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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. m. JUNE 1 7,m

and, further, belongs to a school of compara- tive philologists now happily extinct ; hence his dicta are not always to be accepted with- out a reference to Leland or some other " Romrnany Rye " of modern date. " Chi," surely, is pronounced "chai," not "chee" !

FRED. G. ACKERLEY. 12, Mayfield Road, Eccles.

" Chel," as quoted by MR. C. S. JERRAM, may mean, in gipsy dialect, a girl ; but the word itself is also pure Devon. A " chel " is a daughter. Here is an instance : " Whot'th tha missis got these time than ? Be it a bwoy or a chel (daughter) ? " HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

CONSUMPTION (9 th S.ii ; 466, 515 iii. 57). The following mention of phthisis is of interest as showing the early date at which the asso- ciation of the disease with a strumous habit was noticed, and the poisonous or infectious character of expectorations in its advanced stage recognized. It occurs on tablets made for Assurbanipal, King of Assyria, and is in the Accadian language :

" That which acts in the mouth, the poison noxious to the voice, * the expectoration of the consumption which noxiously prostrates,f scrofula, pustules, falling off of the nails," &c.

The citation is from p. 6 of "Chaldean Magic : its Origin and Development. Trans- lated from the French with considerable additions by the author and notes by the editor. By Fra^ois Lenormant," 8vo., London, no date (but preface dated 1877). FRANK REDE FOWKE.

24, Victoria Grove, Chelsea, S.W.

LENDING MONEY BY MEASURE IN DEVON (9 th S. ii. 367, 492 ; iii. 32, 191, 332). At the Heralds' College Mr. Tucker, Rouge Croix, told me he was at a loss for the descent of two brothers, Benjamin and Joseph Tucker. I directed him to St. John's, on the banks of the Tamar, for their baptismal registers. He asked how I identified them. One was master shipwright in Devonport Royal Dockyard ; the other was secretary to Earl St. Vin- cent, the admiral, and afterwards held office under the Duchy of Cornwall. He lived at Trematon Castle, on the Tamar, the present residence of Mrs. Parnell, mother of the late Irish leader. Their father applied to liis friend, my great-great-aunt, for a loan to fit out his two sons for the naval service, and she directed him to take the guineas from

"In the Assyrian version, ' The poisonous con- sumption which in the mouth malignantly ascends.'" t " Literally the sputa or effete matter cast off by the lungs in mucus in advanced stages of the disease."

a china bowl placed on a high mantelshelf, which he did, and returned them in due course, without her counting on either occa- sion. Such was the confidence common in her Devon and Cornish circle.

In Trematon Castle above was preserved the ancient and missing chimney-piece of the Admiralty Board-Room at Deptford, a sketcli of which appears in Drake's 'Hundred of Blackheath/ p. 16. The relic, I believe, has been lately acquired by the Duke of Norfolk as an object of family interest. H. H. D.

ENDOWING PURSE (9 th S. iii. 328, 412). Let me take this opportunity of mentioning another wedding endowment.

In Laborde's 'View of Spain,' English translation, 1809, v. 313, writing of women's dress, he says :

."Women ef high rank had sometimes the robe

and mantle of velvet which were worn chiefly at

marriages, and went down from generation to gene- ration. In many places velvet dresses were kept at the town-hall, and lent out to the commonalty for the celebration of their weddings."

In Beaumont and Fletcher's : Spanish Curate ' we have : " To poor maidens' marriages I give per annum two hundred ells of lockram." Is there any evidence of such a custom in England? "Parish bags" for lying-in women are common. W. C. B.

PRIME MINISTER (8 th S. x. 357, 438 ; xi. 69, 151, 510 ; xii. 55, 431 ; 9 th S. ii. 99 ; iii. 15, 52, 109, 273). In ' Poems on Affairs of State, printed in the year 1703, the fifth edi tion, I find, p. 251, " Royal Resolutions : By A. Marvell, Esq.," which seems an extremely early instance of this designation used as a title :

My Pimp shall be my Minister Primier, My Bawds call Ambassadors far and near, And my Wench shall dispose of Conge delirc.

Charles II. is the monarch referred to, of course. I know nothing of earlier editions of the poems than the fifth. O.

" ILLUSTRATION " (9 th S. iii. 247, 316, 394). D. M. R, has lost the real drift of DR. MURRAY'S question ; it would be very easy indeed to give many similar examples, in- stance 'Cassell's Illustrated History of England.' DR. MURRAY asks for "illustra- tions bj T ," and I observe with regret that he asks for answers direct to Oxford. It is, I think, a thousand pities that readers of promises to be most useful and interesting knowledge. I came across a volume (xix.) of Bentley's Miscellany the other day for 1846. It opens with the third chapter of 'Brian
 * N. & Q.' should thus be deprived of what