Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/263

 9. s .x.SKP T .27,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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(see 'N. & Q.,' 9 th S. viii. 474). The jack of the virginal has no more connexion with the jack in the box than with the jack of the clock "te Jack dat shrikes te clock "(Ben Jonson, ' Bartholomew Fair,' III. i.).

F. ADAMS.

I have always understood that this was originally a scornful epithet which was applied to the blessed sacrament by the Eng- lish Reformers. It was certainly so used by them, and belongs to a small class of words begotten of the odium theologiciim of those unhappy times like hocus-pocus (" Hoc est Corpus ") to denote what was regarded by the Protestants as the "sacerdotal jugglery" of the Mass. " Round Robin " was another nickname profanely used for the Host.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

Jack - in - the - box appears to have been originally a " Jack " who haunted the "Chepe," or market, for the purpose of vending his wares from a box or stall. His bobbing up and down while fussily searching for and selling his wares may be observed to the present day. I have myself seen this box- like arrangement at a country fair, though a cart or barrow is now more generally used. Ned Ward, in describing the coster- mongers at the entrance to the Royal

Exchange, says, "At the front Portico

stand here and there, a Jack in a box, like a Parson in a Pulpit, Selling Cures for Corns, Glass-Eyes for the Blind, Ivory Teeth for Broken Mouths," &c. ('London Spy,' 1709, part iii. p. 67). There does not seem to be any foundation for supposing that the "jack " in the virginals gave rise to the phrase. The toy so called would, no doubt, derive its name from the above circumstance. Accord- ing to Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Archaic Words,' a " Jack-in-box " was also a sharper who cheated tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for similar-looking ones full of money (Dekker). Similarly we have " Jack-in-the- water"; "Jack-in-the bread-room," the pur- ser's steward's assistant in the bread and steward's room on board ship ; " Jack-in-the- green "; "Jack -in -the -cellar," a humorous name, like the Dutch "Hans in Kelder," for infans in utero ; " Jack-in-office "; and others, all referring to a person in a pre- carious situation.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

"UTILITARIAN" (9 th S. vii. 425; ix. 197; x. 152). I have read, I think, that Mill himself wrote the article on Tennyson re- ferred to. I am trusting, however, entirely to memory. If he did write it, he probably

was the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. Mill was too utilitarian. The utilitarian spirit is out of its element in poetical criticism. The criticism on Tenny- son was written in the lifetime of Walter Scott, whose poems are certainly in the epic form, and are neither wearisome nor soporific. It depends on the poet himself whether he is dull or not. A lyric poet can be very dull when an epic poet is not at all so.

E. YARDLEY.

NAPOLEON'S LAST YEARS (9 th S. viii. 422, 509 ; ix. 274, 373 ; x. 15). Despite your correspond- ent's ascription of "rashness" and "unfounded- ness " to my view-that both Wellington and Blucher would have been swept from the field at Waterloo had it not been for Napoleon's bodily and mental deterioration, owing to the disease that held him in its grip, I must adhere to my statement. It was neither "rash" nor "unfounded," for the simple reasons that I hold it after a close study of Napoleon's conduct before and during that climax to his careeif and that I arrrnot alone in my contention. Let me recommend to your correspondent Lord Wolseley's 'Decline and Fall of Napoleon,' second edition, 1895, wherein he will read, inter alia :

" Beyond all doubt the Republican General Bona- parte, who overran Piedmont and Lombardy in 1796, was, both mentally and bodily, to a large ex- tent, a different man from the Emperor Napoleon who was defeated at Waterloo. Many careful students of this Colossus amongst men have been compelled unwillingly perhaps to admit that had the Corsican generalwho fought at Rivoli been in command of the French army when it crossed the Sambre in 1815 our ' Iron Duke ' would not have been allowed to add the ' crowning mercy ' of Water- loo to the list of his glorious achievements." P. 3.

And later : '

" I have thus dwelt upon the state of Napoleon's health because I believe it to have been the primary cause of his defeat at Waterloo. The more I study his grandly conceived plan of campaign for 1815, the more convinced I am that the overwhelming defeat in which it ended was primarily the result of bodily disease and the failure of mental power which resulted from it at supreme moments when rapid and energetic decision was imperatively necessary for success. Had he been able to bring the mental and bodily energy of his early career to bear upon the great plan he had conceived for the destruction of Wellington and Blucher in Belgium, judging of what those commanders would have done by what they did do, I believe the cautious Englishman would at least have had to retreat in haste for the purpose of re-embarking at Ostend, whilst the fiery and impetuous Prussian would have been almost destroyed at Ligny, and only too glad to place the Rhine between the remnants of his beaten army and the victor of Jena. In no other way can I satisfactorily account for the valuable hours squandered by Napoleon, or the careless faultiness of many of his most important