and sometimes cure, rheumatic affections. I should ful, and even pedantic in its elaboration. See be glad to know if the same idea prevails else- Beattie's 'Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell,' where, and what property this useful vegetable i. 134. THOMAS BAYNE. possesses that can possibly relieve such a tiresome malady. A. J. DAVY. Torquay.

JAPANESE LANGUAGE.-I shall be glad if any reader of your valuable paper can supply me with information (or direct me where to find it) upon the subject of the pronunciation, and especially the accent, of Japanese words and names. Nowadays we meet with so many of these in print, and they have such a musical and Italian-like appearance, that I, at any rate, and probably many others, should be grateful for some hints as to their proper sound. In such a book as, for example, "The Tales of Old Japan,' by Mitford, both the circumflex and acute are freely sprinkled over the vowels, but we are never told what purpose they serve.

GEO. TOMPKINS.

ELIZABETHAN HOUSES FACING THE NORTH.A contributor to the Catholic Standard, in an article upon old Catholic families, says, in reference to an old mansion in Norfolk :

Helensburgh, N.B.

Beylies.

HENCHMAN.

(7th S. ii. 246, 298, 336, 469; iii. 31, 150, 211, 310, 482; iv. 116, 318; 8th S. iii. 194, 389, 478; iv. 16; v. 172; vi. 245; vii. 110; viii. 335). given at the last reference two notes were omitted. This is a complete list of references; in the list entirely to his memory, and should not consult It is a great pity that PROF. SKEAT should trust back notes before writing a new one. The natural both himself and others. He saves himself time, consequence is that he frequently misrepresents no doubt (for it took me an hour and a half to examine all the notes referred to above), but, if back notes are considered not worth consulting, the subject cannot be worth writing about. In his last short note at the last reference he makes no fewer than two misrepresentations, one of himself and one of me. That of himself is the following. He says, "I have always contended that henchmen were horsemen, few in number, personally attendant on the king and sometimes [on] men of

"Like many old houses of the Elizabethan period, it is placed so as to face the north, our sturdy ancestors baving an idea that such a position was conducive to health, the northern breezes being esteemed by them as possessing a peculiarly bracing and invigorating cha-rank."* Unfortunately, it is the first time that he

racter."

Is this northerly aspect to Elizabethan houses noticeable in other counties, as it is certainly the case in this part of Lancashire? Wigan.

A.

in

66

has ever spoken of henchmen as "horsemen." He had hitherto described them (8th S. iii. 194) as 66 a kind of pages, all quite young men or growing boys," and he had given extracts from which it appeared that they were young men of high ATTERBURY.—I am informed that Job Atter-rank" who learned "sondry languages" and were bury, born 1732, died at Burton-on-Trent 1802, taught to harp, "to pype, sing, daunce, &c.," and was a grandson of the Rev. Lewis Atterbury "to have all curtesy, in words, dedes and degrees," (1656-1731), rector of Hornsey 1719, and brother so that, though they were also taught to ryde of the noted Bishop Atterbury (1662-1732). The clenely and surelye," and sometimes to take part 'Dictionary of National Biography' states that "justes " (or tournaments), their riding was only 'Bedingfield, only son of the Rev. Lewis Atter- one of their many accomplishments. Now would bury, died young." Can any correspondent any one, I ask, understand horsemen personally inform me if the Rev. Lewis Atterbury had another attendant on a king to mean accomplished young son; or was Job Atterbury aforementioned a son pages such as have just been described, who only of Bedingfield Atterbury? "rode on horseback at times" (to quote PROF. SKEAT'S Own words in 8th S. vi. 245)? I trow Such horsemen might well be neither young not. nor of any rank worth naming, and their riding with the king would, I should say, generally be supposed to be their principal and perhaps their only duty.

ATTERBURY.

