by the editors of the Complément was that of 1632: Adam Islip, London. I feel persuaded that those dictionaries that have attached to the word the meaning "to fondle, dandle," &c. have been guided by the authority of Cotgrave; and that he himself, or whoever first affixed that meaning, was led, by some oversight, to confound coqueliner with a remarkably similar word, dodeliner, which really does mean "to fondle," &c., and which is thus given in the Complément : — "DODELINER, v. a (V. lang.) Bercer, Caresser, Remuer doucement. Il s'emploie encore aujourd'hui dans le langage familier." JOHN WILLIAMS. Arno's Court. DR. PARR AND TOBACCO. The anecdotes of Dr. Parr remind me of another, the entire truth of which is, I imagine, somewhat questionable. It is contained in the "dedication" to a little volume entitled The Social Pipe, or Gentleman's Recreation, 12mo. 1826. The Doctor, it seems, was on a time invited to dinner by "a gentleman, whose wife, a fine lady, had an intense aversion to smoking." After dinner the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where "the Doctor began to feel certain cravings for the stimulating fumes of his beloved pipe." The lady of the house, on the alert, caught the half whispered word, and at once interposed her veto. The doctor remonstrated: "No pipe, no Parr," was his well-known motto. "Why not, Madame ?" said he, “I have smoked a pipe with my king, and it surely can be no offence, or disgrace to a subject to permit me the like indulgence." The lady, however, was inexorable, on which the following colloquy ensued: This sally caused à loud laugh, it is said, and disconcerted the fair and obese counterblaster, but did not procure for the doctor his coveted luxury. Now is it on record that Parr did actually on any occasion enjoy the honour of "taking tobac CO "with the king? He was on intimate terms with that amateur of pipes and pipeing, the Duke of Sussex, as the letters from his royal highness to Parr, preserved by Dr. Johnstone, vouch, and had doubtless smoked many a pipe in his company at Kensington Palace. The anecdote of Sir Isaac Newton and the tobacco-stopper is still better known. See Facetia Cantabrigienses, 3rd ed. p. 394. This was not the only occasion, it may be ima gined, on which the doctor suffered from the misocapnic prejudices of a fair hostess. He writes "In 1774, I, by invitation, visited William Sumner, Esq., brother of Dr. Robert Sumner, at Hatchlands. Í preached at the parish church of Hatchlands, and left the place rather suddenly, because would not permit me to smoke. Though often asked, I never would go again. She had played the same trick to her husband's brother, Dr. Sumner, in Great George Street, Westminster. The Doctor resisted and prevailed," &c. But Parr had his revenge in another way,he tells us with much naïveté : as "She died while I lived at Colchester, and, at the request of her husband, I wrote the epitaph for her, but without much praise." — Memoirs by Johnstone, p. 771. Parr it appears, as he advanced in life, became less tyrannical and exacting. I quote the following from an article entitled "Parr in his latter Years," in the New Monthly Magazine :· "After dinner he took three or four glasses of wine, and then asked for his pipe, withdrawing from the table to the chimney, that he might let the smoke pass up, which I discovered to be his common custom. There he began to puff away in clouds, engrossing by far the largest share of the conversation, which all were contented to resign to him."- Vol. xvi. p. 481. In Parr's copy of the Hymnus Tabaci of Thorias he had written "See Philips's Latin Verses on Tobacco." Did he allude to the Ode to Henry St. John, commencing "Oh! qui recisa finibus Indicis I do not know what else in Latin Philips has written on the subject. The latter was so fond of tobacco, that, as one of his biographers has observed, he has managed to introduce an eulogy upon it in every one of his pieces, except Blenheim. In his Cyder, in apostrophising Experience, he goes rather out of his way to introduce his favourite subject: "To her we owe The Indian weed, unknown to ancient times, The imitation of the same author by Isaac Hawkins Browne will be remembered "Little tube of mighty power," &c. in the Cambridge Tart, and published separately, 8vo. 1744. One more anecdote from the New Monthly Magazine: — "The Doctor's pipes were generally presents from his friends. Mr. Peregrine Dealtry, in particular, used often to supply him. Once he received at Hatton a box of very handsome pipes, with a plume of feathers in the bowl, which, to the best of my recollection, were a present from the Prince of Wales. The Earl of Abingdon gave him a superb Turkish pipe. Trivial as the circumstance may be thought, I will just mention that the Doctor, when smoking, always held the bowl of the pipe with his finger and thumb, although the heat would not have been endurable by a person unaccustomed to that habit." -New Monthly Magazine, Sep. 1826. Parr and his pipe will go down to posterity together; so thoroughly is the instrument and the habit associated with the man. In a rough mezzo caricature, intended as a "Pre-face to Bellendenus," the doctor is inhaling a pipe of portentous length, while with clenched fist and