Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/59

 s. xii. JULY is,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

51

none. There is no reason to suppose that Edwards misquoted Johnson, and for his quotations alone did I refer to him. I venture to think they were not uninteresting. May I add that it seems a pity that those fortu- nate people who have easy access to the ' H.E.D.,' and can therefore without trouble give us the last word on these etymological questions, should so frequently hold aloof until somebody less fortunate, but more obliging, has done his poor best, and then intervene with the air of the superior person 1 I should have quoted the 'H.E.D.' myself if I could have done so ; but though 1 began to take the original issue at the letter H, and have taken the reissue from the beginning, the word "folk" unfortunately falls within the gap I have yet to make up. C. C. B.

RIMING EPITAPH (9 tn S. xi. 487). The Mirror, i. 255, 15 January, 1823, gives the epitaph as in the query ; but in ' A Complete Parochial History of the County of Corn- wall,' 4 vols., Truro, 1867-73, at vol. ii. (1868) p. 126, parish of Gunwalloe, alias Winington, it is stated that

"the following singular epitaph was on a monu- ment which formerly stood in the churchyard :

We shall die all.

Shall die all we ?

Die all we shall ;

All we shall die ! "

R. Pol whole's ' History of Cornwall,' 1816, v. 43-51, gives a number of Cornish epitaphs, but not the above. The Mirror opens with the words : " On a tombstone in Gunwallaw, near Helstone, in Cornwall. It may be read backwards or forwards."

ADRIAN WHEELER.

FASTING SPITTLE (9 th S.xi. 466). I question whether Limbird could name the author of the curious pamphlet he published. Although I am unable to do so, I may state that the superstition is of long standing. Massinger, in his play of ' Very Woman ' (1631), says : Let him but fasting spit upon a toad, And presently it bursts and dies.

Her rick, in his ' Hesperides ' (1648), furnishes

another instance :

They have their cups and chalices, Their pardons and indulgences : Their beads of nits, bels, books, and wax Candles forsooth, and other knacks ; Their holy oyle, their fasting-spittle, Their sacred salt here not a little.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

THE ORIGIN OF THE TURNBULLS (9 th S. xi. 109, 233, 329, 498). Is this surname connected with that of Adrian Turnebus, the king's

printer in Paris about the middle of the six- teenth century 1 RICHARD H. THORNTON.

CORNISH RIMES IN AN EPITAPH (9 th S. xi. 146, 216). The Rev. W. lago, of Bodmin (who revised or designed the seals of the cathedral of Truro and its chancellor, ^of the archdeacons of Cornwall and Bodmin, and of the latter's predecessor), sends me, to supplement the above notes, the following :

"A lady wrote to me from Kensington some months ago, and sealed her letter with a seal in- scribed ' Karenza whelas karenza,' and I then told her that it was the Polwhele motto. It is printed in the book I showed you, Dr. W. Pryce's ' Archseo- logia Cornu-Britannica,' 1790, among the appendices, under the heading ' Mottoes and Sentences in Vulgar Cornish,' with this explanation, ' Mr. Polwhele's motto, Lore worketh (or seeketh) love, his French one being Amour veut amour.' A great many other Cornish mottoes are given in the book also, such as Lord Viscount Falmouth's (his name is Boscawen), 'Bosco Pascho Karenza Venza.' The 'Boscawen rose' appears on his shield, his ordinary motto being * Patience passe science.' The translation of his Cornish motto is not given."

Mr. lago tells me that in the inscription at Polwhele House one should read whelas, not " wheelad," and that " Llanhydrock " should be Lanhydrock, thus correcting what was said on p. 146. I find among *A Collection of Proverbs, Rhimes,' &c., at the end of Dr. Pryce's book, " Karendzhia vendzhia good will (or love} would do it." Probably, as the orthography of the Keltic tongues has never been settled, this explains the second part of the Boscawen motto. The Rev. W. lago states with regard to the motto :

" ' Bos Pask ' is Cornish for Food of the Passover, or Easter; and the translation of the Boscawen motto seems to be : * Paschal Food would [signify], or should [produce] love [or goodwill] ' ; or, more briefly, ' The Eucharist should be a feast of love.' "

E. S. DODGSON.

SKULLS (9 th S. xi. 287, 474). The exception that MR. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL makes for the collection of skulls in the crypt (?) of Hythe Church does not, I think, hold good. Mediaeval churchyards in towns were often very small. That at Hythe is known to have been so. Most town churches had a charnel- house attached to them, and there can be but little doubt that this accounts for the great stack of bones here. There are' considerably over 700 skulls, and of these sixteen show injuries inflicted before death. Most of these are sword cuts or gashes, often multiple, and three are pierced wounds. Two of the owners have certainly survived some time, and one may have recovered altogether. Considering the many affrays that occurred here in olden times, some 2| per cent, with broken skulls