Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/95

 9 th S. V. FEB. 3, 1900.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

87

This, of course, may be explained by saying that a man may have good taste as regards one subject and bad taste as regards another. But there are no such qualities. One must have either some taste or no taste. He who receives pleasure, though it be ever so little, from "those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection " has taste, though in a very small degree ; and as the pleasure increases so the taste advances towards perfection. So when the new moon appears it is no more than a thin crescent ; out as the nights roll on it gradually grows larger until the orb is complete. On the other hand, he who receives no pleasure from these sources has no taste ; but he does not have bad taste, however much pleasure he may receive from other sources, for taste, being a moral quality, cannot be bad. It may be dissolved by other pleasures, but it is still taste, and, if the menstruum be removed, remains undegenerate, just as sugar, though melted in water, is still sugar, and will crystallize in its former purity if the water be evaporated. One could have understood Mr. Ruskin had he said, He who receives little pleasure from these sources has little taste; he who receives no pleasure from them has no taste, or, if he nave any, it is dissipated by pleasure derived from other sources. CHARLES S. BAYNE.

Glasgow.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

" HURGIN." In Mrs. Ewing's 'Lob Lie-by - the-Fire' the expression is used "like a great hurgin bear." In the north of York- shire people speak of " a great orgin lad," the epithet implying that the lad is fat and un- wieldy. Can anybody suggest an etymology? A. L. MAYHEW.

Oxford.

4 * HUN-BARROW." In the addenda to Dart- nell and Goddard's 'Glossary of Wiltshire Words ' the word hun-barrow is said to have been used in the sense of a tumulus in the south part of the county. I should be glad to hear of any other instance of the use of the word in England. We may perhaps compare E. Fris. kiine (a giant) arid kunen-bed (a barrow or cairn) ; see Koolman's ' Diction- ary,' and Grimm's ' Teutonic Mythology ' (tr.

Stallybrass), ii. 522.

A. L. MAYHEW.

CLASSICAL WORD FOR " HEADSORE." What is the word (Greek or Latin, I think) used, with metaphorical application, to signify the reverse of a plague spot in the human body, i.e., a headsore into which all that is pernicious and evil in it flows of organic necessity 1 I think it occurs in some Greek play to express the term and " finis " of every kind of evil in some connexion or other. J. M.

Oxford.

ARMORIAL. Ey ton, in his 'Antiquities of Shropshire,' vol. iii. p. 103. mentions the following coat of arms as having been in existence in the church of Claverley, Shrop- shire, at the end of the seventeenth century : "Gules, on a fesse between three bucks' heads cabossed or, three bugle-horns strung sable." Can any of your readers say to what family these arms belonged ?

G. S. PARRY, Lieut.-Col.

DEPRECIATION OF COINAGE. Can any of your correspondents inform me at what date and in what country the earliest depreciation of the coinage took place in mediaeval Europe ? Oresme writing in 1373 describes coins as something "noviter adin ventse." Our earliest depreciation in England was in the reign of Edward I. W. W. C.

THE SALMON DISEASE. The salmon disease, or " fungus " as the local term goes, is virulent in the Tay and its tributaries this year again. It is pitiable to see the sick fish lying in quiet corners near the bank covered with the growth, some so diseased that they lie quiet even when the water is stirred beside them. Is there any mention of this disease in sporting or other books before 1840? What book makes the earliest mention of an epidemic among salmon 1 S. F. H.

Perth.

SIR HENRY CAREY, KNT., afterwards first Lord Falkland, was M.P. for co. Hertford from 1601 to 1622. In the Parliament 1604-11, when certain vacant seats were under dis- cussion, we read, " 9 Nov., 1605. Sir Henry Carey Captive. To stand still as a Burgess. Resolved, not to be removed " (' Commons' Journals '). Where and by whom was Sir Henry Carey taken prisoner 1 How long did his captivity last 1 He was present again in the House before the close of the session of 1607. W. D. PINK.

Leigh, Lancashire.

LADY SHOEMAKERS. In Mrs. Gaskell's pretty character sketch ' My Lady Ludlow,' at the beginning of chap, ii., we are told that my lady " would not sanction the fashion of