Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/610

 506 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vi. DKC. 29,1900. but we still recognize Mm, and even refer to him, as "auld Mahoun." THOMAS BAYNB. Glasgow. EARLY LINES ON CRICKET.—The history of our national pastime, cricket, prior at least to the middle of the last century, is scant and obscure. Any earlier MS. references to the game must therefore bo of particular interest to the many who delight therein. In the library of the late Mr. Henry Newn- ham Davis is an unbound fragment of a copy of "The Newe Testament [Tyndale's ver- sion! with the notes and expositions of the Dark Places therein," black letter, with woodcuts, R. Jugge (1552?), small quarto, containing, on the blank lower portion of the leaf ending St. Luke, the following MS. lines :— All you that do delight in Cricket come to Marden Pitch your wickits Harden Boys I am Shure they like it to Play with Might and Valyer Marden Bovs they be So Bould thur English herts wont be Controld. The Id in "Bould" is not now visible, owing to a very small piece of the paper having apparently been eaten away by some insect, and the rold in "Controld" is very faint. There is nothing to indicate by whom the entry as above was made, nor is it dated— although another of the pages of the text is defaced at foot with " John Ru ve [or " Reive "] 1748 [?]" in a different and later hand. Judging, however, by the writing, I should consider it to be of the latter part of the seventeenth century (say circa 1690). Pos- sibly it was written by a schoolboy. The " Marden " referred to is, I am inclined to think, in Herefordshire, but there are other places of the name in Kent, Sussex, and Wilts. " Marden," it should be remem- bered, also = Mertpn • and it may be the place of that name in Surrey. W. I. R, V. DUTCH AND ENGLISH MANNERS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—The following curi- ous illustration of the manners of the two countries is to be found in the (anonymous) 1 Memoirs of what past in Christendom from the War begun 1672 to the Peace concluded 1679,' by Sir William Temple, English Am- bassador at the Hague. Though the first incident described be not a very savoury one, the passage seems to be worth transcribing : " Dining one day at Monsieur Ilotffs and having a great Cold, I observed every time 1 spit, a tight handsome Wench (that stood in the Room with a clean Cloth in her Hand) was presently down to wipe it up and rnb the Board clean : Somebody at Table speaking of my Cold I said. The most trouble it gave me was to see the poor Wench take so much pains about it: Monsieur Hoeft told me 'Twas well I escaped so; and that if his Wife had been at home, tho' I were an Ambassador, she would have turn'd me out of door for fouling her House: And laughing at that humour, said. There were two Rooms of his House that he never durst come into and believed they were never open but twice a year to make them clean, I said I found he was a good Patriot; and not only in the Interests of his Coun- trey, but in the Customs of his Town, (Amsterdam) where that of the Wives governing, was, I heard a thing established. He replied 'Twas true, and that all a man could hope for there, was to have «ne doure Patrone, and that his Wife was so. Another of the Magistrates at Table who was a graver man, said, Monsieur Hoeft was pleasant; but the thing was no more so in their Town, than in other places that he knew of. Hotfl replied very briskly. It was so, and could not be otherwise, for it had long been the Custom : and whoever offered to break it. would have banded against him, not only all tho Women of the Town, but all those Men too that wore governed by their Wives, which would make too great a party to be opposed. In the afternoon, upon a visit and occasion of what had been said at Monsieur Hoe.fP*, many Stories were told of the strange and curious Cleanliness So general in that City; and some so extravagant that my Sister took them for Jest; when the Secretary of Amnferclam that was of the Company, desiring her to look out of the Window, said, Why Madam there is the House where one of our Magistrates [is] going to visit tho Mistres? of it. and knocking at the Door a strapping North Holland Lass came and opened it; he asked, Whether her Mistress was at home? she said, Yes; And with that he offered to go in: But the Wench marking his Shoes were not very clean, took him by both Arms, threw him upon her back, carryed him cross two Rooms, set him down at the bottom of the Stairs, pull'd off his Shoes, put him on a pair of Slippers that stood there, and all this without saying a word ; but when she had done, told him. He mif>ht go up to her Mistress who was in her Chamber." J. ELIOT HODGKIN. Weybridge. "CLUZZOM."—To "cluzzom"is to appropriate what is not one's own. The word is heard occasionally in and around Nottingham, but is not, I think, very common. Halliwell has " Clv-ssomed, benumbed," and " Clusnim, clumsy " (both noted as Cheshire words), but there is no apparent connexion between these and the Nottinghamshire verb. C. C. B. VANISHING LONDON.—Those who hold the landmarks of London in esteem will regret the disappearance of Harley (once Bruns- wick) House, at the corner of Brunswick Place and Marylebone Road. The Queen of Oude lived there for some time ; after which it became the Convent of Marie Reparatrice, a chapel being subsequently built in the grounds. The extensive gap disclosed by the