Perlet and Emile were by Charles Mathews, and ⟨e⟩xplain the joke about Perlet playing the same part on the following evening at Paris; for the days of Club trains had not yet arrived.
Clifton.
The announcement “that M. Perlet, M. Emile, and Mr. C. J. Mathews, have had the misfortune of falling from their horse and sprained their right ancle,” &c., is easily explained if it be assumed that those three personages were but one.
[M. E. F. adds: “C. J. M. states that 5l. had been in vain offered for a copy of the playbill.”]
Dr. Marat (7th S. vii. 488; viii. 76).—In addition to the information given regarding Jean Paul Marat at these references, the following may be of use. It is stated in ‘Biographie Universelle’ that Marat tried to support himself by giving lessons in French in Edinburgh. Though it is said that he attended the University at Edinburgh, his name does not appear on any of the class-lists of the time. Reference may be made to Chambers’s ‘Book of Days’ for a full account of Marat’s proceedings in this country. But the most astonishing item of news regarding him is this: “According to one of the Reports, Marat was filling the Chair of French Language and Literature in the University of Edinburgh in 1772”! See ‘Jean Paul Marat,’ by Ernest Belfort Bax, Lond., 1879.
Lennox Street, Edinburgh.
Goit (7th S. viii. 87).—Of course goit has nothing whatever to do with goître. May I suggest that a correspondent who inserts a query should always be barred from hazarding a guess? It would save us all untold trouble. Why should we who answer queries be burdened with exploding fallacies as well as with answering reasonable questions? I, for one, shall carefully refrain from answering questions put in so needlessly complex a form.
Plainly the word meaning passage, which occurs in so many forms. For example, gut=the passages of the body; ghaut=the mountain passes of India; gate=a street, as Broadgate, in Coventry.
Longford, Coventry.
See the instances and references collected in the Yorkshire Archæological Journal, vii. 50, to which may be added Ray’s ‘English Words,’ ed. Skeat, pp. 47, 83, 101; Poulson’s ‘Holderness,’ ii. 441.
[Other replies are acknowledged with thanks.]
A Jewel in a Serpent’s Head (7th S. viii. 65).—The notion that venomous creatures carried also in their heads an antidote in the form of a precious stone was very common in Shakspeare’s time, and was not confined to the toad. There is an account (quoted by Miss Phipson) in Purchas (vol. ii. p. 1169) of an Indian snake “which they call, Of the Shadow, or Canopie, because it hath a skin on the head, wherewith it covereth a very precious stone, which they say it hath in her head.” Albertus Magnus, in the second chapter of his second book, tells us that the stone draconite is obtained from the head of the dragon, and is “good and marvellous against poison and venom.” Other stones he describes as being formed in the bodies of various creatures, as the silonite in the tortoise, &c.
Something about such stones with references may be seen in ‘N. & Q.,’ 3rd S. vi. 37, with the title ‘Bezoar Stones,’ in reply to a query at v. 398. There are references to Tavernier’s ‘Travels in India,’ bk. ii. ch. xxii. pp. 153, 154, Lond., 1678, and for the ‘Serpent Stone,’ and “another said to be found under the hood of the cobra,” p. 155; Mandelso’s ‘Travels into the Indies,’ ii. p. 124, Lond., 1669. At 6th S. viii. 158, there is an answer from Mr. F. R. Fowke to the query at 3rd S. vi. 338.
Pope Jutte (7th S. vii. 449).—Jutta is a German form of Joan, and so, of course, Pope Jutte is the same mythical personage as Pope Joan. The real name of this woman was said to be Gilberta, and it is told of her that she adopted male dress in order to be permitted to enter the monastery where a young Englishman, a monk, to whom she bore an affection, lived. Her later history is too well imagined to be known.
Cradle of the Tide (7th S. vii. 408, 474; viii. 51, 98).—I must ask Mr. Moors slightly to extend his limit to which atmospheric influence reaches, for there are indications (especially in meteoric phenomena) that this is considerably more than sixty miles above the earth’s surface. But certainly no effect of our atmosphere can extend to the thousandth part of the distance of the moon. Galileo thought that the tides were caused by, and were a proof of, the earth’s rotation; but he himself admitted that he might be in error in this, and it is now understood that the small connexion which there is between these two phenomena is in the reverse direction, the tides causing by their drag a slight alteration in the duration of the earth’s rotation. The tides themselves are clearly due to the diurnal apparent revolution of the sun and moon caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and lengthened in the case of the moon by her simultaneous orbital revolution round the earth. The principal tide is due to the moon, and corresponds in length to half a lunar day. The smaller tide is due to the sun, and its length is that of a solar day. The height of the former to that of the latter