"RECKON."- Are there any authoritative examples of this word as a noun ? When Thomas Campbell was a youth he was for a time tutor in Mull-hence 'Lord Ullin's Daughter'-and once, in writing an undated letter to his friend Hamilton Paul, he prefixes a defiant apology as to his ignorance of the flight of time. "We savages in Mull," he observes, "never keep any reckon of the months. I believe it is the eighteenth century." Perhaps the form denotes the writer at his ease, and perhaps it is merely an illustration of the savage state in which he finds himself. But the letter which the apology introduces is elaborately care-attendant on men of rank,

PROF. SKEAT's second misrepresentation is when he says, "It is, therefore, quite idle to pretend that a henchman was a mere page of inferior rank." But nobody ever did say so. On the contrary, in

rank "might be referred to the horsemen, whereas PROF. * I have added the "on," because without it "men of SKEAT evidently wished to say that they were sometimes

my note (8th S. iii. 389) I say, in reference to the individual of the male sex than a full-grown male. extracts of which I have just spoken, "These tend See what I have said upon this point in 7th S. ii. to show that henchman was, at one time, used of 469; iii. 310. At that time I accepted Pott's a page of honour of more or less gentle birth, and notion on the subject ('Die Personennamen,' I have no wish to dispute the fact."* And, indeed, second edition, pp. 57, 127), viz., that Mann, why should I? for I have all along been confining when added to Christian names, means "servant"; myself to what was at first the principal question, but this is no longer my opinion. I now believe viz., what the etymology of the word henchman that it was added, before the general introduction was, and what its meaning at the time of its intro- of surnames, because it was often felt that a duction from abroad into England, a question Christian name, standing alone, partook much of which PROF. SKEAT has long since severely left the nature of a qualitative (the meaning of many alone. Because the word subsequently came to be Christian names was then pretty generally known) used of a page of rank who sometimes, or even or adjective, and so wanted the addition of a subconstantly (if PROF. SKEAT chooses to think so), stantive to make it more concrete and substantial. rode on horseback, it does not at all necessarily Such a word was Mann, but it was not the only follow that it had for its origin a word signifying a one so used, and these words were, as it were, a horse. Pages sometimes rode on horseback, but foretaste of the surnames soon to follow. Now it what has the word page to do with a horse? Knights is this secondary meaning of Mann that, according were constantly on horseback, and grooms are now to my view, we have in henchman; and as this constantly busied with horses; but where can PROF. man really added little or nothing to the sense, and SKEAT find horse in the origin of these words? was little, if anything, more than a termination, Nor can he twit me, as he tries to do, with having we can understand how, as PROF. SKEAT tells us given a low origin to henchman. According to his in his last note (8th S. viii. 335), henchman came first note (at the first reference), the original mean-to be applied to ladies also; and still more, how it ing of henchman was merely "horse-boy or groom," whilst, according to me, the word was originally used of a Hausgeist, or household sprite, who performed menial duties in and about the house (these house sprites are still believed in in some parts of Germany), and was then transferred to a servant, especially a young_one. And if it was necessary (as PROF. SKEAT chooses to think) that he should have been an attendant upon horses, I showed him that my derivation from abbreviated forms of the Germ. Heinrich (Low Germ. Henrich), Henrik(s), adapted itself to this meaning equally well with his own derivation from Hengst horse (especially, and now only, male horse), inasmuch as Heinss, Hainzel, Heinzlein (all-Harry or little Harry), were used of male horses (7th S. ii. 469), and, therefore, with mann added, might well have been used of an attendant on a male horse, in which sense, indeed, the Germ. Hengstmann (when the Hengst-horse) alone is found. I may here, I think, remark that Mann in old times, when added to a noun, was used in what may be called two senses. It had, firstly, its ordinary sense of man, and, secondly, when added to a Christian name, another meaning which designated rather an

