Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/421

 9*s. VIIL NOV. 18, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

413

cross at St. Helen's in Abingdon, said " to revenge every false oath sworn upon its hilt with pangs and with visitations upon kindred and property." And the Grand Master observes :

" ' Well said our blessed rule, semper percutiatur ho vorcui*. Up on the lion ! Down with the destroyer !' said he, shaking aloft his mystic abacus, as if in defiance of the powers of darkness."

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

Funk & Wagnalls's ' Standard Dictionary ' gives as one meaning "a baculus,' and the following quotation from Mackey's * Masonic Lexicon ' :

in this country, Scott's per

of the Counties, Cities, and Corporations in Eng- land ; ' Testifying their Joy and Satisfaction, with solemn Promises and Resolutions of adhering to his Highness, with their Lives and Fortunes, against all his Enemies and Opposers. In these he was celebrated for the Excellence of his Wisdom, the Nobleness of his Mind, and in some for the Lovely Composition of his Body; His Wife, Father-in- Law, and Relations did not want their Compli- ments ; and the more to oblige Him, his Father Oliver was stil'd and compared to Moses, Zerub- babel, Joshua, Gideon, Elijah ; to the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel ; to David, Solomon, and Heze- kiah, and to Constantine the Great ; and to whom-

Th^ "

of

by all competent authorities called a baculus.'"

C. S. WARD. Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke.

Possibly a qualifying word was omitted. We have abacus harmonicus, abacus major, and abacus Pythagoricus. Lewis and Short may throw some light on the point.

ARTHUR MAYALL.

[Lewis and Short do not give any sense ap- proaching to wand.]

' ALRIGHT "= ALL RIGHT (9 th S. viii. 240, 312). It may be of some interest to say that the form "alright" began to appear in Scotland mainly in boys' letters, some six or eight years ago. More recently it has received the MS. support of well-educated adults, although it is still probably without the dignity con- ferred by literary recognition. The phrase has had such a long lease of colloquial im- portance that perhaps its final contraction into a single word is only a matter of time. THOMAS BAYNE.

Apropos of MR. MAYALL'S note on the above, I find in old family MSS. of 1620- 1630 "shalbe" and "wilbe," in one word and with one I, invariably written for shall be and will be in two words and with two I MICHAEL FERRAR.

Little Gidding, Baling.

LOYAL ADDRESSES TO RICHARD CROMWELL h S. iii. 367 ; iv. 30). Laurence Echard, in his l History of England,' vol. ii. p. 830 (the date of this volume is 1718), says :

' Infinite addresses came up from all Parts ; Ireland ; next from all the Independent Congrega- tional Assemblies ; Thirdly, from the most eminent
 * irst from the Soldiery in England, Scotland, and
 * the London Ministers, as also from the French,

Dutch, and Italian Churches ; and Lastly from most

Goodness. He was lamented as the Father of his Country, the Restorer of pleasant Paths to dwell in f whom we were not worthy,' and what not?

other in this

, or chief Ministers, Good- win and Nye."

Rapin, in his 'History of England,' third edition, 1743, vol. ii. p. 602, says :

"Addresses were presented to Richard from all parts, signed by many thousands, to congratulate him upon his accession to the dignity of Protector, and to assure him they would willingly hazard their lives and fortunes to support him."

And p. 603 :

had, as I said, the pleasure of receiving Addresses from Boroughs, Cities, and Counties, to the number of four score and ten, and afterwards he had the like compliment paid him from all the regiments, without any exception."
 * At the beginning of his Protectorship Richard

marginal references in Rapin are " Clarendon iii. p. 513. Whitelock. R, Coke, t. ii. p. 77. Heath." I am aware that Echard 's 'History of England' is not held in high esteem. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

St. Austin's, Warrington.

A CORK LEG (9 th S. yiii. 204, 307). The term "a cork leg" is still in use as a defini- tion of an artificial leg. A workman here- about receives injury and loses his leg. His friends and "mates," if he cannot afford it, pay for a cork leg for him ; and no matter what the artificial limb is made of providing that it is riot a stump or wooden leg it is "a cork leg." There are several old songs about cork legs as well as wooden legs.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

My experience of much more than thirty years is entirely at variance with that of MR. HEMS. So far from the term being obsolete, here in the West a "cork leg" is the common, almost invariable name for an artificial one, of whatever material it is made, so that it be jointed, and in some way an imitation of the natural limb ; and the terra