beetling brows, he puffs out a volume of smoke, amidst which we read the minacious legend "Damn TÒV deiva." Dawe also, in his very characteristic portrait of the doctor, has placed one of his favourite "churchwardens" in his hand. Thus Frank Vandermine, a Dutch artist who resided in London, and who it is said painted with a pipe in his mouth, bidding objecting sitters go to another artist, has perpetuated himself in a mezzotint "The print from his own portrait entitled Smoker" (Wine and Walnuts, vol. ii. p. 14.). There would appear to be a strong affinity between theology and tobacco. Pope has "History her pot, Theology her pipe;" and Swift includes "best Virginia" among those things which, in the possession of his Country Parson, "Are better than the Bishop's blessing." Indeed smoking has ever been the habit of studious literary men, especially those of the critical genus. Aldrich, Hobbes, and Newton are known to have been most inveterate smokers; Boxhornius, the learned professor of Leyden, was so addicted to the habit, that he had a hole cut in the rim of his hat to support his pipe while studying and writing; and Porson is reported by Rogers (Table Talk) to have said that "when smoking began to go out of fashion, learning began to go out of fashion too." The extent of Parr's addiction to the habit was thought worthy of note among his German brethren even. Wolf says of him that, "Er soll es manchmall an einem Abend, bis zu 20 Pfeifen gebracht haben" (Litt. Anal. iv. 553.); but Dr. Johnstone thinks this an exaggeration, and that a fourth part of the quantity would be nearer the mark. An interesting letter from Dr. J. Uri, to make a provision for whose old age Parr had exerted himself, is preserved. Writing to Dr. Kett, and alluding to a promised visit of Parr, he says:— "Promiserat se sequenti die ante meridiem venturum. Itaque expectans eum lapides nigros super foco large reposui; tubos candidos, quibus fumus tabaci exhauriri solet, præparavi; sellus, remotâ paululum mensâ, ad ignem admovi; at, eheu! non contigit mihi ipsum videre," &c. Dr. Johnstone tells us that "Whenever he (Dr. Parr) came to Birmingham he never failed to smoke his pipe with Mr. Belcher." This was a highly respectable bookseller in the Bull-Ring in that town. I would also ask the object of the custom alluded to in the following extract from the Letters of Charles Lamb by Talfourd ?— "He (Lamb) had loved smoking not wisely but too well,' for he had been content to use the coarsest varieties of the great herb.' When Dr. Parr, who took only the finest tobacco, used to half fill his pipe with salt, and smoked with a philosophic calmness, saw Lamb smoking the strongest preparations of the weed, puffing out smoke like some ferocious enchanter, he gently laid down his pipe and asked him how he had acquired his power of smoking at such a rate?' Lamb answered, I toiled after it, Sir, as some men toil after virtue."- Part 2, p. 88. I conclude this gossiping paper, which might serve to light a pipe with, but for the more valuable matter which will save it from combustion, with another quotation : "I am not convinced that this habit was productive of bad consequence to his health, tho' it was often inconvenient to his friends. Tobacco has been called the anodyne of poverty, and the opium of the western world. To Parr, whose nerves were extremely irritable, and sensibility immoderate, perhaps it was a necessary anodyne. "It calmed his agitated spirits; it assisted his private ruminations; it was his companion in anxiety; it was his helpmate in composition. Have we not all seen him darkening the air with its clouds when his mind was labouring with thought? His pipe was so necessary for his comfort that he always left the table for it, and the house of the person he visited, if it was not prepared. His pipe produced another inconvenience at table: at one time he selected the youngest lady to light it after the cloth was drawn, and she was obliged to stand within his arms, and to perform various ludicrous ceremonies. Latterly his best friends persuaded him to decline this WILLIAM BATES. practice." — Memoirs of Parr, by Dr. Johnstone, p. 815. Edgbaston. "FELLOWES' VISIT TO LA TRAPPE," ETC. THE NOTE ON IT IN WILLIS'S CATALOGUE. In "N. & Q." (2nd S. ix. 403.) АвнвA asks to whom this note refers, and what are the grounds for the story? The first question is easily answered. The Rev. Sir Harry Trelawny, Bart. of Trelawny, Cornwall, grandfather of the Radical member for Tavistock. That he became a Roman Catholic is, I firmly believe, the single grain of But had he at any truth in the marvellous story. period of his life been a disappointed candidate for the "Papal Diadem," and in despair buried himself in La Trappe, it is utterly impossible Mr. Fellowes's journey could have had any reference to such an event ... Sir H. T., who was for about ten years vicar of Egloshayle, was non-resident. A curate attended to the duties of the parish, but the vicar occasionally visited it from Trelawny; and I find on inquiry that he "celebrated his last marriage" there "on the 9th April, 1804." The late Mr. Davies Gilbert (Hist. of Corn., vol. iii. p. 300, 1.) says "he resigned his living on becoming a Roman Catholic." But another county