Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/293

 x. OCT. 11, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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earliest Portuguese mention of the term is by Gabriel Scares, 'Noticias do Brazil,' 1587, cap. clxiv. ; while in 1639 Montoya's great thesaurus of the Guarani language gives pety as the equivalent for " tabaco." Willem Piso, ' De Reb. Nat. Indiarum,' 1658, p. 206, devotes a chapter to the " Celebris herba tabacum, sive petum, quse Brasiliensibus petume dicta."

The French picked up the word very early. Lery's 'Voyage au Bresil,' ^578, p. 212, de- scribes the "maniere des sauvages d'humer la fumee de p&un." Claude d'Abbeville, in his 'Mission en Maragnan,' 1614, p. 304, describes the Brazilian natives as " exhallant la fumee de pe'tun par les narines et par la bouche." From Brazil the French carried it to Canada, where it became so fully naturalized that some have attempted to trace it to the Cree language. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

BIBLE FOR A PRISONER.

" The old Flintshire custom of presenting a Bible to the first prisoner who is incarcerated in a new police station was revived at Prestatyn yesterday, when an old man, who was fined for disorderly conduct, was the recipient of a new Bible, given by Mr. Llewellyn Jones, chairman of the Flintshire Police Committee. Mr. Coward, in making the presentation, hoped the defendant would ' read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest' its contents, especially that part relating to temperance." Manchester Conner, 28 August.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

THE COPE. This vestment is not strictly episcopal, though many people seem to sup- pose that it is. In the library at Durham Cathedral are preserved the embroidered copes worn by the prebendaries in the last century, though those were indeed the time when several bishops held golden stalls ir that cathedral. Nor was the cope confined to dignitaries alone, but was worn by other ecclesiastics. For instance, the founder oi Queen's College, Oxford, in 1340, Robert de Eglesfield, rector of Brough, in Westmoreland and confessor to Queen Philippa, is depictec in the fine full-length portrait of him hanging in the college hall as wearing a scarlet em broidered cope, with his right hand upraisec in the act of benediction, and holding in his left hand a breviary.

Though on the monuments of Archbishops Sterne (1683), Dolben (1686), and Sharpi (1714), in York Minster, their effigies ar represented wearing the mitre, it may b. doubted whether it was ever worn by them and may probably be merely an indicatior of their rank. It certainly is not encirclec by the ducal coronet.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

PARALLEL PASSAGES. Tennyson has been poken of somewhere as wandering apis fatince more modoqiM through the centuries ulling the flowers of poetry. The subjoined iassages would seem to have some connexion, do not know if the resemblance has ever >een noted before :

E quale, annunziatrice degli albori, L' aura di maggio muovesi, ed olezza Tutta impregnata dalP erba e da' fiori ; Tal mi senti' un vento dar per mezza La fronte : e ben senti' muover la piuma, Che fe sentir d' ambrosia 1' orezza. E senti' dir : Beati, cui alluma Tanto di grazia.

Dante, ' Purgatorio,' xxiv. 145.

And sucked from out the distant gloom

A breeze began to tremble o'er

The large leaves of the sycamore, And fluctuate all the still perfume,

And gathering freshlier overhead, Rocked the full-foliaged elms, and swung The heavy-folded rose, and flung

The lilies to and fro, and said

" The dawn, the dawn." ' In Memoriam.' T. P. ARMSTRONG.

DR. BREWER'S MONUMENT. The other day [ was at Edwinstowe, Notts, and visited the hurchyard to see the grave of Dr. Brewer, author of 'Phrase and Fable' and other works, a well - known contributor to ' N. & Q.' His memorial consists of a small white marble cross bearing the following inscription :

In Memory

of

E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.,

Born May 2nd, 1810,

Died March 8th, 1897-

The obliging parish clerk told me the doctor took a lively interest in this Sherwood Forest village and was much esteemed there.

WILLIAM ANDREWS.

THE POETS ON ADVERSITY. It is not wonderful that the pagans should have made Fortune a goddess. The persistency with which ill luck clings to certain mortals throughout life suggests a supernatural in- fluence, and many people might say with Byron, half in earnest, And as for Fortune but I dare not damn her Because, were I to ponder to infinity, The more should I believe in her divinity.

The sentiment, too, which has been so well expressed by Shakspeare, and so badly by his plagiarists, appears to be founded on truth :

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.