John De Veaux, Robt. Fitzgerald, Benjamin Clare, Francis Dawson, Geo. Brown, John Robertson, J. Roche, John Austin, Edw. Martin, and Wm. and Margaret Clare. I should feel much obliged if answers were sent to me direct. D. J. O'DONOGHUE, 1, Killeen Road, Rathmines, Dublin. RATCLIFFE COLLEGE.-The name of the new French President is found in the French annals for many centuries past. In the year 1304 King Philip IV. of France gave by a charter leave to the Count of Nevers to receive toll for two years for the restoration of a bridge called Pont du Perier. The original of this charter is in the Ratcliffe College Collection' (Reliquary, July, p. 136). I request information as to where Ratcliffe College is, its origin, and its purpose. This collection of French charters must be well worth a visit. R. DENNY URLIN. [Ratcliffe College is a Roman Catholic institution at Leicester.] CRUCIFIX, NAME OF A RACEHORSE. was a celebrated horse called Crucifix, which in 1839 won the Criterion Stakes and in 1840 the Oaks, the Two Thousand Guinea and the One a Thousand Guinea stakes. Such a name for horse would not be surprising in Spain, Italy, or even in France, but was not to be looked for here. Can any one of your readers tell why it was selected? Crucifix was the property of Lord George Bentinck. ASTARTE. LADY MORDAUNT'S 'DIARY.'-In 1856 there was privately printed the Diary of Elizabeth, Viscountess Mordaunt, 1656-78,' kept by her ladyship while she resided at Peterborough House, Fulham. As I have failed with the booksellers to procure a copy, may I ask if any reader of 'N. & Q.' who may chance to possess the 'Diary' would be so kind as to lend it to me? CHAS. JAS. FERET. 49, Edith Road, West Kensington. LAMMAS DAY.-In the part of the country where I live there is always great lamentation early in August, commencing with the 1st, when the lambs are separated from their mothers. In Master of the Mint, 1572 (Haydn's Book of LONISON.-A person named John Lonison was Dignities,' p. 201). Is anything known of him? SIGMA TAU. PORTRAIT OF CHATTERTON.-Can any of your readers inform me of the whereabouts of the portrait of the poet Chatterton painted by Gainsborough, or give any information concerning it? CHATTERTON. Boston, Mass., U.S. 'SIR ETHELBERT.'-'Sir Ethelbert; or, the Dissolution of Monasteries,' in three volumes, 1832. Can any one tell me who was the author of this book? He or she wrote 'Santo Sabastiano,' 'The Romance of the Pyrenees,' &c. I quote the titlepage of 'Sir Ethelbert.' M.A.OXON. [The authors are the Misses Cuthbertson.] ARROWSMITH.-A question was recently inserted in N. & Q.'as to the parentage of Thomas Arrowsmith, painter and engraver, and of his brother, John Pauncefoot Arrowsmith, who wrote a book on the art of instructing the deaf and dumb. The rector of Newent, Gloucs., kindly informs me that in 1772; and that they were sons of Nathaniel Thomas was baptized at Newent in 1771, and John Arrowsmith, of Newent, baker, and of Elizabeth his wife. ANCIENT NEW ENGLAND POET.-Judge George R. Gold, responding for the Board of Agriculture of the State of Michigan, is reported to have said: "I am not a farmer, beyond a few years' experience, when as a barefooted boy I stubbed my chapped toes over a rough New England farm, where, according to the rhyme of one of her ancient poets : The Almighty from His boundless store, Beylies. "CAUCUS" IN ENGLISH POLITICS. The 'New English Dictionary' has not attempted to go back to the origin of this word as applied to an English political organization, but has been content to accept without examination Mr. ChamQueries. First, What ancient poets can New Eng-berlain's statement as to Lord Beaconsfield being land claim? Secondly, Who is the author of the its first user. The word is now, however, so firmly rhyme quoted? R. HEDGER WALLACE. established in partisan use that a little further trouble concerning it seems to be deserved. in British politics was in the House of Lords on Probably the first use of the word in any sense Aug. 11, 1831, when Lord Strangford complained that all the peers had not been summoned to the approaching coronation of William IV.; and he "IF" MEANING "WHETHER."-Is this use of "if" good in prose? The examples given by Johnson are poetical. I give an instance from N. & Q'(8 S. iii. 307, under 'T. G. Wainewright'), where the use of "if" in two meanings appears to be confusing : "I should be glad if any one could tell me if any of these pictures are extant; and, if so, where; and if they have been reprinted in any form." ROBERT PIERPOINT. "THREE FARTHINGS OF LAND."