Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/283

 9*8. VI. SEPT. 22,1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 233 The lines quoted are part of a song that wa sung by Valentine Vousden, a monologu performer of that day : and words and musi were understood, and, I think, distinctly stated, to be by himself. I have no doub that the song can be bought to-day from t Dublin musicseller. N. J. Irvington, New York. "MAX": SLANG FOE GIN (9th S. vi. 161).— The following cutting from the Standard o 6 Sept. concerning this beverage may prove interesting in itself, and also as preserving a record of an old custom existing at Col Chester :— "The Colchester oyster fishery was declared open yesterday [5 Sept.] with the usual quaint ceremony, which included the consumption of gin and ginger bread by the Aldermen and Councillors, who then gave three cheers for the Queen, and wished success to the British arms. The first oysters of the season were dredged and eaten, and proved of excellent quality, and it was officially announced that the prospects of the fishery were better than ever before. The stock of oysters is 40,000,000, and during the last ten years the profits of the fishery to the Cor- poration have realized 25,0001., whilst large sums nave been paid in bonuses to the fishermen. JOHN PICKFOED, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. PLANTAGENET CHAIE (9th S. vi. 150).—This chair must have disappeared before the year 1837, when I visited York and purchased a guide to the city in which I find the follow- ing :— " An antique chair used to stand within the rails of the altar, in which several of the Saxon kings were crowned, and which is said to be older than the cathedral itself. Richard III. and James I. were also crowned in it." EVEEAED HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. "LORIOT" (9th S. vi. 149).—"Loviot," at the head of Ms. HOOPEE'S query, is a misprint for "loriot," of which another form, without the agglutinated I, is "oriole." I mention this because, says the ' Encyc. Brit.' (xii. 696), nearly all writers agree in considering the " icterus " of classical authors to be what we now know as the golden oriole (Orioltts gal- bula). A quotation from Liddell and Scott's 'Lexicon ' will therefore be a sufficient reply to your querist: " ?/crtpos, a bird of a yellow- ish green colour, by looking at which a jaun- diced person was cured—the bird died ! Plin. xxx. 11 :—the same was believed of the Xopaopios [see Plut. 2, 681 C : /El. N.A. 17, 13]." Charadrius (written Lat. caladrius, Anglo-Norman kaladre) is also treated of in Philippe de Thaun's ' Bestiary,' 11. 1053 sqq. Canal's ' Dictionaire Francois et Italien' (published in 1603) contains the following item : " Lorion, ou loriot, sorte d' uccellino giallo, over biondo, che sana col' guardo." But the French word not only is the name of the bird, but from the fifteenth century has denoted a sty in the eye ; then it was leuriel (i.e., loriot), now it is compere-loriot. Scheler asks why, and favours a derivation of loriot in this sense from (h)ordeolus, rather than from aureolus. But his conjecture fails to find support. F. ADAMS. [The REV. W. R. TATE writes to the same effect.] QUOTATIONS IN TEXT-BOOKS (9th S. vi. 24, 172).—When ME. NESFIELD finds that his so- called proverb is merely a corruption of a well-known verse in Wordsworth, his best plan would surely be straightway to sub- stitute the correct version and not attempt my defence of the other. Many lines of verse have gained proverbial value, but that can be no reason for giving them incorrectly. " Fresh fields and pastures new," e.g., is abso- utely devoid of authority, and yet that is the common form in which one constantly sees and hears the phrase. Like quack medicines and shoddy generally, persistent misquotations steadily assert themselves, and ultimately gain careless and uncritical recognition. As •egards the sentence coined by ME. NESFIELD, to find him reaching a result that so closely •esembles in idea and form the Authorized Version of Job xiii. 15. This version is nearly three hundred years old, and, as it is not ikely to be displaced in a hurry, students of English grammar may safely add it to their repertory of strong complex sentences. THOMAS BAYNE. DEPRECIATION OF COINAGE'(9th S. v. 87, 174, 217,321).—The chapter of Oresme's treatise re- erred to in my query is the eighteenth. The words are "Mutationes hujusmodi suntnoviter adinventse Nunquam enim sic factum est n civitatibus aut regnisolim prospere guber- atis," &c. Oresme evidently thought that epreciations of the coinage in France were f recent origin. Le Blanc, however (p. 148, d. Amsterdam, 1792), quotes the 'Chronique e Maillezai' as having recorded a deprecia- ion as early as 1103. "Fuit magna tribu- atio," it says, "et nummi argentei pro seris nutati et facti sunt." W. W. C. QUOTATIONS IN GREEN'S 'SHORT HISTORY F THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ' (6"' S. ix. 28, 52 ; th S. vi. 114).—The author of the quotation Giraldus Cambrensis, otherwise called Gerald the Welshman. He was a "shrewd bserver," but certainly was not an English-
 * he remark may be allowed that it is curious