Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/123

 9*8. XL FEB. 7, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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demned to forfeit her armorial inheritance ? Is this a case in which what is sauce for the gander is not also sauce for the goose? I presume that MERVARID would concede that such a lady would be entitled on making a subsequent armigerous alliance to impale her arms (which she has forfeited, or which have lain dormant) with those of her husband.

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A. Antigua, W.I.

" MOTOR " (9 th S. xi. 9). There must be a good deal of the old Adam still existent in unregenerate humanity, to judge by the pre- valent mania for coining new words. At one time only pedants indulged in cacozelia by obfuscating their lucubrations with sesqui- pedalian circumlocutions, generally dug laboriously out of the nearest lexicon. To them succeeded the savant, deeming the minutest variation in natural phenomena the proper occasion for tortuous neologisms. Thence the disease spread to profusely adver- tised proprietary articles ; and naturally the etymological curiosities which gaudily con- front us on every hand breed discontent with humdrum, commonplace English. Even so handy a word as "motor" appears in danger of being thought inept. We are hankering, I suppose, after some such Greek hodgepodge as "kinesigen," which, from a different point of view, is almost as elegant as " whiz-gig," already proposed. By the way, " whiz-gig " recalls "whisky" and "gig," both two- wheeled vehicles, I believe ; moreover, it sounds dis- tinctly bibulous. The word "driver" is, however, not despicable as a synonym for " motor," and even a facetious adaptation of "Jehu" suggests itself. But it would pro- bably be too ambiguous to call "Jehu-car" the vehicle which Brother Jonathan desig- nates a " runabout." J. DORMER.

BEZIQUE (9 th S. xi. 26). The derivation given by MR. PLATT is ingenious, but does not convince me ; moreover, I do not think that the origin of the game is Polish. It is a combination of the older games of Briscan and Manage, and was played in the western provinces of France long before it was in- troduced into Paris about 1850. A similar game was played in the north of France under the name of Cinq-cents ; this was a sort of first cousin of Be'zique, not, as "Caven- dish " thought, a progenitor. It is curious that none of the previous contributors to the word " Be'zique " itself is an Anglicism. In fifteen treatises on card games by French writers to which I have referred, I find that they all spell it Be'sigue. One of them only,
 * N. & Q.' on the subject has observed that

Van Tenac (1858), gives an alternative form " Bezigue." Those who treat of the origin of the game all state that it comes from the Haute Vienne and adjoining districts, and that its name in the Limousin patois was Besit, also spelt Be'sy, Besi, and Bezy. There was probably no recognized mode of spelling a nom de patois. Dr. William Pole, the first English writer who described the game, in 1861, spelt it " Bazique." The many firms of card makers, such as Messrs. Goodall, Rey- nolds, and English, who printed books of rules in 1868 and 1869, called it indifferently Besique and Bezigue. Baldwin (1870) writes, "Be'sigue, Be'sit, or Be'zique, as it is known in England." "Cavendish" (1870) writes, '^Anglicised into Be'zique." The same autho- rity, in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' de- rives the name from the Spanish besico, a little kiss, a theory that has the merit of giving a reference to the principal feature of the game. Is there any connexion between Spanish and the Limousin dialect 1

A variety of the game is known as Polish Be'zique, also called Feldinski or Fildinski. I am unable to say whether this is really a Polish word. Perhaps, aslthe game comes to us from the French, Besigue Polonais, like Besique Chinois and Besigue Japonais, is a fancy name. F. JESSEL.

AMBROSE ROOKWOOD (9 th S. xi. 5). The mention of the name of this conspirator reminds me of a visit once paid, many years ago, to Coldharn Hall, in the parish of Stan- ningfield, four miles from Bury St. Edmunds, the ancient home of the Rookwood family. Coldham Hall was then in the occupation of Sir Charles Clifford, who had been a member of the Legislative Council of New Zealand. He showed me many interesting relics in the old hall, built originally in the reign of Elizabeth, and several pictures, one of them representing Lady Monson a portly dame, who flagellated her husband, a circumstance recorded in ' Hudibras,' in lines quoted under the picture and another the "beautiful Molly Lepel," who was married to " Hervey the handsome," as commemorated in a ballad.

Much of the obscurity in which the Gun- powder Plot is enveloped will never be com- pletely dispelled, and though my late friend Dr. S R. Gardiner, in his 'What Gunpowder Plot Was,' thinks otherwise, yet it is im- possible not to suppose, pace tanti viri, that the Government, if not fully aware of the plot, had strong suspicions, almost amounting to certainty, of its existence. There is a useful chronological table prefixed to the book of the events from the hatching