-I have recently examined some documents of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries relating to lands in the manor of Collingham in the county of Nottingham. "Three farthings of land" is frequently mentioned. What does this designation or measure signify? K. P. D. E. SIMONDS.-Can any one kindly give me genealogical information about the Simondses, an heiress of which family married the eleventh Lord St. John of Bletshoe; and also tell me if the heiress referred to was entitled to quarter the Beauchamp arms, or was coheiress to any barony in fee? M. V. PLAN OF MONASTERY.-Where can I find a RAXWORTHY AND NORMAN.-The former seems Quinta dos Tanquinhos, Madeira. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. Man is immortal till his work is done. R. ELSON. added: "I declare here, in my place, that all the Privy Council were not summoned, but that a selection from it has been made, similar to that which our Transatlantic brethren would call a caucus-particular individuals, likely to carry a particular point, having been chosen, and by them the matter will, no doubt, be most satisfactorily, at least to his Majesty's Government, arranged."-Hansard, third series, vol. v. f. 1170. Thirteen years previously Sydney Smith, in the Edinburgh Review, had observed, in an article on America, that " a great deal is said about caucus, the cant word of the Americans for the committees and party meetings in which the business of the elections is prepared"; while twenty years after Lord Strangford's utterance, Lord Mahon (afterwards Earl Stanhope) remarked, in the fifth volume of his History of England,' that "the derivation of that word has appeared doubtful and mysterious, even to inquirers on the spot; much more, then, may it elude those of another country and another age.' The word, therefore, was still an exotic, as is shown by Bulwer Lytton's reference to it in 'My Novel,' first published, I believe, in 1853: No "I think of taking a hint from the free and glorious land of America, and establishing secret caucuses. thing like 'em.' Caucuses?' Small sub-committees that spy on their men night and day, and don't suffer them to be intimidated to vote the other way.' "—Bk. xii. chap. xii. The January of 1855 saw its first introduction to the pages of 'N. & Q.,' when an ingenious questioner suggested that St. Jerome and St. Bede were the originators of the term; but several years passed, apparently, before caucus was employed in Parliament a second time; and then it was by Disraeli, who first used the word, and in its original connexion, in the debate in the House of Commons on May 14, 1866, upon the second [The question is asked 6th S. v. 309, and remains un- reading of the Redistribution of Seats Bill, introanswered.] Thou would'st be Hero? Wait not then supinely duced by Mr. Gladstone. He observed : "The only result [of grouping boroughs] will be that you will create great jealousies, aggravate anomalies, and produce a constituency not homogeneous, and which can be only appealed to by costly and complicated means of corruption. What will result from grouping but the caucus system of America? Some able man will devote his energies-it will become a profession-to securing a majority in two of the boroughs, he will then make his arrangements with the candidate, and the third borough will be neither consulted nor represented."-Hansard, third series, vol. clxxxiii. f. 887. The following year, however, saw it definitely introduced into English politics, in a semblance of its original meaning; and N. & Q' has to be thanked for embalming it, for in the number for April 13, 1867, W. W. W. wrote: "The editor of the Times has twice, in the course of the present week, applied the phrase [caucus] to the political meeting lately held at the private residence of Mr. Gladstone; which I conceive to be a singular perversion of its use and meaning. The gathering at Carlton House Terrace was neither a cabal, a junto, nor a secret conclave; on the contrary, the reporters of several newspapers, without regard, I believe, to their political aime, were admitted; and the whole proceedings were as freely made known to the outside public as the debates in Parliament. Caucus is by no means a pretty, much less a desirable word to be added to our national vocabulary; but, if it be adopted at all, let us at least make a right use of it." But that is the very thing that has not been done, for another stride of a dozen years brings us to its use in the present meaning, which is quite different from that of its American orginators. I have been unable to trace Lord Beaconsfield's employment of it referred to by Mr. Chamberlain; but the Times of July 31, 1878, in a leading article upon a speech of Mr. Gladstone before