Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/64

 56

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL JAN. 19, 1901.

what one may call "milk-and-water" exple- tives, which mean the same thing, but do not sound quite so bad. If I might be so bold, I would submit that the vulgar expletive " Go to Jericho ! " (a saying which probably had its birth in pre-Reformation times) was based upon the parable of the Good Sama- ritan :

" A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment," &c. Luke x. 30. Here we have a suggestive description of a very dangerous locality, to which (in default of a worse) spiteful persons might wish an antagonist temporarily deported. About the time of the Crimean War a highly popular expletive was "Go to Bermondsey ! " This district was then, perhaps even more than now, a noted resort of extremely bad cha- racters, and thus formed a mild substitute for a warmer if more permanent residence for one's enemy " later on." I do not know if this phrase is still in vogue, but I think it has had its day. I often fancied it was a happy thought which entered the mind of George Augustus Sala, who exploited the expression so far as to introduce it in one oJ the tales told by the * Seven Poor Travellers, being the Christmas number of Household Words, 1854 ; and so it got into the pantomimes of that date. Many of our proverbial phrases are, I believe, based upon a Biblical origin as, for example, I have always though "Gone to the dogs " was a sort of allusion to the sad fate of Jezebel, though it may have referred rather to the story of Lazarus There used to be a little witticism perpe trated by the "slangy" newspapers abou sixty years ago : " The King of Prussia ha gone to Pot(sdam)." Perhaps in time to com this may be quoted as being the origin of th expression "Gone to pot." It would b interesting to search out some very early use in old plays or poetry, of " Go to Jericho !" HERBERT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

The alleged origin of the saying " Gone t Jericho," as quoted by your corresponden from the Property Market Review ( 29 September, 1900^ has long been familia to me in Morant's * Essex ' and the ' Arnbu lator.' In the fifth (1 793) edition of the latte work, p. 41, we find the following :

"Blackmore, a village in Essex, between Onga and Ingatestone, seven miles from Chelmsford. A ancient priory stood near the church. 'It

one to Jericho.' Here was born his natural son

enrv Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset,

id Earl of Nottingham, the friend and companion

the gallant and accomplished Earl of burry,

hose poetry makes such a distinguished figure in

he literature of the 16th century. This ancient

ructure was repaired, and some additions made

o it, about 70 years ago [i.e., circa 1723], by bir

acob Ackworth, Bart., whose daughter, lady

Wheate, sold it to the present [= 1793] possessor,

Richard Preston, Esq. The river Can, which partly

urrounds the garden, is still [1793] called here the

River Jordan."

The real origin of the saying, which is, owever, rather "Go to Jericho !" we must, " think, attribute to the parable of the Good amaritan in the New Testament. Indeed, have sometimes heard it as "Go to 'ericho and fall among thieves ! "

Hotten's ' Slang Dictionary,' to which your _rrespondent refers, gives "Jericho" as the name of " an improper quarter of Oxford."

W. -L. xv. V.

prince had a mind to repair to his courtezans, tl caqt word among his courtiers was, that he w

The phrase "Gone to Jericho" bears the meaning rather of consignment to perdition or penal exile than of deportation to a plea- ure house, such as the Jericho of Henry VIII. was, albeit the phrase may have been sug- gested to that monarch's courtiers by the original allusion to Jericho in 2 Sam. x. 5 : 'And the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return," whence it became a proverbial saying " to stay (or tarry) in Jericho (until one's beard is grown)" i.e., to wait in retirement or obscurity until one grows wiser : Who would, to curbe such insolence, I know, Bid such young boyes to stay in Jericho Until their beards were grown, their wits more staid. Heywood, ' Hierarchie,' iv. 208.

Halliwell does not cite an instance of the phrase, but says " Jericho, a prison. Hence the phrase to wish a person in Jericho." Let them all goe to Jericho, And n'ere be seen againe. Mercurius Aulicus, 1648, quoted in the

Athenceum of 14 Nov., 1874, p. 645.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. Wimbledon Park Road.

If MR. MARCHAM can obtain from the writer in the Property Market Review evi- dence that will bear out his extremely novel theory, I have no doubt DR. MURRAY will be delighted to see it. Pending the production of such proof, we may be content with what has already been written in ' N. & Q.,' 7 th S. ix. 343, 394. Q. V.

JOHN PEARSON (9 th S. vi. 446, 519). If I had trusted to recollection, I should not have made Pearson Bishop of Chester in 1662. I copied mechanically from the list of Margaret