Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/470

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462


NOTES* AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vin. DEC. 7, 1001.


(selrirn : Scu/zovia : pilosi). We find their "saltatory powers alluded to in Virgil, Eel. v. 73, and in Horace, ' Ars Poetica,' v. 232, 233, though it is certainly difficult to see how they could have " tripped it on the light fan- tastic toe" or even walked with feet like those of a goat. The " great god Pan " in Mrs. Browning's beautiful poem is thus repre- sented. The probability is that a cynocepha- lus was intended, or a large quadrumanous baboon like a gorilla. An animal of this kind is figured in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' vol. iii. p. 1140. Probability points to a Cambridge origin of the epigram.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

YOUTHFUL M.P.s. One of the qualifica- tions for a member of Parliament nowadays is to be of full legal age, but it was not always so. Edmund Waller, the poet, obtained a seat in the House of Commons when he was only sixteen years of age (see his life by Percival Stockdale, prefixed to his works, 1772). Then again :

"Sir Thomas Wallingham the IV. represented the city of Rochester in at least three Parliaments, and Kent County, with Sir Peter Manwood, in 1614 ; whilst his son, then only fourteen years of age and knighted, represented Poolein the same Parliament. He and his son, Sir Thomas the V., were both living at Chislehurst in 1622-33, and in separate houses, for they were both assessed for a subsidy in 1622, the father in a sum of 20/. and the son in the sum of ;V. : ' Webb, ' History of Chislehurst,' p. 142.

A YE AH R. New Cross, S.E.

' ; OUTRIDER." I find no mention in diction- aries of the use of this word for a commercial traveller or rather for such a traveller who drove a horse and gig such a "bagman" as we find in chap. xiv. of ' Pickwick.' I well remember, when every one was talking of the Ptugeley poisoning cases in 1855, hearing one of the supposed victims, who is referred to in 'The Life and Career of Wm. Palmer' as a sporting bagman," spoken of as an "out- rider," and I have heard the same word similarly used at other times by old-fashioned folks. I believe it originated with the advent of railways, and was used to distinguish a traveller who drove round in a gig for orders from one who used the new iron roads.

W. B. H.

"MACHINE" = PUBLIC COACH. You note (ante, p. 336) that 'machine has been used by Sou they and Thackeray for a public coach An earlier use is that of John Wesley, who recorded in his diary, under date 15 August 1763, "I went in the one-day machine to Bath" (Wesley's 'Journals,' vol. iii. p. 135)


Some information concerning the history of his coach would be interesting.

ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

"ALL FOURS," A KENTISH GAME. As the 'Victoria County Histories " are to contain an account of the natural products of all Bounties, I submit the following extract from Richard Seymour's * Compleat Gamester ' fifth edition, 1734, part ii. p. 10) to the editor >f the Kentish volumes :

"All Fours. This Game is very much played in ent, from which County it derives its Original, ind tho' it be but a Vulgar Game, great Sums have been lost at it."

Q. V.

ADJECTIVAL CHANGE. My impression is }hat people used to speak and to write of a arge-sized bowl, a three-volumed novel, a double-barrelled gun, and so forth. At present we have a large-size bowl, a three- volume novel, a double-barrel gun. I say nothing in favour or disfavour of either one

orm or the other. I merely note what seems

to me to be a change. ST. SWITHIN.


WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest DO affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

Two OLD QUATRAINS. I have in my possession a very imperfect copy lacking title-page of the first edition of ' The Diall of Princes' (1557), which in weak moments I sometimes think may have passed through Shakespeare's hands, for in the right-hand corner of folio 222, recto, is written u Shak," with the remains of a tailed letter, the corner having suffered from wear and tear ; and the letters " G. S." which might possibly stand for Gulielmus Shakespeare are impressed on the leather binding. The following quat- rains are written at the foot of two of the pages in the old court-hand style :

" Dull earthly drosse where in consistes thy pryde, thy state and greatest glory goes to grounde, the bed of wormes where in thou shalt abide, willbee corrupted and thou filthy founde."

" I bost not of my Exelence, my faultes are Publike knowne : I seeke not for preheminence, my skill it is my owne."

Have any of your readers met with these quatrains elsewhere ?

ALFRED E. THISELTON. 28, Millman Street, Bedford Row, W.C.

JOHN VOYEZ. There is a Staffordshire saying that " the county potters could never