Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/251

 9*8. IX. MARCH 29, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The endowment of 1676 was 1,347. 7s. 3d. ; the capital in 1890 was over 37,000/., and the annual income about 950. The monument to this benevolent old worthy represents two figures in ruffles at prayer, kneeling on either side of a prie-dieu, but, strange to say, there is no regular inscription of names, dates of death, or age of either Arneway or his wife. Interred here in grave, doth Thomas Arnwaye lye Who in his lyfetyme loved the poore and in that

love did dye, For what he left, to helpe the poore ; he did devise

the same Not idell folke, bvt svch as wovlde themselfs to

goodness frame, The thriftie peopell, by his will that in this parishe

dwell, Fyvte poundes for their comfort may have if yt

they vse it well. From yeare to yeare caref vllie they looke unto their

charge Of svche men as this Arnwaye was, God make the

number large.

The present is the third monument, and dipping again into the notes of the late Mr. Poole, we find it stated that " the second was dated 1703, when the first was repaired and beautified by scraping away the very interesting old inscription, so as to render it hardly visible, and then making a new slab of stone, giving only the names and dates of husband and wife. To protect it a screen of iron bars was placed in front of it. On removing this screen and monu- mental tablet, in 1878, the first one was found be- hind. It was so illegible that it could scarcely be deciphered, but after awhile it was accomplished. A new slab of marble-like stone was prepared of the same size, and it was engraved identically in all respects with the original one of 1603 and placed on the north wall. So interesting a relic as the original one could not but be esteemed, so it has been placed for future examination in the vault under seat No. 40. The iron grille has been very improperly placed in front of an ancient ' Easter Altar ' near, without any affinity, and the pedestal of this altar, having been found some years before under the floor, was with reverential care placed at the east end of the south wall, after the broken pieces had been collected and joined together. With reference to the curious last line of the inscription and the prayerful ejaculation, there was such another in the Chapel of the Savoy, quoted in Seymour's ' Stowe,' vol. ii. p. 279, commemorating Humphry Gosling, of London, Vintner, servant to Lord Hunsdon, 1586. The inscription ended with this couplet :

So well inclined to Poore and Rich

God send more Goslings to be sich." The word "sich" for such is heard very frequently, even now, in various parts of the country, being a well-known provincialism, and also often used by the lower orders in London. The St. Margaret's burial register records that Thomas Arneway was buried on 8 December, 1603, and his wife Margaret on 19 August, 1596. W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY. (To be continued.)

HONORIFIC ABILITUDINIT AS. More than fifty fears ago this leviathan of language, in its ! ullest inflection and with an inseparable conjunction at the end, was sounded in my ears by one from whom I could least have expected such an utterance namely, a nona- genarian Quakeress who was equally inno- cent of both Latin and of Shakespeare. In conversation I had asked her about the dame- school near Boston to which she had gone in colonial days.

The last daily function, she said, was to stand up and in chorus to intone "Hono- rifi-cabil-itu-dini-tati-busque ! " the last two syllables in this quatuorsyllabic locution being rounded up right gladsomely.

Thanks to Du Cange, ' H.E.D.' traces this longest of words to its earliest known use in Italy about A.D. 1300, but is silent as to how the vocable could have become known to an Englishman of "small Latin" nearly three centuries afterward. How did it come within the grasp of Shakespeare 1

There seems to me a guiding clue on this question in what I heard from the Quakeress.

The word may be translated "And with cordial compliments/' addressed by scholars, on being let loose from school, both to each other and to their teacher.

The ponderous word may have seemed a fitting farewell-greeting onward from the first establishment of English schools, and to have held its own through English conser- vatism to the Stratford school refounded nine years before Shakespeare's birth. If there was this sort of apostolical succession the custom would bear transportation into the colony of Massachusetts, and would naturally have a new lease of life there.

The word in Shakespeare is addressed to a schoolmaster and regarded as one well known to him. It seems to me the terminal word of her school-sessions was said by the Quakeress to be printed in a school-book, perhaps Dill worth, and at its close.

On the whole, it may be very possible that Shakespeare was here a snapper -up of a word that was no trifle, as in many other cases, without moving foot or finger.

Some reader of ' N. & Q.' I trust will inform me when Dill worth was first published, what primary book preceded it, whether in that or any other school-book the magnitudinous vocable is discoverable, and whether any reminiscences like those of my Quakeress can be detected in England, as well as whether anything to confirm or confute my theory can be found in standard comments on 'Love's Labour 's Lost.' In Wirn borne Minster I note that books are still set up with their