Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/41

 9*s. vn. JAJT. K, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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MAX MULLER AND WESTMINSTER ABBE (9 th S. vi. 446, 495). Perhaps, as a P.S. t< what has appeared, the following, from Mrs Oliphant's 'Life of Principal Tulloch,' maj be of interest :

"Dean Stanley had made the curious innovatio of establishing a kind of singular lectureship in th nave of the Abbey of Westminster, at which, frorr time to time, various notable persons, not eccle

siastics of theChurch of England, had appeared

The Principal had been asked to be one of these

lecturers, but he had disliked the idea of appearinj under sufferance, so to speak, in a plaee where hi orders were not acknowledged, or his positior allowed, solely as a sort of protdgd of the Dean. J5

However, Mrs. Oliphant adds, the Dean had his way, and Tulloch, referring to his lecture, wrote to his wife :

" I had an uncomfortable feeling not only as to the strangeness of holding forth in Westminster Abbey, but as to my being an unauthorized person there."

The service took place in the nave, imme- diately after the three o'clock Evensong, which had been, as usual, chanted in the choir, and lasted, Tulloch writes, "with the Dean's short prayer, and the singing of the hymn, just an hour altogether."

GEORGE ANGUS. St. Andrews, N.B.

"FKAIL" (9 th S. iv. 436, 507 ; v. 51, 158 ; vi. 378). In the victualling (garnisona) of the ship sent into Norway for the Maid (domicella) of Scotland in 1290, payments were made (inter alia) :

"Pro dimidio quarterii gruellse avenge, iij.s. iiije?.

Pro xx libris j quarterio zingiberis, xxijs. xd.

kt pro ij fraellis ncuum, et pro ij fraellis race-

morum,* xiiij*. Et ij libris croci, x-s. Et pro uno

gurdo gingebrade, ponderis xxviijli., xlij-s Et

pro xviij clatibus circa bisquyt in navi." J. Steven- son, ' Documents illust. Hist. Scotl.' (1870), i. 140. See also pp. 188, 189.

The prices and wages noted in both the docu- ments referred to are of great interest. What was the gruella avena ? Some of it was used by the envoys, " et residuum dederunt mari- narii pro Deo,t quia corruptum." The items as to "gingerbread "and biscuit may be worth noting by possessors of the 'H.E.D.'

An earlier instance occurs in the Patent Bolls, 1 Henry III. (Twenty-sixth Deputy- Keeper's Rep., 67). On 12 December, 1216, Ereminus Bekin received a safe -conduct, "ad veniendum in Angliam cum uno frahello weidice, et quod inde auferat mercandisas ad valentiam praedicti frahelli." Q. V.

I printed, f r racenorum, raisins, t What is the exact meaning of this odd ex- pression ?

" BLACKSTRAP ": ORIGIN OF THE WORD (9 th S. vi. 505). See blackstrap and blackwine, s.v. 'Black' in the 'E.D.D./and the quotations therewith, one of which explains that black- ivine or blaakwuyn was port. Sherry was white wine. The word blackstrap has not been confined to port alone, and the meaning of the second syllable has yet to be declared. ARTHUR MAYALL.

When "the 'N.E.D.' did not come to the rescue" with this word, R. B. should, like Mohammed under similar circumstances, have gone to the dictionary. He would there (p. 890, col. 3) have found black strap explained, with four quotations ranging from 1785 to 1842. In three of these the name is written as two words, the form adopted in the dictionary, where the phrase is treated in a group of " specialized combinations," with black cattle, black coal, Black Country, black sugar, Black Watch, and the like. M.

THE TITLE OF ESQUIRE (9^ S. vi. 387, 452, 470). I do not propose to intervene with regard to this delicate question, but I think MR. A. C. FOX-DAVIES is led into error with regard to surnames by what is nevertheless a laudable enthusiasm.

English surnames were originally assumed >y individuals or conferred by custom, and hey have never been fixed by law or regis- tered by a competent authority there being, n fact, no such authority. Down to quite recent times persons have spelt their names iccording to their own sweet wills, and at net with who spell their names differently n different occasions. The fact seems to )e that any person may call himself by any urnarne he chooses without a breach of aw, but that no one who has known an ndividual by one name is under any obliga- ion to address him by another, unless 'irected so to do (in effect) by royal letters >atent.
 * he present day illiterate persons may be

I do not desire to commend the practice f altering or adding to patronymics, but at he same time the fact should not be lost ight of that there is absolutely no legal bligation in the matter, and that in recent ears no disability of any kind has attached o a person bearing what may be loosely escribed as a "false" name, though false it trictly is not if it has been permanently dopted. JAMES DALLAS.

Is the word "Esquire" a real title, seeing lat we use it only as a suffix, like "D.L." or J.P."? These initials are expressive of uality or rank ; thus " Yeoman " is not a