Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/21

 o* s. v. JAN. 6, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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examples in existence, where the body is of Lowes- toft make, which are of very fine quality. The collector will be able to distinguish immediately between the examples painted at Lowestoft on Oriental body, and those which are potted and painted there.'"

Mr. Chaffers continues :

" There are three persons now living [1865] who can testify to the fact that nothing passed

out of the factory but what was made in it Let

us also ask those visionary theorists whether they ever saw or heard of such unfinished Oriental white porcelain ? When the Lowestoft works ceased in 1802, wkat became of it all? The country would have been inundated with the supply so suddenly

rendered useless, and waiting to be painted It is

certain that a vast quantity of Lowestoft china still exists, not only in England, but on the Continent ; but from its similarity to the Oriental, it has been

generally confounded with it With Lowestoft,

no mark was ever used, rarely even a painter's

mark Old inhabitants ridicule the idea of

Oriental china ever having been brought into it [LoM'estoftJ to be painted for the purpose of sale.

Mr. Studley Martin, nephew of Sir James E.

Smith, who resided at Lowestoft, writes : ' 1 believe no Oriental china was ever painted, even by adding initials or crests, at Lowestoft, certainly never with flowers, or anything else.'"

However, the editor (Mr. Li tchfield) appends a note :

"The question of the place of manufacture of a large number of specimens which have been called ' Lowestoft ' is a difficult one to settle. Prof. Church has gone so far in the opposite direction to Mr. Chaffers, as to omit from his work on English porcelain any mention of Lowestoft, and in the catalogue of the Schreiber Collection, such speci- mens as are generally called Lowestoft are classified as ' Oriental porcelain decorated in England.' Sir A. W. Franks has a very limited belief in Lowes- toft, and thinks that most of the china so called

by Chaffers was of Chinese manufacture The

Editor is inclined to believe that nearly all the

services, with coats of arms, monograms, and heraldic devices, were not only made but decorated in China."

See also * The Ceramic Art of Great Britain,' by Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A. (London, 1887). HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

THE GREAT OATH (9 th S. iv. 438). This term, used in Scotland, appears to apply to the solemnity of the act, arid not in contra- distinction to a minor or subsidiary form of taking the oath. In ancient writings the " great aith " is frequently referred to. Thus Wyntoun says :

He swore the great aith bodely, That he suld hald alle lelely, That he had said in to that quhile, But ony cast of fraud or gyle. IX. 20, 85. In Retours, under Brieves of Inquest, issued from Chancery for the service of heirs, recently abolished, the words of form were " Qui jurati dicunt magno sacramento inter- veniente." In Scotch conveyancing a deed

in regard to heritage or real estate by a married woman requires to be judicially ratified by her before a magistrate, outwith the presence of the husband. In the form of ratification she gives her great oath that she was noways seduced or compelled to grant or concur in the conveyance, but did so of her own free will and motive, and that she will never quarrel or impugn the same, directly or indirectly. A. G. REID.

Auchterarder.

"TIFFIN" (9 th S. iv. 345, 425, 460, 506). I beg leave to point out the fact that, at the first of the above references, I gave in full the title of the work from which I quoted, Grose's ' Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.' It is therefore not the fact that I obscured the issue by omitting to do that. If I did not repeat the title ^n extenso in my second note, I only refrained from so doing out of consideration for the space of ' N. & Q.,' and because I thought it unnecessary, after having; recited it in full in my former note.

JULIAN MARSHALL.

EDGETT (9 th S. iii. 407 ; iv. 177). This sur- name is susceptible of several explanations. It may be from edge and gate, as suggested by MR. HARRISON, but scarcely from hedge-gate, for in local names the rules as to h are well observed, and in America this letter is not likely to go etymologically wrong. MR. HARRISON is in error in saying that ""edge-gate would make no sense." In Old English ecg meant, in local names, "bluff," "ridge of land," or "cliff," as explained by Mr. Bradley in ' N.E.D.' under * Edge,' vi. This meaning is preserved in Alderley Edge, co. Chester, Weston-under-Edge, Aston-under-Edge, and Wootton - under - Edge, co. Gloucester, in addition to the instances given in the 'N.E.D.' Cf. also Edgehill, co. Warwick. For its existence in O.E. I may cite * Car- tularium Saxonicum,' i. 496, 13 ; iii. 151, 2 ; 155, 1 ; 587, 40 ; 590, 14. A Middle-English instance occurs in the Gloucester 'Chartulary,' iii. 45, 1, land "super Je egge" at Rand wick, co. Glouc. In O.E. geat meant, in local names, a gap or opening in high ground, a narrow pass, as in Symond's Yat (*/Sigemundes geat), co. Glouc., now erroneously transferred to a point of the rock. It is conceivable that such a gap might be called JKcg-geat, which would yield a modern Edgett quite regularly.

But the word ecg was used in forming compound personal names, and hence appears in local names formed from personal names. In the hypocoristic forms Ecg and Ecga (or the corresponding fern. *Ecge\ it would in modern names have become undistinguishable