the Southwark Liberal Three Hundred, wrote:— "We may say, and say truly, that the policy of the politicians of the Midland capital [Birmingham] will bring upon us the caucus with all its evile, but we cannot hope to checkmate it by giving it a bad name." Mr. Chamberlain, writing in reply on the same day, said : "I observe that you, in common with the Prime Minister Lord Be: consfield], have adopted the word caucus to designate our organization. The sting does not lie in the original meaning of the word, but in its modern acceptance as involving the idea of corruption unfortunately associated with American politics." Times, Aug. 1, 1878, p. 8. And the heading 'The Birmingham Caucus' was given by the Times to a letter, signed "A Birmingham Burgess," which appeared on Aug. 12. Only a few days now elapsed before the word made its earliest appearance in Punch, which always affords some indication of the date of a term first coming into common use. In the summer of 1878 the late Mr. Forster had one of his many difficulties with the Bradford Liberal Association-or caucus, as it was becoming the fashion to call it-and Punch of Aug. 24 had the conundrum: "Why is Mr. Forster like the Czar ?" with the answer, "Because he declines to be stopped by the Caucusses.' On Jan. 18, 1879, it varied the jest by writing, on the same subject: "Mr. Forster is about to have his portrait painted for presentation to him by his admirers. Don't let him be painted in coat and trousers, but as Prometheus, declining to be bound to the Caucuses." But by this time the word was coming into such common use that Punch in its previous issue had made Lord Beaconsfield refer to "a small scratch Caucus," while on Feb. 8 it compared a meeting of the Southwark Liberal Three Hundred (which body first led the Times to use the word) to "that other and earlier form of caucus, a donkey-race," in apparently confused remembrance of Mr. Lewis Carroll's caucus-race" in Alice in Wonderland' (published in "the sixties "), the charm of which was that every competitor won; and a week later it made another reference to the same gathering, under the heading Choice by Caucus,' though in this case it was the meeting, and not the association, which it rightly described by the name. Lord Beaconsfield's use of the term in 1878which would seem to have established it in English politics in its present sense-is still, however, to seek; and it is curious that although in the autumn of 1878 and the spring of 1879-the critical period in regard to the employment of the word in this country-four contributions appeared in' N. & Q.' concerning the term, they all referred to the American, and not one to the English, use. In regard to this latter, politicians will note with interest two lines from a parody on Gray's 'Elegy,' printed in Boston in 1789: That mob of mobs a caucus to command Hurl with dissension round a maddening land. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. [See 1st S. xi. 28; 3rd S. xi. 292, 430; 5th S. x. 305, 355, 525; xi. 438; 6th S. xi. 309, 451; xii. 54, 194, 336.] POLITICIAN is quite mistaken as to the origin of this word. He will find a complete history of it in the Century Dictionary.' C. A. H. · WHETSTONE PARK (8th S. vi. 183).-I am greatly pleased at COL. PRIDEAUX's kindly expressed wish that I should continue the series of papers on Lincoln's Inn Fields, according to the original intention, down Holborn and Drury Lane and so back again into the Fields themselves, which, indeed, are not yet half exhausted. My reason for breaking off as I did was not owing to any trouble or difficulty in the task itself, for I have always liked the locality. I have always looked upon the Fields as the grandest and most stately square in London. You can see St. Paul's from it, and its West Row is the work of Inigo, so that you can here touch, as it were, in petrifaction the brainwork of the two greatest artists in stone that England has produced. When I reached a point at which I was to commence upon Holborn, I bethought me that the treatment must run to very great length, and I could not tell whether such length would find the support of readers or awaken any curiosity, although I well know also that to curtail it in any way, against the inward and natural prompting of my own feelings, would be to really deprive the papers of all the little value they could possibly lay claim to. I signified this with what brevity I might to our able and always courteous Editor. In reply he was good enough to say that so far as he was concerned he liked the papers well, but that perhaps it would be best to be as short as possible. I took this to mean that quidditists