a mistake; but on referring to the "Globe "edition of Shakespeare (strange to say it came out in the very same year), I find it adopted as the correct one (' Hamlet,' III. iv. p. 833). I well remember the intense interest caused by the literary duel between Charles Kingsley and John Henry Newman. As the successive numbers of the 'Apologia' came from the press the opinion was freely de- clared that " the engineer had been hoist with his own petard." I am certain that my acquaintance with the phrase dates from that period, and that it was often used by the learned gentlemen with whom it was then my happy lot to associate. I also think it must have 'been often employed in the ephemeral literature of the period, and pro- bably George Eliot's attention may have been caught by it through that source.

I have not the original edition of the reprint in the "Silver Library" (Long- mans, 1890), where he will find that the phrase was used by the author when writing to the amiable Mr. Keble in the year 1840. JOHN T. CURRY.
 * Apologia,' but I refer DR. MURRAY to the

Scott puts this quotation, with the con- text, in the mouth of Sir Henry Lee in 'Woodstock,' chap, xxxiii.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

A POSSIBLE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ORIGIN FOR GEOFFREY CHAUCER (8 th S. xii. 341, 449; 9 th S. i. 189). MR. BADDELEY'S long answer to my note seems to me no reply at all to my remarks, so I must leave the dispute between us to such of the readers of ' N. & Q.' as care to refer to and read his article and my com- ments on it, for it seems to me waste of ink to try to argue with one who can seriously think that the surnames of " de Chaworth " and " le Chaucer " are identical.

I may, however, point out that I never said that placing the article "le" before a

name necessarily transforms it into a trade name, nor anything like it. The trick of confuting what your adversary never said is stale and old.

That " le Chaucer" meant " the shoemaker " cannot, I think, admit of serious doubt ; any- how I prefer to take the opinion of a writer like H. T. Riley (' Memorials of London and London Life,' xxxiii) to that of MR. BADDE- LEY. That Thomas Chaucer was the poet's son I firmly believe, but the very expression I used showed that I knew many doubt it.

The le Chaucer of London in 1226 to whom I referred was Ralph le Chaucer, mentioned on the Close Roll, 10 Hen. III., mem. 10 d.

Following him a Robert le Chaucer of Lon- don, 1265, is mentioned on the Close Roll, 50 Hen. III., mem. 4d.

I am well aware that PROF. SKEAT rightly says that the earliest proved ancestor of the poet was his grandfather Robert le Chaucer, who sold land in Edmonton in 1307; but as he was a collector of wine dues and his brother Richard a vintner of Cordwainer Street, it is not a very unlikely conjecture to suppose that they were sons or kinsmen of Baldwin le Chaucer, "butler," also of Cordwainer Street in 1307. Again, John le Chaucer, of London, in 1298, had [a son Benedict le Taverner (Riley, xxxv).

As to the taste of the personal element MR. BADDELEY introduces into the discussion by his sneer as to " illustrious " families who were never alleged to be so, who were in truth distinctly plebeian, and whose names were only introduced by me to show the danger of trusting to coincidences, I will say nothing. WALTER RYE.

'SECRET HISTORY OF THE COURT,' &c. (9 th S. i. 208). An absolutely worthless work. It was privately printed in 1832, but was first published six years later, with a title- page bearing Lady Anne Hamilton's name (an impudent forgery). Croker exposed it in a few trenchant pages of the Quarterly (vol. Ixi.), concluding with the apt sentence :

"Nor should it be forgotten, that if contem- poraries will not take the trouble of recording their evidence against such publications, there is danger that their present impunity may give them some degree of authority hereafter. '

Verb. sap. sat.

OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B. Fort Augustus, N.B.

The history of this book, its author, date of

publication, &c., was very fully discussed

in the columns of ' N. & Q.' of twenty years

_o, MR. W. J. THOMS, the originator of

' N, & Q.,' and for many years the able and