Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/382

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. NOV. s, im

in his ' Pensieri diversi ' (p. 538 of the 1636 edition, the editio princeps having appeared in 1620) :

"Hor fin qui giudichera ogn' uno cred' ip, che gl' ingegni moderni non cedano d' invencipni a gli

anticni Vengo alle machine militari : Qual

invencipni [sic] cosl tremenda fu imaginata giammai, che a quella delle nostre artiglierie

s' agguagliasse ? quale si spaventevole, che

quella de' Pettardi inventati pochi anni sono rasso- migliasse?"

The differentiation of "petar" and " petard " does not say much for the ' Twentieth Century Dictionary.' A descrip- tive engraving of the machine appears in the ' Encyclopaedic.' F. ADAMS.

FAMILY CRESTS (9 th S. x. 109, 173). There is no work that I am aware of answering the

Eurpose CROSS-CROSSLET mentions, but I have >r a long time been engaged in making a " card index," with the view of eventually publishing an ' Ordinary of British Crests.'

I shall be very glad to try to identify any crests for your correspondent, but may not be able to do so at once, as my notes are not yet arranged in order. H. R, LEIGHTON. East Boldon, R.S.O., Durham.

HONORIFICABILITUDINITAS (9 th S. X. 243,

371, 494 ; x. 52, 155). The following reference does not seem to have been noted : Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Mad Lover,' Act I., Fool loq. :

The iron age return'd to Erebus, And Honorih'cabilitudinitatibus Thrust out o' th' kingdom by the head and shoulders.

RALPH NEVILL, F.S.A. Guildford.

GRASS WIDOW (9 th S. x. 205). May I point out that S. C. Grier was giving an early in- stance of this word in the only sense in which it appears now to be current, "A married woman whose husband is absent from her," the earliest instance in 'N.E.D.' being dated 1859 ? One or two instances earlier than 1859 had been supplied in the Athenaeum, but none of the eighteenth century. Q. V.

" MALLET " OR " MULLET " (9 th S. ix. 486 ; x. 93, 173, 193, 293). The beetle of the Scottish housewives referred to in ' The Pirate,' chap, vi., is a large wooden mallet with which the linen from the washing is beaten as a substitute for the process of mangling. It is in some places called the "mell" or the " clathes-mell," while the implement used in mashing potatoes shaped somewhat after the manner of an Indian club is known as the " tawtie-beetle." Dialectal usage seems to determine the prevalence respectively of "mell" and

"beetle." For instance, there is a legendary apologue setting forth how one John Bell in his latter days divided his substance, in the manner of King Lear, among the members of his family, and presently found that some method of self-defence would be necessary if life were to be tolerable. Therefore he made mysterious and significant visits to a private chest, the key of which he kept rigidly to himself. This provoked curiosity, and secured a measure of attention and respect from his prospective heirs. Opened at his death, the chest contained nothing but a mallet, with this expressive legend attached to it on a slip of paper :

I, John Bell, leaves here a mell, the man to fell Who gives all to his bairns, and keeps nothing to himsell.

In Kelly's ' Scottish Proverbs,' p. 156, this appears as follows :

He that gives all his gear to his bairns, Take up a beetle, and Knock out his harns.

THOMAS BAYNE. Glasgow.

FLOWERING SUNDAY (9 th S. ix. 508 ; x. 57). There seems to be some confusion in the dates ante, p. 57. Sophocles did not write his 'Electra' about 380 B.C. By 380 B.C. he had been dead for a quarter of a century. If the passage of Anacreon referred to be 1. 25 of No. 53 (Bergk), No. 55 (Valentine Rose), of the ' Anacreon tea,' it would be better not to describe it as written in 590 B.C.

EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, S. Australia.

THE POETS o> ADVERSITY (9 th S. x. 285). From the examples quoted of various dicta of the poets, Latin and English, on the subject of adversity, MR. E. YARDLEY has omitted the following striking, and still most true, lines from Dr. Johnson (' London,' 172, 173), which are evidently derived from the lines he quotes from Juvenal : This mournful truth is everywhere confess'd, Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd.

With these also may be compared his advice to the scholar ('Vanity of Human Wishes,' 157-60) :

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from learning, to be wise ; Then mark what ills the scholar's life assail Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

H. J. DUKINPIELD ASTLEY, M.A. East Rudham Vicarage, Norfolk.

THE COPE (9 th S. x. 285). My friend MR. PICKFORD is quite right about the cope, so far as he goes. But he might go further. Its use is not confined to bishops nor to any