I may here mention two other misrepresentations on the part of PROF. SKEAT, and if I banish them to a note, it is that they may not interfere with the course of my argument. One is in 8th S. iii. 194, in which he charges me with having connected hench with "the word Hans (Jack)," a very gross misrepresentation, as I showed him in 8th S. iii, 389. The other is in 8th S. iv. 16, where he says, "I have always contended that it [henchman] represents the Dutch hengst compounded with man "; and here, again, I was obliged to waste space in showing (8th S. v. 172) that it was the first time he had limited himself to Dutch,

came to be used of PROF. SKEAT'S "quite young
men or growing boys." Did it never strike PROF.
SKEAT as singular that a word ending with man=
adult male (for it is this sense that he gives it in
henchman), should have been applied to boys and
ladies? Even in old times it was sometimes felt
to be oddly applied in the case of boys, and hence
we may explain the form henchboy, quoted by corre-
spondents in 7th S. iii. 482; 8th S. vii. 110. By the
time of Shakespeare (say 300 years ago) this man in
henchman had evidently ceased to have any parti
cular meaning, save that it indicated the male sex,
and this is still the case at the present day. The
passage in Shakespeare is worth quoting. It is in
Mids.,' II. i. 121, and runs as follows:-

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman.

It really almost looks as if Shakespeare had a
notion of the spiritual origin of the word henchman.

My belief, therefore, is that the man of henchman never at any time indicated more than an individual of the male sex, chiefly a young one, and that it had in the eyes of certain persons so little even of this that it could be applied to ladies, whilst the hench, so far from meaning a horse and nothing but a horse, never meant anything more than Harry, henchman being in fact equivalent to Harriman, a word which still exists as a surname, and in Halliwell is given the meaning of lizard, and may well at one time (though I have no evidence) have been used of a household sprite or goblin, for is not "Old Harry" still frequently used of the devil?

In conclusion, PROF. SKEAT has so far been unable to find hengstman in Dutch earlier than the

latter part of the eighteenth century, and then it has only the meaning of "an attendant on a stallion," which is not the meaning he wants, whereas I have found Hengstmann (not to speak of Heinzmann, Heinzelmann, &c., see 8th S. vii, 110) in a diminutive form="household sprite" in a Low Germ. legend (see the note just quoted), of which, indeed, I cannot give the date, but which no doubt, like nearly all legends, is of great antiquity. I am, therefore, very far ahead of him, and challenge him to give up his inquiries into the later meaning of the word, which can serve no earthly purpose, and to see whether he cannot find the Dutch hengstman-stable boy, as far back at least as the fourteenth century, for, until he has done this, his (or rather Spelman's) guess remains a guess and nothing more. It is, of course, very possible that the more natural order of things was really followed, and that Heinzmann, Hengstmann, &c. (Harriman), and were followed by their diminutives (Heinzelmännchen, Hengst(e)männeken, &c.) in the sense of "sprite-servant." The only difficulty is that I have found the diminutives so used, but not the original forms, the nearest approach being Heinzmann professional jester (7th S. iii. 310). At the same time it is indubitable that Heinz and the diminutive Hainsel have been used of ordinary human male servants, even in old times. See 7th S. ii. 469 and Wackernagel (Abhandlungen zur Sprachkunde,' Leipzig, 1874, p. 149). F. CHANCE.

first came into use in the sense of "male servant,'

P.S.-Perhaps I may be allowed to point out, for convenience of reference, that PROF. SKEAT'S notes are to be found at 7th S. ii. 246; 8th S. iii. 194; iv. 16; vi. 245; viii. 335; whilst my own notes are at 7th S. ii. 469; iii. 150, 310; 8th S. iii. 389; v. 172; vii. 110.

statistics about them.

UNIVERSITY BOAT RACE (7th S. i. 265).-When I sent my last note on this subject, ten years ago, seven of the "Fathers of the Race" were then living. Since that date all of them have left us; and we are now able to gather some very interesting Omitting the coxwains, we find that at the time of death the eight Cambridge men reached the average age of 69 years 26 days, and the eight Oxford men 69 years 258 days, the average age of the sixteen being therefore 69 years 129 days. The average age of the Cambridge men on the day of the race (10 June, 1829) was 21 years 333 days, that of the Oxford men being 21 years 42 days. The Cambridge men lived on an average 47 years 58 days after the race, the Oxford men 48 years 216 days. The Cambridge coxwain died at the age of 43 years 318 days, he of Oxford (the late Dean Fremantle) at the age of 87 years 190 days. The average age of the Cambridge men on the day of the race is increased and their average length of life after the race is

diminished by reason of one of the crew having
been of the unusual age of nearly 28 years.
J. B. WILSON.

