Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/211

 9* s. vi. SEPT. 1,1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 173 out the adverb-clause and show what word or phrase is qualified by it." Not one of these sentences is aquotation, or professes to be such. The critic then says: " The famous declara- tion in Job xiii. 15, 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' is given on p. 99 in the feeble form: ' Though He punish me,1 <fec." It might strike some readers that this " famous declaration" sounds rather like a bull; and I find from the Revised Version that it is a very disputed passage, of which a new ren- dering has been given by the Revisers in the text and three more in the margin. The " feeble " sentence which I coined contains at least an obvious meaning, and it answered my purpose. J. C. NESFIELD. TOWN GATES OUTSIDE LONDON (9th 8. v. 228, 362 ; vi. 97).—As the meaning of " gate " is under consideration, it is worth while to note that there is a tradition—" valeat quantum valere potest"—that formerly at Bradford (Yorks) " gate " was used to mean a street of houses. An elderly relative, writing to me last year about his grandfather, whose father resided at Townend House, which at one time occupied part of the site of the present Brad- ford Town Hall, stated that " near this house he built many streets or gates of houses named after his children, respectively Mary Gate, Martha, Abram, Hannah. John, Eliza, and Louisa Gate." Perusal of a Bradford directory would most likely disprove part of this statement—at any rate, so far as the existence of all these " gates " at the present time is concerned. DE. FORSHAW'S contri- bution at the second reference was very interesting to a great - great - grandson of the Jonas of Jonas Gate, who was an early Eurchaser, and was the father of the first uilder on these Bradford sites. ARTHUR MAY ALL. CUTTING BABIES' NAILS (9th S. v. 375, 600; vi. 93).—To what has been written in your columns on this question (including the articles in the Sixth Series) I would add references to Brand's 'Popular Antiquities,' 1849 ed., iii. 151, 178, and Aubrey's 'Re- maines,' pp. Ill (where " the set and statary times of pareing of nails and cutting of haire" are noticed ; see also p. 180) and 196. At this latter reference Aubrey adds to a quotation from Pliny: " Many are super- stitious not to pare their nailes (I thinke) on a monday." Brady in his ' Clavis Calendaria ' &111) says: " Formerly the influence of the oon was considered so very extraordinary, that few persons would kill their hogs but when the planet was on the increase; nor would any one scarcely dare to cut the corns on his feet, or to pare his nails, at any other period." In my younger days my mother used to repeat to me the distich:— Better the man had never been born Who on Sunday cuts his nail or his corn. She would also add :— But if you would have good luck without fail, On Monday morn you must cut your nail Without once thinking of fox's tail. After so long a lapse of time I am not sure of the phrasing. The fox-tail adjection seems meant to illustrate the lasting nature of the precepts of childhood ; the forbidden phrase always comes to mind, and the good luck, therefore, is never realized. As to the super- stition about " cutting babies' nails," I have lately had practical proofs of its prevalence among London people, who are presumed to be less credulous in this regard than pro- vincials. F. ADAMS. 115, Albany Road, S.E. [We remember the lines Better a man had never been born Than that on a Sunday he should be shorn.] ORIGIN OF MARYLAND (9th S. vi. 87).— Though Foisset and J. R. Green give oppo- site explanations, neither is necessarily wrong. The colony was named in honour of Queen Henrietta Maria, being termed Terra, Marice in the charter given in 1632 to Lord Baltimore by Charles I. But the name was probably not selected without reference to the older name of Bahia de Santa Maria, given by the Spaniards to Chesapeake Bay, on whose shores Maryland lies. ISAAC TAYLOR. In my copy of 'America,' by John Ogilby, folio, London, 1671, I read that " in the year of our Lord 1631 George, Lord Balti- more, obtained of King Charles I. a Grant In pursuance of this Grant a Bill was prepared and brought to His Majesty to sign, who first asked his Lordship what he should call it, there being a Blank in the Bill designedly left for the name, which his Lordship intended should have been Crescentia; but his Lordship leaving it to Hia Majesty to give it a name, the King propos'd to have it calld Terra- M arise, in English, Mary-land, in honour of his Queen, whose name was Mary; which was con- cluded on, and inserted into the Bill, which the King then Sign'd; and thereby the said Tract of Land was erected into a Province by that Name." H. In 'Names and their Histories' Canon Taylor asserts that this state was " named in honour of Queen Henrietta Maria, being termed Terra Mariae in the charter riven in 1632 to Lord Baltimore by Charles L Probably the name was not selected without reference to the