Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/191

 9* 8. VII. MARCH 9, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

183

somewhat of the meaning of that word.

'You don't mean to say that he was burked, Sain?' said Mr. Pickwick."

To ailvinize. To imbue with or teach the doctrines of John Calvin.

To daguerreotype. To photograph after the process invented, or rather perfected, by Louis James Maride Daguerre, of delineating objects by the chemical action of light upon polished metal plates (1789-1851).

To dempster. To hang. Old cant, from "dempster," the executioner, so called because it was his duty to repeat the sentence to the prisoner in open court. This was dis- continued in 1773 (Barrere and Leland).

To dewitt. Evidently with a play upon the name as if it were "do it." John De Witt, the Dutch statesman, was murdered by the populace at The Hague (1625-72).

To diddle. To cheat or overreach, from Jeremy Diddler in Kenny's farce of 'Raising the Wind.'

To be druryed. Bishop Hall, in his sermon 'Pharisaisme and Christianitie,' preached " at Paules," 1 May, 1608, uses this curious ex- pression : " Devout young gentlemen whose faire patrimonies have been druryed by the Jesuits," and adds :

"Pardon the word, it is their owne usual

amongst them to signify Beguiled and wip't of their inheritance ; from the example of M. Henry Drury of Lawshull in Suffolk so defeated by the Jesuites. - 4 N. &Q.,'6 th S. i. 194.

To endacott.To act like a constable of that name who arrested a woman whom he mistook for a prostitute. Subsequent in- vestigation, however, showed that the con- stable's name ought not to go down to pos- terity as that of an oppressor of womankind.

To erastianize. To advocate the subjec- tion of the Church to the State. Thomas Erastus, a German physician, contended originally for the principle that all authority should be denied the Church in matters affecting civil rights (1524-83).

To galvanize. Luigi Galvani, the Italian physiologist and discoverer of galvanism, was born 1737 and died 1798.

To gasconade. To boast. The inhabitants of Gascony have always been noted for their boastings.

To gerri/mander.A political slang Ameri- canism, meaning so to divide a country or nation into representative districts as to give one special political party undue advan- tage over the others. From Elbridge Gerry, who adopted the scheme when Governor of Massachusetts. Gilbert Stuart, the artist, looking at the map of the new distribution, with a little invention converted it into a

salamander. " No ! no ! " said Russell when shown it; "not a sala-mander, Stuart; call it a Gerry-mander." [See 6 th S. xi. 246, 378 ; 7 th S. xi. 308 ; xii. 34, 131 ; 8 th S. i. 136.]

To </odfrey.To murder, in allusion, it is said, to the fate of Sir Edmond Godfrey; but Lord Macaulay refers the verb to the tragic death of Michael Godfrey, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, in July, 1695 :

" While they were talking, a cannon ball from the ramparts laid Godfrey dead at the King's feet. It was not found, however, that the fear of being God- freyed such was during some time the cant phrase sufficed to prevent idle gazers from coming to the trenches." ' History of England,' chap. xxi. ('N. &Q.,'9 th S. iv. 445)."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. (To be continued.)

[Such words have been discussed in ' N. & Q.' from time to time, e.g., ' Proper Names turned into Verbs,' 6 th S. vi. 345, and many other references. Words ending in -ize are being daily formed ; it would be better, perhaps, to restrict the list to words more directly made out of proper names, such as to Horace in the reference just made. Infor- mation about many of the words will also be found in the ' H.E.D.']

REFERENCES IN EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE TO DR. DONNE.

IN the course of my somewhat desultory reading I have come upon several references in our early literature to Dr. Donne, which, with the kind permission of the Editor of ' N. & Q.,' I shall reproduce here.

In ' Sir Lucius Cary, late Lord Viscount of Falkland, His Discourse of Infallibility, &c., 3 1651, there is the following passage (p. 107):

"For we seeing plainlie, that in the purest ages many of the chiefest Doctors have contradicted some of her [Church of Rome] Tenets, without suspicion of Heresie, are not able to conceive how a doctrine should, from being indifferent in one age, become necessarie in another, and the contrarie from onely false, Hereticall,

As time makes Botches Pox, And plodding on will make a Calfe an Oxe, especially if that way had allwaies been walkt in, which you now speak of."

Against the lines quoted in the above extract the reference is given on the margin " Dr. D." They are to be found in the second of Donne's 'Satires.'

Edmund Gayton, in his 'Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot,' 1654, p. 35, refers to Donne in these terms (the lines quoted are from his poem on ' The Storm ') :

" Especially since the loss of that famous Hyliard [the painter], made more famous by the Incom- parable expression of the dead Author,

A hand, or eye,

By Hyliard drawne, is worth a history, By a worse painter made."