Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/18

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. ix. JAN. 4, 1902.

the word " moustache " from the Spanish, and that we must have had an English word for the hair on the upper lip long before the Spanish name was introduced. The French, Italian, and Greek forms of " moustache" are ignored. But Mackay asserts that "knevel is pure English. One cannot suppose that he would make this statement without some ground for so doing. The questions are : Where is this alleged English word to be found ; and, if found, what is its precise meaning 1 See 9 th S. v. 88, 196 ; but these references under ' Whiskers,' while throwing light on the case generally, do not answer the questions. ARTHUR MAYALL.

'L'ART DE PRECHER,' 1683. Who is the author of this didactic poem 1 One Jacques Canier makes the requisition for a licence to print, which is granted as follows: "Je n'empeche pour le Roy la Permission requise. A Lyon ce 15 Juillet, 1682. Vaginey." The introductory lines are these :

Enfin tu vas precher, la Liste le public, Et fait voir imprime ton nom et ta folie ; Mais de tous les metiers, ou Ton peut s'attacher, iS^ais tu que le plus rude, Abbe, c'est de precher.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

Portland, Oregon.

THE LOWNDES MOTTO. The singular motto "Ways and Means" (with these inverted commas) is used to this day by the family of Selby-Lowndes, of Whaddon Hall, co. Bucks. Can this be the augmentation of the coat of arms mentioned by Burke in his 'Landed Gentry,' vol. ii., s.v. 'Lowndes,' as granted by Queen Anne to William Losvndes, Secre- tary to the Treasury and Chairman of Ways and Means ? He is noticed by Macaulay in his ' History of England ' (chap, xxi.), and it is added in a note that in 1695 he published a pamphlet, an * Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins,' which was refuted by John Locke. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

GEE FAMILY. I should be glad if any one could inform me when members of this family first settled in England, or when the name, or any of its variants, is first met with as an English surname. JAMES H. GEE.

58, Park Street, Walsall.

PEARLS A CURE FOR CORNS. The harvest of folk-lore is by no means reaped. Dissolve two pearl buttons in lemon juice until they become a paste. Hub on corns three day's and three nights running, and the corns disappear. An old man's recipe. Is it knowi elsewhere? THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

PINS IN DRINKING VESSELS.

(9 th S. iv. 287, 358, 484.)

ANSELM'S decree of 1102 appears not iterally translated in ' The Acts and Monu- ments' of John Foxe. "That priests should not resort to taverns or banquets, nor sit drinking by the fire-side," stands for " Ut presbyteri non eant ad potationes, nee ad pinnas bibant " ("Church Historians of Eng- land, Reformation Period," 'The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, 1854,' vol. ii. p. 168, i.e., book iv. of the ' Acts,' &c.).

In the Appendix to vol ii. p. 835, is a note in which " nee ad pinnas bibant " is rendered " nor drink to pins." Reference is made to p. 59, where Foxe says that, to check the excessive drinking, which was owing to the "multitude of Danes dwelling in divers places in Eng- land," Edgar

"ordained certain cups, with pins or nails set in them, adding thereto a law, that what person drank past the mark at one draught should forfeit a cer- tain penny, whereof one half should fall to the accuser, and the other half to the ruler of the borough or town where the offence was done."

A note (Appendix, p. 818), saying that the actual law has not been found, gives a pas- sage from Malmesbury (' Script, post Bedam,' p. 56, line 26). The following is the transla- tion of it in Sharpe's translation of William of Malmesbury's 'History,' London, 1815, chap, viii., 'Of King Edgar, son of King Edmund ' (p. 171) :

" Indeed, so extremely anxious was he to preserve peace even in trivial matters, that, as his country- men used to assemble in taverns, and when a little elevated, quarrel as to the proportions of their liquor, he ordered gold or silver pegs to be fastened in the pots, that, whilst every man knew his just measure, shame should compel each, neither to take more himself, nor oblige others to drink beyond their proportional share."

The pegs are in the original " clavi." The phrase " a little elevated " underrates, I think, the meaning of " temulenti."

The note on p. 835 says :

" The peg-tankards had in the inside a row of eight pins, one above another, from top to bottom. The tankards hold two quarts, so that there is a gill of ale, i.e., half a pint of Winchester measure, between each pin."

After describing how each person had to drink to the next pin, it says the drinkers were very liable to get drunk, "especially when, if they drank short of a pin, or beyond it, they were obliged to drink again." The reference given is Si Anonymiana, 125, Gent. Mag. xxxviii. 426." Further :