Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/196

 276 NOTES AND QUERIES. the time, my information on this point was derived from 'Chambers's Cyclopaedia,' to which I had turned, being unable just then to refer to more recent authorities. ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES. Miss LEGA-WEEKES may like to be referred to a very interesting paper entitled 'Some Eeminiscences of the Wykes of South Tawton and a Few Remarks upon their Residences,' read by the Rev. W. H. Thornton, M.A., the courteous rector of North Bovey, at the Kingsbridge Congress of the Devon Associa- tion in July, 1897. It is printed on pp. 175- 181 of the twenty - ninth volume of their Transactions. Mr. Thornton has some photo- graphs of West Wyke which he exhibited in illustration of his paper, and which, as I was prevented attending at Kingsbridge, he most kindly forwarded for my inspection. T. CANN HUGHES, M.A. Lancaster. OLIVER CROMWELL AND Music (9th S. iii. 341, 417, 491; iv. 151, 189).—As I wish to keep to the original point, I postpone answering MR. CUMMINGS until W. C. B. has answered me. I will recapitulate the matter. W. C. B. spoke of a mass of evidence incriminating Cromwell in the destruction of church and cathedral organs. I asked W. C. B. where that evidence is to be found, as I have so far been unable to find evidence of Cromwell or Cromwell's soldiers damaging any cathedral except Peterborough. When W. C. B. has answered 1 will discuss MR. CUMMINGS'S letter in detail. I believe that I can answer every one of his objections: but at present I wish to mention only that I did not use the words "absolute and un- qualified falsehood" in connexion with the present subject. I was alluding to the legend that the Puritans suppressed ordinary secular music. When I write "Cromwell" I do not in- tend anybody and everybody on the Puritan side; I refer to the individual Oliver Crom- well, the Huntingdonshire squire who became Lord Protector of England. When I write "Cromwell's soldiers "I refer to the soldiers who were under Cromwell's command, and not to any other soldiers. H. DAVEY. MAIZE (9th S. iv. 107).— " Maize, or Indian corn, is not figured on Egyp- tian monuments, nor was any mention made of it by Eastern travellers in Africa or Asia prior to the sixteenth century."—' Encyc. Brit.,' vol. xv. p. 309. However, besides Dr. Faber and Mr. Gosse, whom MR. PEACOCK mentions as having mis- conceived maize as native to the East, there are several men of learning who fell into the same error, for a general account and refuta- tion of which see A. de Candolle, ' Origin of Cultivated Plants,' p. 388 seqq. It is very likely that all these authors confused sorghum with maize (ibid., p. 388). The possibility of such a confusion is upheld by the Chinese, who call maize yuh-muh-sku (jewel-sweet- sorghum), and by the Japanese, who call it t6 - morokoihi (Chinese or foreign - sweet - sorghum), because of its resemblance to sweet sorghum (Wu Ki-Shun, ' Chili - woh - ming- shin-tu-kau,' Japanese edition, torn. ii. fol. 21; Kikuoka. 'Honch6 Sejidan,' 1733, toui. ii. 4). What in this connexion evokes my
 * eenest interest is that in the ' Travels of

Athanasius Nikitin' (who died before 1475, when America was not }'et discovered), trans- lated by the late Count Wielhorsky, p. 17 (ed. Hakluyt Society, No. 22), it is said that the Indians "live on Indian corn, carrots with oil, and different herbs." I hope some of your readers to whom the original text of this record is accessible will kindly give me information as to the word there standing for the name " Indian corn." KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. 7, Effie Road, Walham Green, S.W. " TIGER " = A BOY GROOM (9th S. i. 326, 493; ii. 78).—The original "tiger" must be looked for some quarter of a century earlier than 1855, since in ' Jack Brag' Theodore Hook (1788-1841) frequently speaks of him ; not, indeed, as a boy groom, but as one of the lesser luminaries of society, or as the satellite, familiar, or toady of such a sun or star. In the edition of 'Jack Brag' published by John Dicks, London, the frontispiece repre- sents Jack exposed by the stable boy j out though the stable boy is dressed as a " tiger," in top boots, buckskin breeches, belted tunic, and top hat, he is nowhere called by that name, which, as will be seen by the following extracts, is applied to other uses :— P. 6. " With the tigers in whose set he [Jack] mingled." P. 8. " Neither could entertain a serious thought of a fellow [Jack] of whom nobody knows anything except as Lord Tom Towzle's tiger, espe- cially in a house into which Lord Tom himself finds it particularly difficult to get the entree." P. 18. " Lord Tom a tall, tiger-looking, smoke- dried dandy." P. 19. Lord Tom, piqued by the coldness with which the widow had always received him, felt by no means ill-disposed to encourage his tiger in any scheme likely to make a commotion in the family." Ibid. " Replied the tiger [Jack, to Lord Tom]." P. 27. " It was all vastly tine for his [Jack's] tiger friends to laugh it off—but what would form the subject of their conversation that very day at Crockfprd's, where the conclave would be secured from his intrusion?"