Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/515

 9* s. vi. DEC. i, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 427 about in a carriage with a leather hood to it, and that people used to point at him and it and remark, "There is nothing like leather." A third gentleman writes to me and says he is sure there is nothing esoteric about the phrase; that the same thing might be said of any good article; and that, in tact, we have various kindred phrases, like "Taking the cake," "As hard as steel," <tc. For myself, I am not _quite satisfied with any of these explanations, and shall bo glad to know if any of your readers can prove its true origin. HOLCOMBE INGLEBY. Heacham Hall, Norfolk. P-S.—Since writing the above I have been informed that the Leathersellers' Company have adopted this phrase as their motto. It would be interesting to learn the date of their doing so. [We have always understood this to mean : you praise your own wares, profession, *c. ; you have an eye to business; and we have seen it paralleled by Moliere's "Vous etes orfevre, Monsieur Josse" ('L'Amour Meclecin,' I. i.), which has become pro- verbial in the same sense. There is a song about trades in which a line runs like this :— The shoemaker said," There is nothing like leather.1' One other line that may lead to the tracing of the poem is The carpenter said, "And that was well spoke," the rime being "oak." We quote from distant memory. See also 6th S. vi. 515 ; vii. 232; viii. 337.] A FISH FABLE.—I have read most collec- tions of fables without having seen in any of them the following, which I translate from the Talmud (Berachoth 61 b). A fox was strolling along the banks of a river and noticed shoals of fishes rushing to and fro in great trepidation. " Why this hurry- ing?" said he. The fishes replied, "We are seeking a place of safety from the fisher- men's nets. "The simplest matter in the world," retorted Reynard: " come up here and accept my protection, as your ancestors did in my father's time." Then the fishes made answer, " Hitherto we always credited you with a goodly measure of common sense. You are a fool. For if in our natural element we cannot find a moment's peace, what chance of salvation should we get on land ? " M. L. It. BRESLAR. "BoxNER."— The Offord Magazine for 23 May last contained a distich ' On a Bon- fire in Broad Street,' which ran as follows:— Fate on the miscreant's head brings due returns ; Where Ridley and a Cranmer once, now Bonner burns. A few years ago a tendency to end all, or nearly all, words in common use with the syllable -er seems to have obsessed the greater part of undergraduate Oxford. This abuse of a serviceable suffix appears, accord- ing to some, to have invaded the University by way of Harrow School, where, in my day, such words as sneechei; footer, and ducker formed respectively the recognized synonyms for speech-room or speech-day, football, and the inagnifical bathing-place, which is the legitimate descendant of the old .-duck puddle beloved of Byron. Six or seven winters ago I sometimes heard the word banner used to indicate a Fifth-of-November bonfire within the very walls where the great burning bishop himself began the study of canon law, in which he excelled ; for the western side of Pembroke's little front quadrangle certainly occupies part of the site of Broadgates Hall, which was transformed into a college in 1624, the older portion of the present library—the dining-hall of Dr. Johnson's day—being of the fifteenth century. Edmund Bonner entered the Hall about 1512 as a scullion, but was promoted to a servitorship, "and so by his industry raysed to what he was." When Bishop of London, "in acknowledgement whence he had his rise, he gave to the kitchen there a great brasse-pott." Aubrey recollected having seen this cauldron, " the biggest, perhaps, in Oxford." When Oxford was occupied by the soldiers of the Parlia- ment it " was taken away from the College," and in 1674 Wood could find no recollection of it at Pembroke. Bonner's Chancellor, John Story (1537), and his nephew Thomas Darbishire (1556) were both Principals of Broadgates. It is curious that the irony of fate should contrive, even only through a cor- ruption of tongues, that Bonner's name should thus be associated with that of the unfortunate Guy Fawkes, and that the persecuting prelate should himself un- wittingly play the chief part in a bloodless untheological Smithfield on the site of Latimer's martyrdom. At Pembroke, more- over, the college Gaudy was formerly held on Gunpowder Plot day, to the greater honour of the royal founder, King James; but nowadays this annual festival takes place on the first Thursday in November, the traditional burning of villainous saltpetre on the 5th being chiefly indulged in by the undergraduate members of the com- munity. The ' H.E.D.,' however, gives a real word derived from the bishop's patronymic, namely, Jionneriny, or burning for heresy, and quotes as follows:—