Knightwick Rectory, Worcester.

in the Scottish Hymnal,' published by authority
'DRUMCLOG' (8th S. ix. 187).-This tune is not
of the General Assembly of the Church of Scot-
land, nor is it in either the Free Kirk or the
U. P. hymn-books;
my friend Dr. David Smith I have now before me
but through the kindness of
"Mitchison's Selection of Sacred Music. Glasgow,
John Cameron, 175, Buchanan Street; Edinburgh,
Oliver & Boyd; London, Griffin & Co." (no date),
at p. 67 of which the tune is given with "M.
Wilson" as the author. It is wedded to the first
lines of Psalm cii. in the Scotch metrical
version of the Psalms, still (to some extent) in
though the grand old psalm tunes that were the
use in all Presbyterian churches in Scotland,
very backbone of the Presbyterian form of worship
somewhat mongrel hymnal, a good deal of the
are now taking a back seat, to make room for a
Moody and Sankey type. The words are:-

O Lord unto my pray'r give ear,
My cry let come to Thee,
And in the day of my distress

Hide not Thy face from me.
Though not strictly relevant, I cannot help recall-
ing our intense delight as boys when, upon sacra-
mental occasions, each line of the Psalm was given
out, and our worthy old precentor, who had a grand
old Calvinistic Covenanting countenance, came to
the line,-
I like an Owl in Desert am,
which he undoubtedly was. J. B. FLEMING.

This query has already appeared on two occasions (see 5th S. ii. 167, 240; xii. 328, 455, 518). A correspondent replied that a version of it, in triple time, is given in the original edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern,' No. 310; and another contributor, that the music could be obtained from J. Cameron, publisher, Buchanan Street, Glasgow, being in the new edition of 'Mitchison's Selection of Sacred Music.'

71, Brecknock Road.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN,

I have a copy of this hymn-tune in MS. which I should be happy to copy for W. H. C. if he cannot hear of it in a published form. N. B.

THE BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE AND THE DEATH OF CLAVERHOUSE (8th S. viii. 244; ix. 173).— With reference to this subject, and the statements in Virtue's 'Pictorial History of Scotland,' London, 1859, that when Dundee breathed his last some of his friends endeavoured to carry off his body, but were driven off by the fire of Leven's regiment, and that subsequently the men whom he had led to victory stripped and left naked on the spot where he died the remains of their hero, "Bonnie

"It has all the distinctive marks of the genuine species-great strength, long, soft hair, with stripes like a tiger, and a blunt tail. It was pronounced to be a true wild cat by Mr. Frank Buckland and Prof. Bell, the author of a volume on 'British Quadrupeds.' Mr. Elton refers to Macaulay's History' for the wild cat in Whittlebury forest. The exact reference is vol. i. chap. iii. p. 324, ed. 1858: "The wild cats were frequently heard by night wailing round the lodges of the rangers of Whittlebury and Needwood" ('State of England in 1685). But without Dr. St. George Mivart's monograph 'The Cat,' 1880, for reference, any notice must be incomplete. ED. MARSHALL.

MR. PEACOCK quotes from Dr. St. George Mivart a passage in which it is said that the wild cat is extinct in England "and perhaps in Wales also." Mr. Paterson, in " Mountaineering below the

drug, or some other act which, though it did not actually produce disease or retard a cure, yet produced the appearance of the disease said to exist."

Flintshire Great Sessions, a man was sent to gaol for twelve months for obtaining money under false pretences, having taken a fee to pull out of the well' a poor wretch

J. M. MACKINLAY, F.S.A.Scot.

This distinction has been scrupulously observed who thought himself in its accursed waters, by the Lancet; but in the barrack-room such GUALTERULUS. niceties are disregarded.

Sir William Aitken, in 1882, while attempting no explanation of the word, gave the comforting assurance that "malingering, as a type of deception, is markedly disappearing from communities where it has hitherto been supposed to prevail," owing to the greater facilities now in existence for finding out impositions ('Outlines of Medicine,' p. 23). Hastings.

