Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/464

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. DEC. 6, 1902.

Carpenter, jun. In 1439, the year of his second election to Parliament as member for the City when he is described as "late Common Clerk of the City " Carpenter obtained letters patent from the king, dated 3 December, 18 Henry VI., exempting him for the whole of his life from all military and civil duties whatsoever, among which are included election as member of Parliament, and receiving the honour of knighthood. In this document he is described as "John Carpenter the younger, late secretary of our city of London." From this evidence it seems probable that the Town Clerk was described as junior to distinguish him from his brother of the same Christian name. This brother may have been the John Carpenter, sen., M.P. for Portsmouth in 1437 ; and the John Carpenter, jun., who represented Hastings in the Parliament of 1442, may have been the nephew of the Town Clerk.

JOHN PATCHING. Brighton.

SHAKESPEARE AND JONSON (9 th S. x. 367). E. F. B.'s reference to Shakespeare and Jon- son both writing of a dog " Ringwood " is interesting. Ringwood is a favourite name for dogs ; see my ' The Dog in British Poetry.' Thomas Tickell (1686-1740), in his Fragment of a Poem on Hunting, has :

How his sire's features in the son were spied When Di was made the vig'ronsRingwood's bride.

Gay also has a poem devoted to

Ringwood, a dog of little fame, Young, pert, and ignorant of game.

And Henry Brooke (1706-83) introduced into 'The Fox Hunt ' a worthy dog called Ring- wood. R. MAYNARD LEONARD.

In the early part of the eighteenth century " Rino-wnrH " W as a common literary name

W. C. B.

for a dog.
 * Ringwood

LINGUISTIC CURIOSITIES (9 th S. x. 245, 397). H. P. L is doubtless right in comparing Gothic scapia with German schaffm, and in that case, curiously enough, it will be the same word as our modern English slang verb " to scoff." This verb does not appear in the ordinary dictionaries, but I see it is in the new part, just issued, of 'Slang and its Analogues,' where the illustrative quotations show that it has spread to America and Australia. Originally it was a South African term, and as such occurs in many works of travel. As far back as 1785 Sparrman wrote it skqft (' Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope,' i. 140). It is from Dutch schaffen, which, according to Franck's 'Etymological Dutch Dictionary,' was borrowed from German

schaffen, with a change of sense, since the German verb does not signify " to eat," at any rate not exclusively, as Dutch schaffen and English scoff do. This meaning of " to eat " would be very appropriate to the Gothic- Latin distich quoted under the first reference, could we believe that it developed at so early a date. Be that as it may, the verb "to scoff" is a " linguistic curiosity " in itself, and I venture to hope will not be denied admit- tance to the ' N.E.D.' JAS. PLATT, Jun. 77, St. Martin's Lane, W.C.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY (9 th S. x. 242, 291, 349). If MR. HOLYOAKE will turn to ' N. & Q.' for 27 April, 1872 (4 th S. ix.), he will be reminded that the idea of the New Zealand traveller of future ages is to be found in writings before Philip James Bailey wrote ' Festus,' viz. in Volney's ' Ruins of Empires,' Horace Walpole's letters to Sir H. Mann, Kirke White, P. B. Shelley, and in Mrs. Barbauld's well-known poem of ' Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.' Mrs. Barbauld died in 1825. Volney wrote thus before 1800 :

" Who knows but that hereafter some traveller like myself will sit down before the banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuyder See, solitary amid silent ruins, and weep a people in- urned, and their greatness changed into an empty name?"

H. M.

Older writers than Bailey may have sug- gested to Macaulay his New Zealander. Perhaps the following passage, parallel to it, has not been noticed. It is from Sistnondi's 'Literature of the South of Europe,' pub- lished originally in 1813, Roscoe's translation, chap. ii. :

" Who may say that Europe itself, whither the empire of letters and of science has been trans- ported, which sheds so brilliant a light, which forms so correct a judgment of the past, and which com- pares so well the successive reigns of the literature and manners of antiquity, shall not in a few ages become as wild and deserted as the hills of Mauri- tania, the sands of Egypt, and the valleys of Anatolia? Who may say that in some new land, perhaps in those lofty regions, whence the Oronoco and the river of the Amazons have their source, or perhaps in the impregnable mountain-fastnesses of New Holland, nations with other manners, other languages, other thoughts, and other religions, shall not arise once more to renew the human race, and to study the past as we have studied it ; nations who, hearing with astonishment of our existence, that our knowledge was as extensive as their own, and that we, like themselves, placed our trust in the stability of fame, shall pity our impotent efforts ? "

E. YARDLEY.

"To THE NINES" (9 th S. x. 387). This phrase was admirably explained, ten years ago, in an article by C. P. G. Scott in