Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/133

 g s. vii. FEB. is, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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worse, for it asserts, in parenthesis, that Huloet identified "bow-legged" with "knock- kneed." The resulting situation is so distress- ing to one's ideas as to be almost pathetic, and there does not seem to be any definite conclusion to the question as to how one stands in this case. Such etymology as there is for "bandy "is on the side of "knock"; and if the question of the term as applied to a dog's legs be taken up, there is no decisive- ness in this respect, because dogs have two pairs of legs, the fore legs bowed and the hind legs knocking, as regards the hocks. While one cannot be too grateful for full and exact information, it is sad to see one's lifelong ideas sharing the fate of Troy and "the Maypole in the Strand." One has doubts of the Gow Chrom. "Time will doubt of Rome." ARTHUR MAYALL.

"BILLYCOCK" HAT. It is odd to find the Edinburgh Review, in its first number of the century, giving the stamp of its authority to the following etymological crotchet (pp. 103-4) :-

"Later, Mr. Thomas William Coke, famous in Norfolk, and afterwards Lord Leicester, brought

his hounds into the county [Essex] Mr. Coke

himself, besides being a fox-hunter, is now remembered by many as a friend of agriculture ; it is, however, forgotten by most persons that he was the inventor of the ' Billy Coke' hat."

" Forgotten " ! How many persons ever knew it 1 We have, indeed, evidence, on the canvas of Gainsborough, that Coke wore a broad - brimmed hat ; but broad - brimmers were invented long before Coke was born (1752), and at the commencement of the reign of George III. (1760) cocked hats were worn with an average breadth of brim of 6 3 / 5 inches (see Blanche's 'British Costume,' 1847 ed., p. 400). In default of a view of Gainsborough's painting, I cannot know what was the exact shape or set of Coke's hat. It is hard, how- ever, to believe that he was its " inventor " or designer ; and the assertion in Brewer's 'Phrase and Fable' that the "Coke hat" is still known among hatters does not prove that hats of the pattern worn by Coke were named after him by his contemporaries, far less that there was ever such a designation as a " Billy Coke " hat. The notion is incredible, for when anybody possesses two Christian names the first in order is that by which he is called, except in very rare instances. Thomas William Coke would therefore have been, among his familiars, Tommy Coke. But to break through rule is an easy feat for the etymology -guesser ; and in the present case the next step, the assumption of a corruption of "Billy Coke" to "billycock,"

is equally easy. Dr. Murray either ignores or passes over all this, merely hazarding a suggestion that " billycock " is a corruption of "bully-cocked," a term certainly applied to cocked broad - brimmers in 1721. Unfortu- nately, he is unable to adduce any example of "billycock" antecedent in date to 1862. Such a corruption is, at any rate, more feasible than that affirmed by the late Dr. Brewer, and there is a possibility of earlier instances of " billycock " coming to notice ; but we may be quite sure that "Billy Coke" never had existence save in the etymologaster's crooked conceit the same conceit that fabricated buffetier, to cite a notorious instance of word derivation. F. ADAMS.

"BETTER TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST." What Dr. Currie considered "the last-finished offspring of Burns's muse" was his tender and haunting address to Jessie Lewars the steadfast friend of his declining days under the title " A health to ane I loe dear." The following stanza of that lyric is expressed with the poet's customary felicity of diction and decisive intensity of feeling : Altho' thou maun never be mine,

Altho' even hope is denied ; 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing Than ought in the world beside.

There is no intention of saying here that the author of ' In Memoriam ' drew upon Burns for the sentiment of one of his most popular stanzas ; nor shall surprise be expressed even at an admission of inability to grasp kinship of idea in the two passages. But there need be no hesitation in asserting that the luxurious tension of hopeless love is not better depicted anywhere than in these thrilling lines of Burns. THOMAS BAYNE.

" MANURANCE." In my copy of the * Tithe Award for Sedgeford ' this word twice occurs in the sense of tenure or occupation. John- son (1755) says of it, "an obsolete word, worthy of revival." Probably it never was quite obsolete, as its use in 1842 serves to show ; but none of the more modern diction- aries gives it, and the editors of the ' H.E.D.' may be glad to know of this instance of its survival. HOLCOMBE INGLEBY.

FORECOURT, &c., ASHBURNHAM HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. The mention of the fore- court to Clopton Hall in my reply to the query re 'Columbaria' (ante, p. 116) calls to my mind the paved forecourt at Ashburn- ham House, Westminster, and naturally also brings back recollections of the house as it appeared in 1881, before alterations, when I made measured drawings for study. I have