generally thought but little of the topic I was upon; and as I care little or nothing whether I keep silence for ever, or put forward all the twaddle-for twaddle at best it is-I sketched out briefly what might give a taste of what my original purpose had been, and so closed up abruptly. I thought that thus I might steer clear of both Scylla and Charybdis, and that by one stress upon the rudder bands-if but the hand kept steady-I might both escape offence to readers by any too garrulous prolixity, and offence to myself by cutting down what must meander at its own unrestricted will or be dissevered from all reflective picturesqueness. If our Editor-who must always be reckoned as of himself alone to be as two or three in one-thinks he may now venture to second COL. PRIDEAUX in this, and reverse his old sentence of "best be short," by "run on to a completion," I can easily, as time serves, comply. My matter is much of it ready sorted, and my other notes are at hand; they only await that vivification of literary garb which when the Muses prove auspicious to any pen becomes a miracle, and will place an otherwise mad chaos before the eye "clothed, and in its right mind." I say all this, for I do not know how else to make myself clearly understood as to why I stopped short, or why I am now willing to resume. It was no more a pique of mine than the resumption will be an act emanating from myself. If it be asked, I am ready to supply; if not wanted, I am quite willing to step aside and keep silence. I now think there are questions very much better worth ventilating; but if such stuff is wanted past folly will enable me to supply it by the yard. As to the points critically broached by CoL. PRIDEAUX, I am myself pleased to see the objections he raises. But as all antiquarian questions, I have said, are twaddle, or very near it, he will not be much displeased if I add that his remarks are foredoomed to be the same-they can hardly rise above their subject-matter. Nothing of the kind can be better attested, perhaps, than that Whetstone Park takes its name from Whetstone, from the prosperous tobacconist in Holborn, whose token is still extant, who was overseer of his parish, and was known to have first begun building there. Were blocks of houses called in his day 66 buildings with their builder's name preceding? I should think "row" or "rents" were " so quite as often, if not oftener. Here on the spot we have a cluster of three-Newman's, Portugal, and West Rows. As to the origin of "Park," I think it grew out of the town slang in those Restoration times, that upset morals; when the locality grew proverbially disreputable its old name sank, and it came to be called a "park," where the loose Court quality could hunt their "does " figuratively, as at Greenwich, Epping, and Nightingale Lane they did actually. The date 1632 I confess to as a mistake. I am afraid my eyes were in fault, and took a 3 for an 8. There need have been no difficulty in identifying the spot, however, with or without the name of Whetstone; but as nothing happened in 1632, the fault rests entirely with myself. As to the three dukes, the title of the street song of 1671, that I gave in full from the 'Poems on State Affairs,' is, I venture to think, evidence enough to justify any one in saying all that I said about it without further research. I should not at all mind being convicted of uttering a "parrot's tale," such pitfalls are inevitable to the antiquary. Poor man! he tries to look things up; but so much remains that he cannot look up that he must lean upon somebody, and then the reed pierces. To see whether a ballad bawled in the streets two hundred years ago was of perfect historical veracity or not would, I confess, never have entered into my head. Here, in addition to the ballad in print, I am supported by Cunningham, and was anticipated by MR. HEBB, who, generally speaking, seems to me to be one of the most clear-headed and accurate of investigators, so that I cannot plead guilty in this to the "parrot's tale." After all, to follow tradition, to cling to the sinking ship, is often safer than to swim to the bottom with Niebuhr. Most of our profound modern investigators lead us into ridiculous quagmires, into negations about nothings that are quite as silly as the mythologies they explode, and far less poetic. It is an immensely shallow piece of profundity that is content to commence and end in merely establishing a doubt. It is a waste of precious material, like sweeping down dirty cobwebs with the finest ostrich plumes. I do not know there were only six dukes in England two hundred years ago, and I am not so interested in such great folk