The time, the place (looking east), the mystic pillar, and the ram, surely bear some evidence in favour of the Ram Feast being a sacrifice to Baal.
An old Holne Curate.Touching for King's Evil.The following passage bearing upon the custom of touching for the King's Evil, and its antiquity, is extracted from Laing's translation of Snorro Sturleson's Heimskringla. King Olaf the Rich, afterwards Saint, had fled to Russia on being driven out of his kingdom by Knut the Great. Ingigerd, Queen of Russia, desired a widow to take her son, who "had a sore boil upon his neck," to King Olaf, "the best physician here, and beg him to lay his hands on thy lad." The king was unwilling to do so, saying that he was not a physician; but at last consented:
"Then the king took the lad, laid his hands upon his neck, and felt the boil for a long time, until the boy made a very wry face. Then the king took a piece of bread, laid it in the figure of the cross upon the palm of his hand, and put it into the boy's mouth. He swallowed it down, and from that time all the soreness left his neck, and in a few days he was quite well.... Then first came Olaf into the repute of having as much healing power in his hands as is ascribed to men who have been gifted by nature with healing by the touch."
Laing asks in a note:
"Is the touching for the King's Evil connected with this royal saint's healing by the touch?"The Heimskringla, vol. ii. p. 297., 8vo.: London, 1844.
De Camera.GAFFER OR GAMMER, ETC
These two venerable words were used by our ancestors. Every one has heard of Gammer Gurton; Gaffer Gingerbread was also famous in, as well as I can remember, a portion of the literature which amused my childhood. In Joseph Andrews, Fielding styles the father of Pamela "Gaffer Andrews:" and, for aught I know, the word may be still in use in Wilts and Somerset.
Unde derivantur Gaffer and Gammer? Lye said they were quasi good-father and good-mother; Somner, that they were the Anglo-Saxon Gefæder and Gemeder, i. e. godfather and godmother; Webster derives the former from the Hebrew geber, man, the latter from the Scandinavian gamel, old. Having a fondness for simplicity, I go less learnedly to work. I have observed little children, when commencing to speak, to say "ganpa" and "gamma" for grandpapa and grandmamma: whence I conjecture that, in the olden time, ere we had Pa's and Ma's, the little aspirants used to say "ganfa'er" and "gamma'er," which easily became Gaffer and Gammer. I am confirmed in this view by a friend to whom I mentioned it, and who told me that his own children always called his father gaffer, a word entirely of their own formation.
There is a term now coming a little into use, which is I believe of pure Irish origin, namely, old fogie. Indeed, I have heard it used rather disrespectfully of those mature old warriors, whom it pleases the wisdom of our government to send out in the command of our fleets and armies. The word, as I said, is of Irish, or rather of Dublin birth. The old fogies are the inmates of the Royal or Old Men's Hospital, the Irish Chelsea. I think, then, that it must be plain to every one that the term is nothing more than a good-humoured corruption or diminutive of old folks.
This leads me to the simple origin of a word which seems to have posed all our etymologistsit has done so to Richardson at leastnamely, "Pettifogger, a low, tricky attorney." According to my view, pettifogger is neither more nor less than pettifolker, i. e. one whose practice lies among the petty folk, small tradesmen, day-labourers, and such like. This derivation, too, has simplicity in its favour.
Thos. Keightley.Minor Notes
Search for MSS.A proposal was made some time ago in "N. & Q." by Mr. Mackenzie, that some systematic effort should be made for the recovery of ancient MSS. I have heard nothing more of it, but am sure that, if a beginning were made, it would receive warm support from the friends of literature. There is, however, a kindred search which can be prosecuted nearer home, with more certain success and more important results. I mean a continued search among the numerous MSS. in which so much of our unknown history is buried. Might not a systematic examination of these be instituted, with the help of the "division of labour" principle, so that important portions of the great mass should be accurately described and indexed, valuable papers abridged for publication, and thus given to the world entire? Much is being done, no doubt, here and there; but surely much more would be accomplished by united and systematised labour. How much light might be thrown on a given period of our history by such a study of all the records, correspondence, &c. relating to it. Is there none of our existing societies within whose scope such an undertaking would fall, or might not different societies unite for the purpose? The books, of course, should be sold to the public. I leave the hint to the judgment of your readers.
Elsno.Clifton of Normanton.Following the excellent example of Dr. Todd, of Trin. Coll. Dublin, I send you from the fly-leaves of an old English Bible (C. Barker, London, 1599, small 4to.), for the information of any one connected, some of the particulars inscribed on the leaves, relating to
"Thomas Clifton of Normanton, in the county of Darby, who had issue by his first wife three sonnes and four daughters; and by his second wife, two sonnes and one daughter."
The names of his wives are not mentioned. The details of births, marriages, and deaths extend from 1586 to 1671, and some of the branches of the family went to Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Zachary Clifton was at the Universities of Utrecht and Leyden (at which latter university "hee com̅enct Mr. of Arts, March 5, 1654"), and in 1659 was ordained minister of the gospel at Wisborough Green in Sussex. Many other particulars are given. The Bible is in the library of Sir Robert Taylor's Institution, Oxford, and is in excellent preservation, having been recently carefully repaired.
J. M.Oxford.
The Three per Cent. Consols.In Jerdan's Autobiography, vol. iii., published in 1852, we read this anecdote:
"At a City dinner, so political that the three Consuls of France were drunk, the toast-master, quite unacquainted with Bonaparte, Cambacères, and Lebrun, hallooed out from behind the chair, 'Gentlemen, fill bumpers! The chairman gives the Three per Cent. Consols!'"
In Merrie England in the Olden Time, vol. ii. p. 70. (published ten years before), will be found the following note:
"This eminent professor (toast-master Toole), whose sobriquet is 'Lungs,' having to shout the health of the 'three present Consuls,' at my Lord Mayor's feast, proclaimed the health of the 'Three per Cent. Consols!'"
The latter version is the correct one. It was the three foreign Consuls who were present among this annual gathering of grandees that was given; not Bonaparte, Cambacères, and Lebrun. The after-dinner organ of Toole might easily, on hearing the toast, mistake "present" for "per cent.," and "Consuls" (in the City, too) for "Consols."