Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/83

 9*8. IX. JAN. 25. 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

75

word (see 9 th S. ii. 389) was grenon, gernon, or guernon, which presumably fell into disuse when shaving became general in France in the fifteenth century ; and the * Dictionnaire de Trevoux ' tells us that moustache was sometimes employed to denote the side whiskers. Mackay is equally at fault in asserting that we must have had an English word for the hair on the upper lip long before "moustache" was introduced. I have never met with such a word in Middle English, and after our adoption of the French word writers made a sad hash of the spelling, as may be seen by the examples quoted by Fairholt in his * Costume,' a book not at my hand, or by those given in Nares's 'Glossary' under the words 'Monchato,' 'Mouchato,' * Mutchato,' as well as by Hexham's muschado (mentioned above), muchato, and mouchato ("een Snot-baerdt, ofte Knevel-baerdt, A Snottie-beard, or Snottie Muchatoes," and " Mouchatoes. Siet Mustaches" a cross-reference not carried out). The quotation from Le Maire is curious for its allusion to the Greeks. For whereas there is no word in classical Latin for "moustache," the ancient Greeks denoted it by fjiva-ra^ (see the fourteenth idyl of Theocritus), which, passing into mediaeval Latin in the form mystax, gave origin to the Komance words.

The Dutch knevel, it may be observed in conclusion, is identical with the German Knebel. F. ADAMS.

115, Albany Road, Camberwell.

BEAULIEU AS A PLACE-NAME (9 th S. vi. 87, 216; viii. 397 ; ix. 17). Beaulieu-en-Argonne is a beautiful village of 237 inhabitants in the diocese of Verdun (Meuse). The Abbey of Beaulieu, which was founded in the year 642 bv St. Rouin, a native of Scotland, re- ceived in 1610 the reform from the Bene- dictine Abbey of St. Vannes, and is now a ruin. Please to read ' Recherches Historiques sur 1'Abbaye de Beaulieu,' by Aug. Lemaire, in-8 (Bar-le-Duc, 1873). ABBE BENOIT.

TENNIS : ORIGIN OF THE NAME (9 th S. ix. 27). The difficulty about accepting the origin proposed here is twofold : (1) the word tenez, in French, does not, and never did, mean kl take it," as suggested ; and (2) there is no iota of evidence that the exclamation was ever habitual in French tennis-courts with any- thing like that meaning. Prof. Skeat, of course, suggests nothing of the sort. He knows well enough that the exclamations u tiens ! " and " tenez ! " are mere expressions of surprise. I suppose, I may have played in French tennis-courts more frequently, per-

mps, than any other contributor to * N. & Q.,' and I have certainly heard those exclamations many hundreds or times, but never from a server who was delivering or had just delivered a service, and only from a player surprised by the unlooked-for bound of a sail in one direction when he had expected it
 * o bound in another. As to the first difficulty,

tenir means, in its primary sense, to hold, not to take. A very rudimentary knowledge of French should be sufficient to settle that. As to the Latin words excipe and accipe : I do not think they are enough to establish the peculiar use of a French exclamation, which rests on no other foundation what- ever. JULIAN MARSHALL.

LONDON M.P.s (9 th S. viii. 524). I have much pleasure in affording the following information, extracted by me from the parish register of St. Andrew Undershaft, London, relating to William Love (citizen and draper), Alderman and Sheriff of London, and M.P. 'or same 1661-81, and in 1689 until his death, which must, I think, have taken place in April (rather than "in May," as stated by MR. W. D. PINK) of the latter year, consider- ing the date of his burial. He appears also x> have resided at Clapham, in Surrey, where ie died, and where probably some of his hildren were born and baptized. In any history of that parish further particulars respecting the family will no doubt be met with, but I have not had time to make the reference.

Baptisms.

1651, Dec. 20. William, s. of Wra. and Ellisa- beth [sic] Loue.

1660, April 17. Sammuell [sic], s. of Mr. Wm. Loue, Alderman.

Burials.

1654, Sep. 30. A d. of Mr. Wm. Loue.

1664, March 25. Edwd., s. of Wm. Loue, Esq'.

1664, April 3. Joseph, s. of Wm. Loue, Esq r.

1677/8, Feb. 23. Sarah Ward, died in Aid. Loues ho. bur. at Bethlehem.

1689, May 1. Win. Loue, Essq. [sic], died at Clap- ham in Surry.

1694. Aug. 3. Mrs. Elizabeth, relict Wm. Love, Esq., from Clapham.

The same parish register contains other (and later) burial entries relating to the family.

"SAWE" (9 th S. viii. 424, 448). May I trouble F. P. to construe the rest of the phrase in which this word occurs 1 "William

carpenter and top-sawyer who is to be

made in Calais," strikes one as an odd ex- pression. Did saw -pits and the relative top-sawyers exist at all in 1369 1 Q. V.

Your correspondent gets the meaning of top-sawyer (which sounds smart) out of