Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/460

 454

NOTES AND QUERIES. [*"s.iii.

(Book III. chap, ix.), I am persuaded that when he assigned the phrase to Addison. Thackeray believed it to be part and parcel of the locus classicus aforesaid. For once the novelist's fine memory seems to have played him false. Possibly " Aliquo," &c., is just a fragment of some forgotten university prize poem, or even of some old school or college exercise the writer's own, or a friend's. Or it may be merely the faltering offer of a memory faintly stirred by the intermittent

chime of Ovid's "Aliquis prcelia mensa

mero," in 'Heroid.,' i. 31, 32 :

Atque aliquis pqsita monstrat f era prcelia mensa, Pingit et exiguo Pergama tota mero.

T. HUTCHINSON, M.A.

CLANMOLINESPICK (9 th S. iii. 169). ME. WILLCOCK does not give the title of the tract from which he has taken the words mentioned in the query ; by so doing he would have saved time and search. On referring to my copy of ' A peculiar Prpmptuary of Time, &c. (with) the true Pedigree and Lineal descent of the, <fec., Urquharts in the house of Cro- martie, &c.,' London, 1652, at p. 12 I find a partial explanation of Clanmolinespick. It says :

"Molin, A.C. 1534. This is he that came with Gathelus [Gaodhal, son of Niul, ancestor of the Clan-na-Gael] from Egypt into Portugal, and from whom are descended the Clanmolinespick."

The ending spick or espick puzzles me, un- less it is derived from the Gaelic speuc, to diverge, divaricate, referring to some division of the clan ; or spick (adv.), quite, very. If so, it would mean the real or true Clan Molin.

At p. 17 is given:

"Rodrigo, A.C. 1295. This Rodrigo (Roderick), being invited by his kindred the Clanmolinespick into Ireland, bore rule in that country, &c., that of him descended the Clanrurie."

I think Clanrurie has reference to Clan- ria - Rory, Ruadhri (Rory or Roderick) Mor, son of Sithrich. This Rory was the eighty-sixth monarch of Ireland, and died B.C. 218. From him the Clan-na-Rory ^yere so called. From him descended the families of Guinness, MacGuinness, Magenis, &c. As to the dates given ip Urquhart's work and in the list of the Irish kings, it is impossible to make them coincide. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

" JANISSARY " (9 th S. iii. 384). CAPT. HARRIS may be interested in the following explanation of the use of the word in the quotation from a book of 1612, "Jesus Christ being our Pilot and Jenisarie " an explanation clear to all who know Persian and have read Eastern history. Three hundred years ago, and indeed to much later times, there was no

settled system of transliteration from Eastern languages, ex. gr., the absurd spellings nabob, sepoy, palanquin, Cabool, and scores of others. Three hundred years ago the Emperor Akbar had Jdn-nisdri regiments, and we read of one among the troops of the King of Oudh when he was deposed by us in 1856. A great many of the military terms and phrases used in Eastern Muhammedan armies from far-off India to the nearer Turkey were of Persian origin. Jannisdri was one of these ; a per- fectly correct and well-known Persian com- pound, from Jew = life and nisari = exposing or devoting. Jdn-nisdr is one who exposes or devotes his life, and Akbar's (and his predecessors') jannisaries were like the modern Ghdzis, careless of their own lives. No doubt the writer of 1612 above quoted used the word as being a very applicable epithet for our pilot Jesus Christ, who had devoted his life for his followers. MICHAEL FERRAR.

I do not think this was at all an uncommon word in the singular. Henry Blunt in his 'Voyage into the Levant,' fourth edition, 1650, p. 9, says :

"First, I agreed \vith a Janizary at Venice, to find mee Dyet, Horse, Coach, Passage, and all other usuall charges, as farre as Constantinople : Then upon the seventh of May, 1634, I embarg'd on a Venetian Gaily with a Caravan of Turkes and lewes bound for the Levant."

It will be observed that Janissary here bears the sense employed by Lavender in the passage quoted by CAPT. HARRIS, namely, that of a courier or guide. Blunt's Janissary was exposed to some temptation, as "scarce any day past but some or other cheapned " his master with him, with a view to pur- chasing him as a slave ; but he seems to have been a faithful fellow. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

A MARTYR BISHOP OF ARMAGH (9 th S. ii. 525 ; iii. 371). The erudite REV. J. B. McGovERN under the above heading, when referring to Primate MacGauranor McGovern, has made a slight slip in stating that the identity is further established by the state- ment of the 'Four Masters' (ad an. 1593), " he was sent by the Pope to encourage the Catholic | nobility of Ireland to defend their religion, and also brought promises of assistance from Philip II., King of Spain."

The excerpt is taken from a ' History of | Ireland, 1844,' p. 497, by the Abbe MacGeo- ghegan, translated from the French by P. O'Kelly, Esq. (the name is spelt MacGowran by O'Kelly). The accomplished O'Donovan, in , a footnote to his translation of the ' Four I Masters,' vol. vi. pp. 1938-1939, under the year 1593, gives extracts from Camden, and