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

INSCRIBED FONTS (8th S. ix. 167).-Nivov ávóμŋua, K. T.λ., is, according to Ormerod's 'History of Cheshire,' inscribed on the font in Sandbach Church, with the date 1667. It is also in the church at Melton Mowbray (on the font?); and on the phialé or fountain at St. Sophia in Constantinople (Riley's 'Mount Athos,' p. 51). GILBERT H. F. VANE.

The Rectory, Wem, Salop.
The Greek inscription mentioned by MR.
HUGHES is found on the font in Knapton Church,

Norfolk.

Smallburgh, Norfolk.

H. T. GRIFFITH.

I do not know whether it is mentioned at any of the numerous references, but it may be useful to state that the well-known palindrome was written "on the phiale or fountain of the outer court of this narthex" at St. Sophia (Edinburgh Review, April, 1865). Thus the inscription would seem not to have been designed for a baptismal font when first composed. The late Mr. Gorham was not living in those days.

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings. In addition to the references already supplied, see the Guardian, 3, 10 June, 1891.

W. C. B.

Glasgow.

MISS PRIDEAUX, ACTRESS (8th S. ix. 85).— In my former note I gave the names of the two daughters of Brigadier-General John Prideaux as Elizabeth Constantia and Maria, on the authority of the pedigree in Sir John Maclean's History of Trigg Minor.' I find, however, that in the pedigree contained in Col. Vivian's Visitations of the County of Devon,' p. 623, which was carefully revised by Mr. C. G. Prideaux-Brune, of Place, they are called Maria Constantia and Georgina Frances Anne. Administration to the effects of the former was granted 27 Feb., 1793, to her brother, Sir John Wilmot Prideaux, Bart. (Act W. F. PRIDEAUX. Book, P.C.C.).

CRAMP RINGS (8th S. ix. 127).-There was a special service for "Blessing of Cramp Rings" used by Henry VIII., and William Beckett, F.S.A. (1684-1738), says it appeared by divers records he had seen that the ceremonies were usually practised by our kings some hundred years before Henry VIII.'s time. Beckett gives "The Office of Consecrating the Cramp Rings" in a letter to Sir Hans Sloane, on 'The Ancient Method made use of for the curing Diseases by Charms, Amulets, JAMES HOOPER. &c.,' 1721.

Norwich,

may

add to his collection :

A HOUSE FOR WEDDINGS (8th S. ix. 164).-In OUR LADY OF HATE (8th S. ix. 8, 138).—MR. Brand's History of Newcastle' (vol. i. p. 26), is EDWARD PEACOCK, in his interesting note on the an example of a "wedding house," which MR. HALE above, refers to cursing wells. In Roberts's 'Gossip"In the year 1456, Roger Thornton, probably the son ing Guide to Wales' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1885) of the founder, granted to the mayor and community of mention is made of a noted spring of this nature Newcastle-upon-Tyne the use of the hall and kitchen in North Wales. Near Llanelian, we there learn, belonging to this hospital [Thornton's Hospital, or "is a once famous well, Ffynon Elian, which seems to Maison Dieu] to the following purpose: 'for a young have been every whit as great a curse as ever St. Wini-couple,' says the Milbank MS.,when they were married fred was a blessing to Welsh humanity. In days gone by to make their wedding dinner in, and receive the offerwe have ourselves met with people who not only believed ings and gifts of their friends: for at that time houses in the well, but also believed that they had been put were not large."" into it.' The process was a simple one. If you had a spite against a neighbour, all you had to do was to go to the custodian of the well, pay a fee, have your enemy's name written on paper (through which a pin was stuck)

and thrown into the well; and he would be 'cursed' until he managed to get himself out. In 1818, at the

To this paragraph the historian attaches a footnote, in which he states that "this was an ancient custom, used, it would seem, for the encouragement of matrimony"; and he adds that "the learned author of the Glossary' to Douglas's 'Virgil,'