Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/357

 9* s. vii. MAY 4, 1901,] NOTES AND QUERIES.

349

I remember a parchment slip of great antiquity relating to St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, which contained a number of names, some of which had a pin-prick opposite to them, indicating that the owners had been "pricked," or chosen to act in some capacity or other. If practicable this ought to be secured by the Guildhall, or the church to which it refers. I remember also a beautifully illuminated service book, once belonging to one of the small City monasteries or priories ; on a fly-leaf were inscribed an inventory of plate belonging to the house, and a list of the Wars of the Roses, just jotted down as they were fought a piece of contemporary reporting ! I should like to see that book secured to the City. Mr. Jackson's untimely death will, I fear, have the effect of robbing many of his curios of their histories, for they were not in any way catalogued, so far as I understood, a circumstance which is indeed to be regretted. It is greatly to be wished that such a remarkable collection as his should be examined before it has an opportunity of being dispersed (if that is contemplated) ; much of it was of great interest to the one square mile.' " Can any one say where this collection and particularly the " beautifully illuminated service book "now is, or furnish additional information with regard to it, and to what monastery this book formerly belonged ?

H. W. U.

" BRITISH LION " : " RUSSIAN BEAR." What are the origin and derivation of these terms 1

X. L. Philadelphia.

[" Russian Bear " is a nickname for a Russian (see Brewer's 'Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,' and, under 'National Nicknames,' 'N. & Q.,' 9 th S. iv. 90, 212). The lion, as the emblem of England, replaced the leopard (see ' Lions versus Leopards,' 8 th S. xi. 125, 275, 398). Much information on sub- jects connected with your queries will be found in our columns.]

POPE'S * DUNCIAD.' Can any of your readers inform me if ME. THOMS'S biblio- graphy of 'The Dunciad' was printed in book form, or did it appear in ' N. & Q. ' ? If so, when ? I am anxious to get a copy.

ALDUS.

[That MR. THOMS meditated a bibliography of 'The Dunciad' is shown in 1 st S. xi. and xii. A bibliography of Pope and his quarrels, in which the late COL. F. GRANT largely participated, appears in th S. xii.]

Coco DE MER OR DOUBLE COCO-NUT. Will some one kindly give me a reference to the speculations of General Gordon (of Khartoum) on the identity of this fruit with the forbidden fruit ? W. CROOKE.

Langton House, Charlton Kings.

1 ROSCIAD.' Can any of your readers state who was the author of a poem called * The Rosciad,' published some years before that of Churchill, with the following title : " The Rosciad. A Poem. Printed for J. Robinson

at the Golden Lion in Ludgate Street, MDCCL." ? The copy in the British Museum, and the Catalogue there, give no information as to the authorship. TERRESTRIS.

[The authorship is unknown. No copy other than that in the British Museum was known to Mr. Lowe, Bibl. Ace. of English Theat. Lit.']

any of your readers help me to find 'The Troth of Gilbert a Beckett ' or the ' Saracen Maid'? WILLIAM NEW ALL.
 * THE TROTH OF GILBERT A BECKETT.' Can

" GRASSHOPPER "=GINGALL. In an account of the Kandyan campaign of 1803 printed in vol. ii. of Cordiner's ' Description of Ceylon ' (1807), the writer savs (p. 190) that at one of the royal palaces trie British forces " found nothing worth carrying away, excepting a few Candian guns, commonly known by the name of jinjal pieces, or grasshoppers." In the glossary at the end of Cordiner's work we also find, "Jinjal, a matchlock, or large musket, which rests upon long legs, hence, also, called a grasshopper." The 'H.E.D.' does not record this meaning of the word grasshopper, and the earliest instance of gingall that it (as also Yule in 'Hobson- Jobson ') gives is dated 1818. The Dutch in Ceylon gave the name sprinkhaan to the curious-looking native gun, and Cordiner's grasshopper is a literal translation of the Dutch. I have not found grasshopper used by any other English writer on Ceylon with the above meaning, the weapon being referred to under the various forms of gengal (1810), gingal (1815), jingall (1821), gin-gaul (1830), &c. The Sinhalese name (borrowed from the Tamil) of this cannon is kodituvak- kuva, which is explained in Clough's ' Sin- halese-English Dictionary' as "sort of gun used by the Kandians, and placed when fired on a portable tripod ; grasshopper gun, jingal." DONALD FERGUSON.

Croydon.

HUMPHREY CONINGSBY, OF HAMPTON COURT, co. HEREFORD. He was M.P. for Hereford- shire in the Long Parliament until disabled as a Royalist in January, 1644, having been elected in 1641 upon the expulsion of his father, Fitzwilliam Coningsby, one of the soap monopolists. As he was bapt. 22 September, 1622, he was under age when he became M.P. He served as lieutenant-colonel in the royal army, and was in Hereford at the time of the surrender of that city to Waller, 25 April, 1643. He succeeded his father at Hampton Court in August, 1666, after which nothing seems to be recorded of him. By his wife Lettice, dau. of Sir Arthur Loftus,