Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/167

 * s. ii. AUG. 20, '98.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

159

" TIT-TAT-TO " (9 th S. ii. 26, 118). This game was familiar to me in Hull about 1856 ; but we called it "tip-tap-to," to sounding as toe. There was a rhyme used at the finish, which I remember very imperfectly, some- thing like this :

Tip-tap-to,

Three jolly butchers all in a row ; Tip one put, Tip one in,

Tip one into hat crown (?)

W. C. B.

REGENT SQUARE, ST. PANCRAS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD (9 th S. ii. 85). I think MR. JOHN HEBB'S note would be much more valuable if he would complete it by informing us what has now become of all the privileges he mentions, and whether the Act is still in force; in fact, bring his information up to the present time. RALPH THOMAS.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (9 th S. ii. 69).

La mort est le baiser de Dieu.

This was originally a Jewish conception from Deuteronomy xxxiv., where the Hebrew is ^g 7JJ, ad o.s 1, which is rendered "at the word of" in the R.V. Jeremy Taylor, in reference to the Jewish version, has : " Moses died with the kisses of the Lord's mouth, so the Chaldee paraphrase " ('H. L.,' ch. iii., sect. vi. vol. iii. p. 332, Eden). He refers to this also in ' Serm.' vii., where there is reference in the note to Buxtorf s ' Lex. Hebr. et Chald.' for the autho- rities (viii. p. 421); so too in 'Serm.' xi. : "Or

whether by an apoplexy, or by the kisses of His

mouth" (p. 534). A contemporary writer, Henry Ley Montagu, Earl of Manchester, has : "The Jews say of Moses that his soule was sucked out of his mouth with a kisse" (' Con tempi. Mort. et Immor- talitatis,' 1655, p. 190). ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Lives of the Saints. By the Rev. S. Baring- Gould, M. A. Vol. XVI. (Nimmo.) THOUGH issued as an appendix, the sixteenth volume of Mr. Baring-Gould's new edition of ' The Lives of the Saints,' completing the work, is, in one respect at least, the most important of all. It consists of matter not comprised in the previous edition, and includes an all-important introductory essay on the Celtic Church and its saints, in which the author has not feared to cross swords with writers of authority so established as Green and Freeman. With warmth and enthusiasm Mr. Baring-Gould points to the fact that for nearly half the time that has elapsed since the birtli of Christ the Celtic Church, " unadulterated by foreign influences, was

the dominant Church in Wales." So-called

Celtic saints are numerous so numerous as to have perplexed the Bollandists in the compilation of the 4 Acta Sanctorum.' No fewer than 3,300 saints were, it is said, ruled over by Bishop Gerald of Mayo, while the Isle of Bardsey is stated to have contained the bones of over 20,000. The difficulties expe-

rienced by the Bollandists had, Mr. Baring-Gould points out, a philological origin. " Saint " was then used in the Celtic Church much in the sense that " religious " is now generally employed, and signified no more than that the saint was " the head of the religious tribe." No question of moral fitness or

conduct as ecclesiastical chiefs " entered into the matter. A curious abuse, resembling the nepotism with which successive Popes were charged, was that the headship of a religious settlement, being reserved to noble and princely families, was often used as a means of providing for "a princely bastard." A " very discreditable origin is [thus] given a good many Celtic saints." On the influence of Irish "evangelists" and on the point that Wales and Corn- wall were Christian before Augustine was born Mr. Baring-Gould has much to say, and he shares the opinions of Haddan as to the part played by the Churches of St. Patrick and St. Cotumba as " centres of religious life and knowledge in Europe." Much that is of importance and interest is said concerning the absence of all trace of a vernacular liturgy, the Eucharistic act of consecration, &c. ; and the Celtic Church is defended from the arraignment of Gildas, who is described as "a violent, scurrilous writer, who took a delight, like an ill bird, in fouling his own nest." The Celt is commended for his en- thusiasm in religion ; and the responsibility for Calvinism in Scotland and Nonconformity in Wales is to some extent charged against the Latin Church, which had trodden out independent Celtic Christianity.

In the Celtic and English calendar Mr. Baring- Gould is no less outspoken than he has previously shown himself. After giving some startling asser- tions concerning St. Wilgis he says, " This is a fair specimen of the stuff that fills the ' Lives ' of the Irish saints." Here is a second passage similar in spirit : " When Gwladys was in a fair way to become a mother, four lamps shone miraculously every night, one in each corner of her chamber. This is merely a hagiographer's way of saying that she liked to keep a light burning in her room at night." Much interesting matter concerning Ar- thurian legend is found under headings such as St. Constantine, son of Cador, Duke of Cornwall, a reputed cousin of King Arthur, and St. Geraint, the King of Devon, and the husband of "Enid the fair." A chapter of much importance is supplied on "Brittany, its Princes and Saints," in which its colonization from Britain is illustrated. Succeed- ing it come the pedigrees of saintly families, followed again by a Celtic and English calendar of saints proper to the Welsh, Cornish, Scottish, Irish, Breton, and English people. The volume concludes with an index of saints, and one of subjects covering the sixteen volumes. We congratulate Mr. Baring- Gould on the completion of his labours, and com- mend to our readers a work which for the variety and extent of the information it supplies, and for the vivacity with which that information is com- municated, has won warm recognition, and is in its present shape more helpful and serviceable than before. The illustrations to the last volume consist principally of maps, by which others than students of hagiography may profit.

Catalogue of Early Dublin - Printed Books. By

E. R. McC. Dix. - Part I. 1601-1625. (Dublin,

O'Donoghue ; London, Dobell.) '

A COMPLETE list of early Dublin-printed works

would be a boon to the bibliographer. Such, how-