Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/121

 9 th S. X. AUG. 9, 1902.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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me conclusive of MR. DUIGNAN'S contention. I was not aware of the early instances of the present polite form cited by him, and had always rather unquestioningly accepted the original name to nave been Bromwichham. The earliest quotation under Brumagem in 4 H.E.D.' is Bromicham ; and it appears that so early as the seventeenth century the town had acquired an evil reputation by the manu- facture of counterfeit coins, hence we can readily trace the development of the place- name into a term for sham generally, applied to persons, manners, and things. The term is only now beginning to establish its place in literature, spelt still with a capital, though the inverted commas are already gone, but will not have become a household word like boycott until it appears in the Times as brumagem. F. T. ELWORTHY.

PROVERBS IN HERBERT'S ' JACULA PRUDEN- TUM ' (9 th S. v. 108, 177, 382)." The German's wit is in his fingers " may be illustrated by the following passage from Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy ' (' Democritus to the Reader,' vol. i. pp. 101, 102, in Mr. A. R. Shilleto's edition) :

"Nuremberg in Germany is sited in a most barren soil, yet a noble Imperial city, by the sole industry of artificers, and cunning trades ; they draw the riches of most countries to them, so expert in manufactures, that, as Sallust long since gave out of the like, sedem animae in extremis digitis habent, their soul, or intellectus agens, was placed in theii fingers' ends ; & so we may say of Basil, Spires, Camoray, Frankfurt, &c"

Mr. Shilleto compares the German proverb. "Nurnberger Witz und kiinstliche Hand finden Wege durch alle Land," and notes that "this the Latin] quotation is certainly not in Sallust. It is not in Dietsch's very com- plete index, nor could a writer in Notes and Queries, [1 st S.] ii. 464, find it."

EDWARD BENSLY. The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

KNIGHTHOOD (9 th S. x. 28). Many gentle- men paid a heavy fine to be excused from attending to receive knighthood at the hands of King James I.; among them was John Stephens of St. Ives, Cornwall. See the ' History of the Borough of Saint Ives ' (Elliot Stock, 1892). No doubt this action was taken on the writ referred to.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

''LEAPS AND BOUNDS" (6 th S. iii. 229, 395; iv. 278 ; 7 th S. i. 69, 153, 216, 296 ; 8 th S. i. 86 ; v. 32 ; ix. 427). In ' H.E.D.' the Illustrated London Neios of 8 August, 1885, is given as the only authority for the phrase indicating

an advancement "by leaps and bounds," though at the references above given there are various earlier and more classical autho- rities adduced. But, as far as the present generation of Englishmen is concerned, the phrase is best known as having been used by Gladstone I believe in the seventies. When and where did that statesman employ it?

POLITICIAN.

ARMS OF ETON AND WINCHESTER COLLEGES (9 th S. ix. 241, 330 ; x. 29). I ought perhaps to rest content with having written upon this subject twice. But I should like now to offer some remarks upon MR. A. II. BAYLEY'S note at the second reference, and his state- ment that William of Wykeham " is supposed to have been the son of a carpenter."

I cannot find anything in Lowth's 'Life of William of Wykeham ' (1758), or in any other trustworthy account of the bishop, which justifies the supposition. But the pleasant fiction is gaining -ground. Thus readers of the Ex-Libris Journal were told last June (vol. xii. pt. vi. p. 69; that Wykeham

" was the first of his family to bear the well-known coat of arms, and it is said that the chevrons bear witness to the fact that he was the son of a carpenter."

This reference to chevrons suggests the origin of the fiction. Nicholas Upton, a Wyke- hamist, who died in 1457 (' D.N.B.,' Iviii. 39), in his ' De Militari Officio,' lib. iv. (p. 246 in Bysshe's edition of 1654), said, speaking of chevrons :

"Quo quidem signa de facto primo per carpen- tarios & domorum factores portabantur. Et in latino sermone vocantur tigna, & Gallice vocantur Gheverons, quia domus nunquam perficitur, quo- usque, ad modum capitis, ilia tigna super ponan- tur."

Upton's symbolical interpretation of the chevron was accepted and applied by Robert Glover, Somerset herald, when he sent to Lord Burghley a report (dated March, 1572) upon the dispute between Sir Richard Fiennes and Humphrey Wickham, of Swalcliffe, which arose out of the latter 's claim to be of foun- der's kin at Winchester College. This report contained the following passage :

"Arid agayne, behouldinge the Armes sometyme with one and then after with two cheverons, quae quidem signa per Carpentarios & domorum factores olim portabantur, as Nicholas Upton wryteth, and comparing them to the quality of the berar, who is sayd to have had his chiefe preferment for

his skill in Architecture, I was also induced to

thinke per conjecturam Heraldicam, that the Bishop himself was the first berar of them." Lowth, 'Life of Wykeham,' p. 12, n.

This passage has nothing whatever to do with the bishop's father, but the modern