as to take the trouble to inquire. If COL. PRIDEAUX be right it is no matter to anybody, unless a memorial cataloguer, like Macaulay; and if he should be wrong he has gone far out of the way to make himself so. I hope he will not think that in defending myself from the 66 parrot's tale "I am showing his beak too much, as I really have to thank him for what he has said. I now stand at command for speech or silence, just as 'N. & Q.' may please. C. A. WARD. COL. PRIDEAUX's criticism with regard to the three dukes and the beadle is quite just; the 312 extracts cited by me prove no more than that a brawl took place in Whetstone Park in 1670-1, in which some members of the nobility were engaged and a watchman was killed. I think it was Leigh Hunt, in the Town, who first suggested that the dukes referred to in the ballad were the sons of Charles II.; but there does not appear to be any authority for the suggestion. It seems clear that the occurrence occasioned some consternation at Court, from which we may infer that the persons implicated were near the king's person. It appears impossible, at this distance of time, to identify the parties. I leave it to MR. WARD to reply to the other portion of COL. PRIDEAUX's communication. JNO. HEBB. Willesden Green, "To GRIDE" (8th S. vi. 8, 176). For etymology, see Prof. Skeat's 'Dict.,' and for definitions, and illustrations from Spenser, Milton, and others, consult the Encyc. Dict.' An example occurs near the beginning of 'Sordello,' which may be quoted, as that poem is not generally known. Sordello' appeared in 1840, so that the poem is an earlier contemporary of In Memoriam.' In these lines the word is not only used, but explicitly defined : The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown Would echo like his own sword's griding screech Gengou, and then says that this last could not In the second place, it is, indeed, true that a Fr. initial en has often become in in Eng., and this has been well shown by PROF. SKEAT in his two very useful volumes on 'The Principles of English Etymology.' But in the present case the en is not initial, and I have not succeeded in finding a single case in which a Fr. initial gen has become jin in Eng.; and I do not know that if any other consonant than g preceded the en thee would in consequence become an i. And thirdly, and lastly, I entirely fail to see why, if Gengulphus became Gengou, the ou need necessarily become 00, much less o. Fr. 00 and Eng. oo have, indeed, own long list, quoted above, I fail to find a Fr. much the same sound; still, in PROF. SKEAT'S word in which a final ou has become oo in Eng. In sou, Anjou, Poitou, the only Fr. words in ou used in English which I can think of just now, the We have, indeed, the Fr. Fr. ou is retained. Lexicographers should note this passage as likely bambou and the Eng. bamboo, but the original to be serviceable. Helensburgh, N.B. THOMAS BAYNE. Mr. William Morris, in his poem, 'Sigurd the Volsung,' also uses this word in the sense of grating : Then Sigmund heard the sword-point smite on the stone wall's side, And slowly mid the darkness therethrough he heard it gride, As against it bore Sinfiotli, India Office, S.W. Another quotation is,— ALFRED JEWELL. That through his thigh the mortal steel did gride THE ETYMOLOGY OF "JINGO" (5th S. x. 7, 96, word is Oriental, and there is no reason for supposing that the Eng. form has been borrowed from the French. And as to the change of a Fr. final into o, these are very much more difficult, and Í ou or of an Eng. final oo (derived from a Fr. ou) shall be very greatly surprised if PROF. SKEAT is able to give an example of either. I have shown, then, I think, that it is more than doubtful whether Gengulphus, after passing through French and English, would ever assume the form Jingoo or Jingo. But, as every etymologist knows, and as PROF. SKEAT himself is never tired of repeating, form alone, however exact, does not suffice for the establishment of the etymology of any puzzling quired also. And this is precisely what is wantword. An historical account of the word is reing in the case of Jingo. PROF. ŠKEAT does not tell us, and probably does not know, when Jingo came into use in England. And although he does tell us that we used to swear by French saints, yet, in the case of this St. Gengulphus, who, from the account given of him in the Ingoldsby Legends,' seems to have been a slightly ridiculous saint, he does not even show that he was ever sworn by in France. At the present day, at any rate, he seems to be utterly unknown there. At least, three French people whom I consulted, all of them Roman Catholics, and one of them very devout |