historian, C. S. Gilbert, more correctly, and probably receiving his information from Sir H. T. himself, has given the true reason for the resignation-that Sir H. T. would not undertake to comply with the Act (then passed) "obliging the clergy to residence." "The resignation," he adds, "was matter of deep regret to Sir H. T." Though he resigned in 1804, he was still a clergyman of our church in 1824, and he could not therefore have been a candidate for the Papal chair previous to Mr. Fellowes' journey in 1817, or indeed for many years after it, for the very good reason that the next vacancy did not occur until 1823, on the death of Pius VII., who had been elected in 1800. A glance at Mr. Fellowes' book, in which but one chapter is devoted to La Trappe, will suffice to show that the only person he there conversed with, "appeared a young man about five-and-twenty." Unluckily for the note-writer Sir H. T. was then above sixty years of age. I have not been able to ascertain in what year he became a Roman Catholic, but there is ample evidence that this last of many changes in his creed occurred very late in his life. In 1816 he had not "left the church of his Fathers," for Polwhele (Hist. of Corn., vol. v. new ed. 1816), after noticing that Sir H. T. had "progressed through every stage of theological opinion," becoming in turn" Methodist," "Calvinistical Dissenter," "Socinian," and "clergyman," adds: "about two months previous to this his last gradation he published a letter on the sin of subscription!" Eight years later he had not " left the church of his Fathers." Drew, in the 2nd vol. of his and Hitchins' Hist. of Cornwall (1824), referring to some observations in the 1st vol. (for which Hitchins, whose unfinished work he completed, was probably responsible) respecting the "versatility of the baronet's theological opinions," regrets they should not have been qualified by remarking "that stability of sentiment which has accompanied a maturity of judgment resulting from inquiry, and rendered permanent by conscientious investigation. More than forty-six (43 ?) years have elapsed since this pious and worthy country gentleman has enjoyed the honour of being a clergyman of the Church of England," &c. Drew also calls him the resident proprietor of Trelawn (which Drew considered the proper name of the place). In 1824, then, Sir H. T. had changed neither his faith nor his residence. Drew, a native of St. Austell, within twenty miles of Trelawny, could not have been ignorant of Sir H. T.'s whereabouts, and being a zealous Methodist would not have been indifferent to a change to Romanism. Some years later Drew must have lamented his mistaken notion of the baronet's "stability of sentiment." Lady Trelawny died in Nov. 1822. By the way, how absurd is the note-writer's fancy that a married man could have been a candidate for the "Papal diadem!" As Pius VII. died in Aug. 1823, when Drew's book was probably going to press, Sir H. T.'s change of religion, if it immediately followed his wife's death, must have been known to Drew, or at any rate would have been too recent to have allowed him to become a candidate. Before his own death, in Feb. 1834, there were, however, two vacancies in the Papal chair: one in 1829, the other in 1831, and it is certainly possible that so eccentric a person as the baronet may have aspired to the Popedom; but if he did, his friends never heard of it. Was there then no story respecting him which the heated imagination of the note-writer may have magnified? I can give you one which owed its origin to a very trifling circumstance. After the baronet had fixed his residence in Italy, and but a very few years before his death, he applied to the (then) vicar of Pelynt for a certificate of the death and burial of his lady. Presently, I am informed, there arose in the neighbourhood a 'general impression that he was endeavouring to obtain the dignity of a cardinal." Mr. Davies Gilbert, however, who was a diligent collector of Cornish gossip, could never have heard of this, or he would certainly have printed it, as he has another rumour respecting Sir H. T., who, "it is said, received the nominal honour from the Holy See of being appointed a bishop in partibus infidelium." That Mr. D. G. would not have missed recording whatever he picked up may be judged from his description of the funeral ceremonies at Trelawny the year after the baronet's death. I cannot discover the way in which the story that he buried himself in La Trappe could have originated. I am positively informed that the baronet's surviving acquaintances are "perfectly convinced he never was a Trappist." If the obituary notice in the Gent.'s Mag. for June, 1834, correctly states that a "daughter was with him to the last," it is certain he could never have been, even for a short period, the inmate of a Trappist monastery. It may be thought I have occupied too much of your space in the refutation of an idle story, although I have, in doing so, been led to give some notice of an eccentric, but in some respects estimable and highly-gifted individual. You may, however, consider it not undesirable to mark with reprobation the prevailing tendency to render secondhand books more attractive by connecting them with stories as absurd