Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/283

 PRiL 8 ,m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

277

i lat the ring in question was of " cornelian ( r " carnelian." I think it was of something 1 lat assumed to have the value of gold anc 1 ad it not. I used myself to be struck with t le resemblance between " camelian " anc u carnelian " when our old nurse used to say t.iat such a locket or such a brooch was made o . the former, and not of precious metal Sometimes when we asked her, "Is that g )ld ? " she would tease us by answering, " It's cold " ; but our sharp young ears detected the equivoque. ST. S WITHIN.

LETTERS FEOM ENGLISH MINISTERS OF THE CROWN TO THEIR SOVEREIGN (9 th S. iii. 66, 156). Sir Robert Peel's correspondence fur- nishes a link between the formula used by Pitt in 1804 and that employed by Mr. Balfour to-day. Writing to George IV. on 12 Feb., 1823, Peel, who was then Home Secretary, began : " Mr. Peel received last night the letter which your Majesty addressed to him ' (Parker's ' Sir Robert Peel,' i. 338) ; while on 31 March, 1827, a similar letter commenced : " Mr. Peel presents his humble duty, and has the honour to inform your Majesty," &c. (ibid, p. 457).

Lord Melbourne, also as Home Secretary, thus began a letter to William IV. on 2 April, 1834 : " Viscount Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs leave to acknowledge your Majesty's gracious com- i munication " (Lloyd C. Sanders's ' Lord Mel- bourne's Papers,' p. 160) ; and this has become ] the accustomed form of address, followed, as appears from letters which have from time to time been published, by Russell, Palmerston, Beaconsfield, Gladstone, and Lord Salisbury.

POLITICIAN.

i DE FERITATE (9 th S. iii. 47, 192). Does not MR. IRVING forget that there were at least -hree generations of a branch of the De ^ournays who bore the name of De Ferte' or ?eritate, and lived and died before the Con- niest ? Planche says so. Gautier de la Ferte /he first founded a priory at Ferte in Brai, . 990. His son Hugues and his grandson of he same name (a monk of Bee) were dead >efore 1066. As Gautier's brother, Hugues de Confessor in 1035, he may have brought some f the Ferte family. The William de Ferte jonnected with Devon and Wilts must surely pe the one of that name who married Margery, laughter of William de Briwere the elder, Ind co-heiress to her brother in 1233. This William de Ferte' left only one child, Gun- Ireda, wife of Payn de Cadurcis. Their jrandchild took the property to her husband [Lenry, Earl of Lancaster, and so the manors
 * ournay, came to England with Edward the

possessed by William should be now in the Duchy of Lancaster. I think it probable that William was son of Ralph de Ferte, the Justice Itinerant of 1218, as Foss suggests. As his (Ralph's) Iter was in Cumberland both in that year and in 1225, and in Westmoreland in 1226, he was doubtless a Cumberland man ; but Foss's statement that he took his name from a Norman place seems more probable than MR. IRVING'S derivation from the wild- ness of the Cumbrian estate.

THOMAS WILLIAMS. Aston Clinton.

"No GREAT SHAKES" (9 th S. iii. 169). In Dr. Brewer's ' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable' this is said to refer to the common or stubble (locally the " shake ") on which the poor were allowed to feed their cattle between harvest and seedtime, and to mean therefore, pri- marily, " no great privilege." The explana- tion seems far-fetched, and if this was the original meaning it is certainly lost now. The present meaning is admirably shown in the passage in ' The Mill on the Floss ' where Maggie Tulliver is talking to Luke about the prodigal son, and hopes he would be good afterwards. "Eh, miss," says Luke (I quote from memory), " I 'm afraid he 'd be no great shakes, let 's feyther do what he would for him." See under 'Shack' in Halliwell for other meanings which may suggest other pos- sible explanations, none of which, however, is quite satisfactory. C. C. B.

This is a very common saying in the Midland counties, where they say "to shake" (for shuffle) cards, also to shake the dice. Hence a good deal or throw is called a good shake, and metaphorically anything that is of little worth "no great shakes." B. D. MOSELEY.

Probably derived from dice-play.

W. C. B.

Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to mention that this expression appears in the second line of the third verse of Charles Lever's song ' The Man for Galway,' sung by Mr. Bodkin at the election dinner recorded n ' Charles O'Malley,' published in Dublin in 1841 :

Ye think the Blakes Are no great shakes.

HENRY GERALD HOPE. Clapham, S.W.

"FFLORES CORTOX" (9 th S.iii. 108). "Cortox" s manifestly impossible. What appears x to rour correspondent is probably the contrac- -ion for rum. Precise information about the ndistinctness would have been desirable. By eading // for C we should get " Hortorum,"