Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/157

 s. vm. AUG. 17, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

149

('Robin Hood and the Ranger,' Child's ' Ballads,' v. 209) ; and Shakespeare, " I '11 smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right " (' King John,' II. i. 139). Then another sense of the verb implying punishment is thought to have originated with the fact that, at the stake, the smoke kills the victim or deadens his senses before his limbs become sensible to the flames; e.g., " Some of you shall smoke for it in Rome "('Titus Andron.,'IV. ii. 111). As to a cobbler being selected as a victim, not only his exposure to such opportunities, as he sat at work, would account for it, but also the contempt, for some reason or other, pro- bably his poverty, in which the calling was generally held. "Cobbler's pork," for instance, was bread ; " cobbler's punch," gin and water with a little treacle and vinegar ; "cobbler's lobster," co wheel ; while a " cobbler's curse " according to the ' Dialect Dictionary ' is the extreme of valuelessness. But while a smoked cobbler would, for pecuniary reasons, with- hold his curse from his festive tormentors, he would not fail to enforce "cobbler's law he that takes money must pay the shot," for " cobblers and tinkers are the best ale- drinkers," which is perhaps why the former's wife goes the worst shod.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

In 'The Club,' by James Puckle, reissued last year with an introduction by Mr. Austin Dobson, at p. 112 one reads of "earthing, digging, and smoaking a badger." The meaning of " smoaking " here is " smoking out," and the transference of the practice to the case of the cobbler in his stall is easy. One has heard of such pranks as ascending the roofs of houses, where they were low enough to afford easy access, and causing the interiors to be smoked by stopping the chim- neys with grass-sods or other substances. For reasons probably connected with the desire to keep their leather in good con- dition, cobblers more than other tradesmen have affected low-roofed and sometimes even cellar dwellings, and by so doing in the time of Steele they lent themselves to the attacks of the " very merry fellows " mentioned.

ARTHUR MAYALL.

ARMORIAL (9 th S. v. 355). I do not think that there is any known connexion between the De la Brokes of Leigh ton in Cheshire arid the Leighton family, who were of Leighton in Shropshire, and resident there very shortly after the Norman Conquest, if not before.

Sir Thomas Leighton, Knt., Governor of Jersey and Guernsey, Constable of the Tower of London, was the second son of John

Leighton, of Watlesborough in Salop, by his second wife Joyce Sutton. He was knighted May, 1579, and was M.P. for Beverley 1571 ; M.P. for Northumberland 1572-83; M.P. for Worcestershire in 1601 ; member of the Court of the Marches of Wales ; obtained the manor of Feckenham by grant from Queen Elizabeth, also a lease of the fisheries in Norhamshire ; buried in the church of St. Peter's Port, Thursday, 1 Feb., 1609 (inq. p.m., 2 Oct., 1611). He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, Knt., of Rotherfield Greys, co. Oxford, and had two daughters Elizabeth, wife of Sherringtpn Talbot, of Lacock, co. Wilts, and Anne, wife of Sir John St. John, Bart., of Lydiard- Tregoz and a son Thomas, of whose descend- ants an account is given in Nichols's * His- tory of Leicester,' vol. iii. part ii. p. 1146.

H. R. LEIGHTON. East Boldon, R.S.O., co. Durham.

SIR THOMAS COOKE, SHERIFF OF LONDON, 1692-3 (9 th S. vii. 429; viii. 19). G. E. C. mentions one Wini am Home, of Ead, near Exeter. The village in question is now known as Ide. Home is still a common surname in Devonshire. HARRY HEMS.

Marseilles.

BLUE BEARD (9 th S. vii. 224, 355 ; viii. 24). The following items, recorded by M. De la Force, may have afforded additional ground- work for the Blue Beard fable :

VII. 37-8. "J'ai deja insinue qu'une de ces portes [de Tours] s'appelle la porte Hugon, que le peuple par corruption nomme la porte Fourgon, pour dire la porte de feu Hugon. Hugon selon Eginhard dans la vie de Charlemagne, et selon quelques autres Historiens, etoit Comte de Tours. 11 y a apparence que s'etant rendu redoutable par sa mechancete et par la ferocite" de ses moeurs, on en a fait apres sa raort 1'epouventail des enfans et des femmelletes, et le canevas de beaucoup de fables. M. deThou, malgr6 sa gravit6, n'apas dedaigned'en parler dans son Histoire (Livre 24). Ccesaroduni, dit ce celebre Historien, Hugo Rex celebratur, qui noctu pomceria civitatis obequitare, et obvios homines pulsare, et rapere dicitur. Ainsi on menace a Tours du Roi Hugon, comme a Paris du Moine Bouru, a Orleans du Mulct Odet, et a Blois du Loupgarou. D'Avila et quelques autres Historiens ont cru que les Calvinistes ont ete appellez Huguenots, parce que ceux qui furent les premiers infectez de cette heresie dans la ville de Tours, s'assembloient la nuit dans des caves qui 6toient aupres de la Porte Hugon" [P. 51, s.v. Amboise : "C'est dans cette ville que commencerent les guerres civiles du Royaume 1'an 1561, et que le uom de Huguenots fut donn aux Calvinistes pour la premiere fois."]

VII. 142." Le Seigneur de Pac a aussi droit de mener ou faire mener le jour de la Trinit, par ses gens etOfficiers, a la Dame toutes les femmes jolies [N.B. Jolie se prend ici pour prude et sage] qu'ils trouveront a Saumur et es Fauxbpurgs tout ledti jour. Chacune de ces femmes jolies est tenue de