Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/120

 112

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. AUG. 9, 1002.

Yorkshire Mercury for so recent a date as 7 July :

" Nearly 600 people assembled at the Queen's Grounds, Barnsley, to witness a contest to deter- mine the longest knock in twenty rises, with wood- heads and pot knurs, for 50/., between Charles Langley, Penistone, and C. Galloway, of Broomhill. Betting ruled at 25s. to 20-*. on Langley. At the close it was round that Langley, who won in his sixth rise, sent 9 score 44 feet ana 10^ inches. At the Hare and Hounds Grounds, Todmorden, there was a good company on Saturday, when E. Whipp, of Todmor- den, and M. Greenwood, of Hebden Bridge, met in a knur and spell match to decide the longest knock in thirty rises each, for 3W. Betting : 22 to 20 on Whipp. Scores: Whipp 9 score 12 yards, to Greenwood 9 score 3 yards."

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. 48, Hanover Square, Bradford.

As a second meaning to " knur," Wright (quoting North) gives "a round piece of wood used in a game called knurspell." The game as described by B. is not, to my know- ledge, in vogue in this county. When quite a young child I remember, however, receiving as a present from my uncle a set of the necessary requisites. These consisted of a small bat, a hard wooden ball, and a trap. The game was simply called " bat and trap," but it failed to excite much enthusiasm amongst my playmates, and was soon dropped. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

THE GREAT FROST OF 1683-4 (5 th S. xi. 145). This circumstance is commemorated by the Rev. Benjamin Camfield, rector of Aileston, near Leicester, in a sermon entitled ' Of God Almighty's Providence Both in the Sending and Dissolving Great Snows and Frosts, And the Improvement, we ought to make, of it. A Sermon, Occasioned by the Late Extreme Cold Weather, Preached in It to his Neigh- bours, &c.' (London, 1684). The preacher quotes passages from Ovid, Horace, and Virgil ; from Buchanan and Vatablus and Calvin and Munster and Scultetus (sic) and Hammond and Patrick, among the moderns. He evidently had a well-stored commonplace book. The citation from Ovid is particularly apt:

Quaque rates ierant, pedibus nunc itur, et undas Frigore concretas ungula pulsat equi ;

Perque novos pontes, subter labentibus undis Ducunt Sarmatici barbara plaustra boves.

RICHARD H. THORNTON. Portland, Oregon.

CORONATION DRESS OF THE BISHOPS (9 th S. ix. 506 ; x. 34). It seems to me that the scarlet satin chimere worn as the Convocation dress by bishops would be more appropriate at the Coronation than anything else, and

would be in harmony. This is, of course, worn over the rochet, while the Bishop of Winchester might wear the dress as prelate, and the Bishop of Oxford as Chancellor of the Order of the Garter. It is said that Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, objected to the chimere being made of scarlet, and con- sequently the present episcopal " magpie dress," as it is styled, was adopted. The cope once worn at Durham Cathedral fell long ago into disuse, but several specimens are still preserved in the library at Durham Cathedral. There is an engraving of Dr. Ire- land, then Dean of Westminster, wearing a cope and carrying the crown on a cushion at the coronation of George IV. in 1821. He wears a surplice underneath.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

" MUFFINEER" (9 th S. x. 28). Charles Annan- dale in his 'Imperial Dictionary ' and 'Nut- tail's Standard Dictionary ' both give the meaning of this word, "A dish for keeping toasted muffins hot."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

GORDON, ADMIRAL IN THE RUSSIAN NAVY (9 th S. x. 27). My authority for the statement is to be found in the preface to the ' Diary of General Patrick Gordon,' printed for the Spalding Club in 1859. The concluding para- graph in that preface is as follows :

"Thomas Gordon, a nephew of Patrick Iwano- witsch, distinguished himself in the sea service of Russia, which he entered in 1717. He was made Admiral in 1727, and died in 1741 at Cronstadt, of which he had been governor for nearly twenty years."

w. s.

In 1697 General Gordon at the head of four regiments subdued an insurrection near Moscow ; see the particulars in Tho. Consett's ' Present State of Russia,' 1729, p. xxxvi, n.

W. C. B.

BIRMINGHAM : " BRUMAGEM " (9 th S. x. 22). I entirely agree with MR. DUIGNAN that the latter is no vulgarism, as commonly supposed, but that it is the true survival of the archaic form. I can testify that over sixty years ago, long before "Brumagem" had become an expressive common adjective, it was so pronounced by people who had never heard of " Brumagem jewellery." The old con- servative peasantry of the West used always to speak of "up to Brumagem, wher' they maks the boourd naails." This pronunciation by a people whose natural tendency is to transpose r followed by a vowel (arid who would be expected to say Burm ) seems to