and unfounded as that of the "Three Black Crows." In saying this I do not mean to disparage Mr. Fellowes' book, which many years ago I read with interest, and which must have been very popular in its day, as the first edition was published in 1818, and the fourth (now before me) in 1823. H. P. Penzance. CENTENARIANISM. (2nd S. ix. 438.) The possible duration of life in any living creature is not merely a curious, but an important problem, and in relation to man especially, has engaged the attention of countless philosophers, down to Walker of the Original, who was satisfied that men might prolong their existence indefinitely; while Goethe, by another process, came to the conclusion that nobody died till he himself willed it. Upon either of these principles we may imagine the long lists of old-old people which have appeared in your pages, probable. But some way or other, a stern inquirer into evidence, one who wants proofs, is always doomed to disappointment, and without being quite positive, I have very serious doubts whether there is an instance of any human being having completed his hundredth year in modern times. It is singular enough that most of the centenarians recorded hitherto have been Irish, Scotch, or Negroes; always in the lower classes of society, and where a register of birth is hardly to be looked for; and yet, without this, the evidence breaks down at once. The nobility and gentry, where these matters are more carefully watched, don't afford a single instance; not a case occurs in the insurance office registers, though these include a more miscellaneous list, and, à priore, we might suppose more likely to embrace some long-lived individuals. According to M. S. R. (2nd S. ix. 438.) no less than four persons who were at the battle of Shirreff Muir reached the age of 100, 111, 111, and 124 respectively; but we want the birth-registers and the identification of the par ties. May I hint to your correspondents that in these matters neither assertions, nor even convictions, are of any avail; and that all such lists show only time wasted, and I may say, Mr. Editor, your valuable paper and ink thrown away, and your still more valuable space occupied with matter of no possible use to any one? Take the first name in M. S. R.'s roll, John Effingham; he must have been born in 1613; was made corporal at the battle of the Boyne when 77 rather slow promotion was wounded at Blenheim when 91, and got his discharge in the reign of George I, year not stated; but if on the day of his accession, at the age of 101. Now I am not going to deny the possibility of all or any of these statements; but surely I should want some better evidence than the Public Advertiser of Feb. 18, 1757, in which month he is said to have died. We now and then find in the obituaries of our periodicals notices of deaths at or over 100; and I am sure that your correspondents who might have a chance of really sifting these statements would be conferring a benefit upon your readers by giving them the result of a detailed and trustworthy examination. I think such an one is noticed in the Gentleman's Mag. for this month, as occurring in Cornwall; and a person living in the neighbourhood would find the investigation both curious and instructive. It must, however, be borne in mind that the child has been mistaken for the parent, and that two children have been named alike—the elder dying and the younger taking the additional years, and getting the credit of the prior register. DERIVATION OF SHAKSPERE (2nd S. ix. 459.) – MR. CHARNOCK'S derivation of Shakspere from Sigisbert might be a little amended. The ending ber, per, in personal names is not a corruption of bert or pert, illustrious, but, according to the unanimous opinion of the German philologists, is from bero, pero, bear; and there is in fact an O. G. name Sigipero (see Förstemann's Altdeutsches Namenbuch). We do not find the name Sigispero, but as sigis (which is a Gothic form) appears in many of the same compounds as sig, e. g. Sigibert and Sigisbert, Sigifred and Sigisfred, Sigimar and Sigismar, Sigimund and Sigismund, we should be warranted in assuming a name Sigisper; and as the High Germ. form sic for sig runs through the whole group, we should have the name Sicisper Now though the change of Sicisper into Shakspere would scarcely be justified on etymological principles, it might be accounted for by the continual inclination to twist names into something like a meaning. theory advances from the ranks of the London But a formidable opponent to MR. CHARNOCK'S Directory, in the form of a Mr. Shakeshaft. He brandishes his weapon, and prepares to do battle for the ancient theory. I think that MR. CHARblish his new regime. NOCK must slay this champion before he can estaROBERT FERguson. And for a tablet of parchment the following: "Esse puta ceras, licet hæc membrana vocetur: Delebis, quoties scripta novare voles.”—Ib. 7. Here the use of a substance capable of making a black mark on ivory or parchment, and susceptible of being erased at pleasure, would seem to point to black-lead. J. EMERSON TENNENT. