Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/300

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NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. x. OCT. n, 1902.

logia Grseca ; or, the Antiquities of Greece,' by John Potter, D.D., Edinburgh, 1804 ; 'Manual of Classical Literature,' from the German of J. J. Eschenburg, professor in the Carolinum at Brunswick, with additions by N. W. Fiske, professor -in Amherst College, fourth edition, seventieth thousand (Phila- delphia, 1844). Besides the chapters on the superior and inferior gods, mythical beings and heroes, a genealogical table of the gods, as given by Mayo, and a page containing lists of the gods variously classed, there is (p. 88) a list of " some of the works which go into more full details on the whole sub- ject [i.e., mythology], or on particular parts." ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" HOPEFUL " : " SANGUINE " (9 th S. ix. 467 ; x. 10). In Massinger's ' A New Way to Pay Old Debts,' II. i, Wellborn, replying to Marrall's taunts regarding his desperate fortunes, exclaims with a brave show of indignation and spirit :

'Twill not do, dear tempter, With all the rhetoric the fiend hath taught you. I am as far as thou art from despair ; Nay, I have confidence, which is more than hope, To live, and suddenly, better than ever.

It would be difficult to find a better illustra- tion than this of the distinct points of view implied in the contrasted terms.

THOMAS BAYNE.

SIGNS (9 th S. x. 169). It would assist in such an inquiry as this if some sort of data were forthcoming as to where or in what circumstances these curious signs have been encountered. One suspects the " Blank- makers' Arms " to have been in the neigh- bourhood of a mint, for a "blank" was a piece of metal shaped for coining a tessera pura, as Elisha Coles gives it in his Latin- English dictionary, 1755. The blankmakers, therefore, though not a distinct guild, were numerous enough to give their name to a tavern to which they daily resorted for refreshment, and were probably those who after the alloyed metal had been reduced by hammering to a necessary thickness, cut it into blank pieces ready for the coiner.' There was also a coin called a " blank " stamped in trance by King Henry V. and worth eight pence at least that is the value assigned to it in both Bailey's ' Dictionary ' and Blount's

Law Dictionary,' though in Wright's 'Die tionary of Provincialisms ' it is stated to have been only of the value of fourpence. The word in this case, however, is the Frencl blanc anghc& blank- allusive originally t< the whiteness of the coin, which was made o silver, and is not likely to have- had anything to do with the "Blankmakers' Arms

'Bassett's Pole" was probably the pole or lestake which served as a sign for an ale- icuse kept by one of the name of Bassett unless, of course, which is improbable, Bassett was a barber. It is not an un- common name even to-day, and fre- quently occurs as a surname in one case as early as the year 1284 in the 'Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London.' A Dassett was a short-legged dog used in un- arthing foxes and badgers, whence probably Bull and Spectacles " would be merely a asual combination perhaps on removal from one house with the sign of the " Spectacles," which was a common optician's sign, derived from the arms of the Spectacle-makers, to another distinguished as the "Bull." "The Three Loggerheads" was not, as one might uppose, represented by three heads, but by two only, the third being the wayfarer for whose benefit the jocose legend was intended, just as one has seen a picture of two donkeys, with the inquiry underneath, " When shall we three meet again?" Says the clown in Twelfth Night,' " How now, my hearts ! did you never see the picture of ' We three ' 1 " An old sign in Shoreditch had a representa- tion of two idiotic heads, with the inscription beneath, " We three loggerheads be," and I believe the tavern still exists, though the actual sign has long ago disappeared, at 57, Virginia Road, Bethnal Green. There is a sketch of this house in Creed's 'Tavern Signs,' in the British Museum Library (vol. xiii., I think). A loggerhead was origin- ally a "blockhead," a "log-head," the "ger" being added merely to render it a more sounding phrase, as in reduplicated words like "hugger-mugger." It afterwards ob- tained a different sense as in the phrases to fall, come, or go, to loggerheads i.e., to blows or again, " to be at loggerheads "- i.e., engaged in bickerings or disputes. A " posada " is a Spanish hotel, inn, tavern, or lodging-house. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.
 * he name, as in the case of " Talbot." " The

" Blankmaker is a maker of the object described under sense 9 of 'Blank, sb., in the ' H.E.D.' ; a key, before it is cut for the wards of a lock, is, for example, called a blank. " Bull and Spectacles " is about as explicable as "Bull and Gate," "Bull and Bush," "Bull and Last," " Bull and Mouth," " Bull and Garter." The theory of the forma- tion of such signs advanced in 'N. & Q.' (9 th S. viii. 289) is worthy of serious con- sideration.

" Loggerheads " is a chip of the old phrase, " We three loggerheads be, : ' inscribed by way of jest on a picture of two foolish - looking