Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/71

 9*8. viii. JULY 20, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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as beneath her. The groat lady's feeling were so much outraged by seeing these young women going to say their prayers with these freshly introduced articles 01 luxury in their hands that she took the first opportunity of expressing to the family her strong disapproval. Whether this had the desired effect I do not remember, but I think the parasols were laid aside. This story is certainly true. I knew both the titled lady and her victims, and have often heard the latter speak of it. ASTARTE.

SOLAR OR NATURE MYTHS. It is not gener- ally known that the practice of explaining anything as a solar or nature myth is very old. Gibbon, referring to the Emperor Julian the Apostate, and others who treated the Greek myths as allegories, writes as follows :

"As the traditions of pagan mythology were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty to select the most convenient circumstances ; and, as they translated an arbitrary cypher, they could extract from any fable any sense which was adapted to their favourite system of religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some physical truth ; and the castration of Atys explained the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human soul from vice and error." 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' chap, xxiii.

E. YARDLEY.

ORIGIN OF THE WORD " JINGO" AS A POLITICAL EPITHET. One of the many advantages of * N. & Q.' is that in its pages historic truth is authenticated, which would otherwise sink into vague tradition. A minor instance is the now oft-recurring word "Jingo." The term was first used as a political designation in a letter which I addressed to the Daily News, and which appeared 13 March, 1878, entitled 'Jingoes in the Park,' under circumstances mentioned in ' N. & Q.,' 9 th S. yii. 386. On Prof. Minto's ' Life ' being published a year or two ago, the public learnt that he claimed to have " popu- larized" the term which was true. Since, ?uany persons who have not stopped to notice that to " popularize " is not to originate have imputed the origin of the term "Jingo" as a political epithet to Mr. Minto. His biographer gives the date in 1879 when Mr. Minto first began to use the word in leading articles in the Daily News, nearly twelve months after the term was first used in the same journal to designate the bombastic, hilarious, and rowdy patriots of the music- halls whom we know so well to-day.

GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

A LOST TOWN IN SUFFOLK. In the list of ships and men furnished by various towns for the siege of Calais under Edward III. (MS. Harl.3968, printed in Hakluyt, 'Voyages,' i., and in Sir Harris Nicolas's 'History of the Royal Navy ') the name of " Gofforde "- printed by Hakluyt as " Goford "appears among the contributors to the South Fleet, between the towns of Orford and Harwich. It furnished thirteen ships. The other names in the list are approximately in geographical order ; but where, in modern Suffolk, is " Gofforde " ? A well-known authority has suggested to me that Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, took his surname from his manor of Offord or Ufford on the Deben ; and it is therefore possible that the contribution of his district to the fleet (which would have included the contingents of Eye and Fram- lingham) may have been grouped under that name, as the contingents of Winchelsea and Rye are grouped with that of Hastings by T enry III.'s ordinance of 1229. The reading Gofforde" is quite clear in the MS. On the above hypothesis it would be a scribe's blunder. Or can " Gofforde " have been sub- merged since the fourteenth century, like the Did part of Dunwich and Ravenspur in Yorkshire? J. S. M.

"LAMBSUCKLE." What is this plant? Thomas Robinson, rector of Ousby, in his Vindication of the Philosophical and Theo- ogical Exposition of the Mosaick System of >ees which
 * he Creation,' London, 1709, writes (p. 91) of

' bring home Honey in their Bellies, which they uck out of the Honey-Flowers, as the Honey- Suckle, Lamb-Suckle, the Clover Flowers, &c."

These he distinguishes from those which

' gather Thyme, and bring it home upon their

^highs, of which they make their Combs.

Q.V.

THE CORONATION STONE. You were good nough to indicate at 9 th S. vii. 309 several nteresting references in 'N. & Q.' to the Coronation Stone. The information related hiefly to the legendary origin of the stone. Jan you or your readers assist towards a lescription of the markings, if any, on it? On the portion now exposed in West- minster Abbey is to be seen what looks like a cup-mark or shallow circular indenta-