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE (2nd S. ix. 403.)I doubt much whether any book was ever published which would aid G. H. K. in this respect; as, so far as description is concerned, one library is no guide for another, but each must be taken entirely per se. If G. H. K. means a classified catalogue, nothing will serve his purpose better than the Rev. T. H. Horne's Outlines for the Classification of a Library submitted to the Consideration of the Trustees of the British Museum, 1825, 4to. G. M. G. LIBRARY DISCOVERED AT WILLSCOT GLEBEHOUSE (2nd S. ix. 511.)—As editor of the Southern Times, I really think I have a right to complain of the supercilious tone of MR. J. G. NICHOLS in questioning its authority for the announcement of a simple fact. As an occasional contributor to "N. & Q." (though under a nom de plume) there would be as much probability of such a statement finding its way to me as soon as to any other journalist. Besides, I can probably offer MR. NICHOLS a better authority in my principal paper, the Dorset County Chronicle, which, it is well known, is constantly in communication with the dignified and other clergy on similar subjects; and I have no doubt that it was from the Dorset County Chronicle that the paragraph in question found its way into the Southern Times. As for the truth of it, your correspondent has a far more obvious test open to him than calling in question the authenticity of a newspaper paragraph going the rounds, and that is, by addressing himself to the incumbent of Willscot for the Catalogue he desires of the books recovered. What puzzles me most in MR. NICHOLS is, that he denies the minor proposition, yet labours to establish the major, denies that books have been discovered at Willscot because the authority is no better than that of the Southern Times, but proves conclusively nevertheless that such things are as books in bricked-up closets, and are most wonderful! SHOLTO MACDuff. In reference to the paragraph in "N. & Q." (2nd S. ix. 511.) relative to the library found in Oxfordshire, I may inform thee that on first seeing the paragraph in a local paper, I immediately wrote to the clergyman of the place, who politely informed me that no such library has been found, and no such person as therein named is known in his parish. I therefore presume the whole is a hoax. JAMES DIX. Grosvenor Mount, Headingley, Leeds. THE GOLD ANTS OF HERODOTUS (2nd S. ix. 443.)-Humboldt says as follows (Bohn's edition of Cosmos, vol. v. p. 475.): — "I was the more astonished at finding at Capula and Pazcuaro, and especially near Yurisapundaro, all the anthills filled with beautifully shining grains of obsidian and sanidine. This was in the month of September, 1803. I was amazed that such small insects should be able to drag the minerals to such a distance. It has given me great pleasure to find that an active investigator, M. Jules Marcou, has observed something exactly similar. There exists,' he says, on the high plateaux of the Rocky Mountains, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Fort Defiance (to the west of Mount Taylor), a species of ant which, instead of using fragments of wood and vegetable remains for the purpose of building its dwelling, employs only small stones of the size of a grain of maize. Its instinct leads it to select the most brilliant fragments of stones; and thus the ant-hill is frequently filled with magnificent transparent garnets, and very pure grains of quartz.' (Jules Marcou, Résumé Explicatif d'une Carte Géogn. des Etats Unis, 1855, p. 3.)" A like desire for the accumulation of brilliantlycoloured or shining substances leads the bower bird to decorate his play-ground with glass, shells, and brightly-coloured feathers; and teaches crows and magpies the very inconvenient habit of appropriating coins and small articles of plate. I have myself often seen the great water-beetle (Dytiscus marginalis), while in confinement, select from the shingle at the bottom of his prison grains of red cornelian and fragments of pink carbonate of lime, and carry them about for a long time. This was not the habit of a single individual; I have seen many of these insects do the same. Whether the lustre of the objects had charms for them, or whether they mistook the stones for bits of raw meat or worms, I cannot say certainly they bit them savagely with their mandibles, reminding me rather amusingly of "The Viper and the File." W. J. BERNHard Smith. MURAL BURIAL (2nd S. ix. 425.) - The reasons which suggested that the walls of the church were tolerated depositories for the dead has for some time been a subject of discussion in "N. & Q.," but towards a satisfactory conclusion little, if any, progress has been made. The discoveries of bodies there interred have been too numerous to require any farther reference, either to the forms of the cavities, the places in which they are generally found, or the shape. or materials of which the coffins are formed. But where interments have been made far more injurious to the fabric, and not strictly within the walls, a short description of such remnants of former mischievous indulgences, happily not common, may assist the inquiry. In the churches of South Waltham St. Mary and of Easton, both in Norfolk, about eight or ten feet of the east walls of the chancels have been removed to the base of the windows, and arches turned to support the superincumbent walls. |