Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/133

 9th s.v. FEB. 17, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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remark, " Sailors often speak of an ' ugly ' sea, but the adjective has quite another meaning to that usually attached to it." In the expression "quite another meaning to" the use of "quite" is open to objection as superfluous, while "to" is unsuitable to its position as not conveying the sense of com- parison. THOMAS BAYNE.

" NEITHER FISH, NOR FLESH, NOR GOOD RED HERRING." This quotation is very frequently used, but it was only a few days ago I came across it in print. In Dryden's * Epilogue to the Duke of Guise,' 1683, he says : Have we not had Mens Lives enow already? Yes sure : but you're for holding all things steddy: Now since the Weight hangs all on one side,

Brother,

You Trimmers shou'd to poize it, hang on t'other. Damn'd Neuters, in their Middle way of Steering, Are neither Fish, nor Flesh, nor good Red Herring: Not Whiggs, nor Tories they ; not this, nor that ; Not Birds, nor Beasts ; but just a kind of Bat : A Twilight Animal ; true to neither Cause, With Tory Wings, but Wiggish Teeth and Claws.

Since then, I came across it again. Mars- den, in his ' History of the Christian Churches,' vol. i. p. 267, makes Peter Heylyn say : " They were neither Parsons, nor Vicars, nor stipendiary curates ; in fact, They were neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring." I have made a search in Heylyn's ' Works,' but failed to find it. I have since seen it in John Hey wood's 'Proverbs,' 1546, pt. i. ch. x. He says : (t Shee is neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring." I have looked through your index from the commencement, but cannot see it has been referred to before.

CHAS. G. SMITHERS.

47, Darnley Road, N.E.

BIGOT : BIGOTE. It is stated in Wace's ' Chronicle,' 1160 (ch. v., Edgar Taylor's trans- lation), that

" the French had often insulted the Normans by injurious deeds and words, on account of the great dislike and jealousy which they bore to Normandy. They continually spoke scornfully, and called the Normans Bigoz ana Draschiers ; and often remon- strated with their King, and said, 'Sire, why do you not chase the Bigoz out of the country ? Their ancestors were robbers, who came by sea, and stole the land from our forefathers and us.' "

In a note Taylor says :

" Bigot has been supposed to have its origin in the by-yod of a northern tongue ; and to have been used as a war cry by early Normans, answering to the later dex-aie. Anderson, in his 'Genealogical Tables,' says, without quoting his authority, that Rollo was called By-got, from his frequent use of the phrase."

Can it be that the illustrious Bigods or Bigots derived their family name from this peculiar nickname 1 To Roger Bigod, after-

wards Earl of Norfolk, the Conqueror granted Bungay with 116 other manors. The first of the family known to history seems to be Robert le Bigot, who quitted the service of Werlene, Count of Mortain, to attach himself to Duke William, to whom he became house treasurer and a privy councillor. His son Hugh became Earl of Norfolk about 1140.

According to Taylor, whose notes I have been following, the leading branch of the Bigot family became extinct in 1306. This note may, perhaps, be read in connexion with the Bigot verses (9 th S. iv. 541).

It seems natural to connect bigote, a moustache, with these Norman names or nicknames, but the first quotation for the word with this meaning in the * H.E.D.' is from Mabbe's Aleman's 'Guzman d'Alf.,' ii. 332, 1623. Sir R. Burton, 'Camoens's Life' (1881, p. 662), says:

"There are two derivations for bigode (musta- chio). First, the English or German soldier's usual oath, and second, from Goth or Visigoth. So Fidalgo and Hidalgo may be ' filho de algum ' (qui patrem ciere potest) or ' filho de Go' (Goth)."

A signet-ring was found in Norfolk on one of the Bigot estates exhibiting the rebus "By-goat." JAMES HOOPER.

Norwich.

" KAROSS." The origin of this important and well-known South African term (mean- ing a cloak or rug of skin) has been variously stated as (1) Hottentot, (2) Dutch. Burchell in his 'Travels' (1824), vol. ii. p. 350, says : " Kaross and kobo are but two words for the same thing ; the former belongs to the Hottentot, and the latter to the Sichuana language." On the other hand, Kronlein says the Hottentot equivalent is nams ; and an early observer, Sparrman, in his 'Voyage to the Cape ' (1785), vol. ii. p. 187, savs kaross is "broken Dutch." This is corroborated by the existence of two curious compounds, kul-kros and kutkros, of which the first elements are undoubtedly Dutch ; they are explained by Peter Kolbe (1745). Nothing of all this appears in any English dictionary. The word is admitted by the * Century ' Dic- tionary, but only to be vaguely described as South African. Fortunately, we may be sure Dr. Murray will do justice to a technical term found in every book of travel and in most works of fiction relating to South Africa. JAMES PLATT, Jun.

THE YEARS OF ROME 751-3. It appears to me there is considerable doubt or misappre- hension among some writers as to the relative position of these years in the calcu- lation of time, That this question and its.