94
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. XL JAN. so, 1915.
MERCERS' CHAPEL, LONDON (11 S. xi. 28).
These Begisters, 1641-1833, are among the
Chester MSS. at the College of Arms.
According to Baedeker's ' London,' 1905, Mercers' Chapel,
" which is adorned with modern frescoes o* Becket's martyrdom and the Ascension, occupie 3 the site of the house in which Thomas Becket wa s born in 1119, and where a hospital and chapel were erected to his memory about the year 1190. Henry VIII. afterwards granted the hospital to the Mercers, who had been incorporated in 1393."
A. R. BAYLEY.
<c BROTHER JOHANNES " (11 S. x. 370, 397, 418, 494). In my reply at the last reference I spoke of Joachim of Calabria and John of Paris as contemporaries. This was a slip : the former died about 1202, while the latter was born later in the same century, exact year unknown.
In regard to Tolstoy's vision, while I pro- visionally accepted it as genuine on the word of Countess Nastasia Tolstoy, I am open to conviction that she indulged in fiction. But I do not like to think so after her explicit statement of 4 Jan., 1913.
ALBERT J. EDMUNDS. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
" FORWHY " (11 S. x. 509 ; xi. 35, 56). - This expression was discussed in a much earlier Series, when it was written, I think, as a compound for-why. The rime quoted by C. C. B. I knew sixty years ago as : I sits wi' my toes in a bruck,
An' if anny one axes me for-why, I hits 'em a rap wi' my cruk, Becos I choses, ses I.
For-why is common with country-folk in the Midlands, and it is charming to hear it from the lips of old people in such sentences as " WelJ, I '11 tell you for-why;' or " I can't tell you why, for-why." The latter implies that to tell would be to break faith.
THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Two examples of this word in the sense of " because " may be given from Chaucer. Describing his approach in vision to the mourning John of Gaunt ('The Book of the Duchesse, 1. 461), he says he was not observed, and adds as the reason, " For-why he heng his heed adoune." Again, in ' The House of Fame,' ii. 45, the poet dreams that he is carried aloft in the talons of a mighty eagle, and describes the effects as follows:
For so astonied and a-sweved
Was every vertu in my heved,
What with his sours and with my drede,
That al my feling gan to dede ;
For-why hit was to greet affray.
THOMAS BAYNE.
" For why " is frequently used by Chaucer,
both in prose and verse, and in most cases
in the sense of because, but never with the ?
The late Prof. Skeat in his ' Complete Works
of Geoffrey Chaucer ' gives the meanings as
follows : " For why, conj., for what reason,
wherefore, why, because" ; and in his 'Ety-
mological Dictionary,' " Why, on what
account. ' '
"Why" is properly the instrumental case of "who," and was accordingly frequently preceded by the prep, "for," which (in A. -S.) sometimes governed the case. M. E. "whi," why, Wyclif, Matt. xxi. 26, "for whi" = on which account, because.
H. A. C. SATJNDERS.
ARMS IN HATHERSAGE CHURCH, DERBY (11 S. x. 68). With reference to the query regarding the arms in Hathersage Church, Derby, I ran give MR. CHARLES DRURY the information about this family at Hathersage if he cares to apply to me. It would be too lengthy for the columns of ' N. & Q.' to trace the different members of the Eyre family who 1m ve resided at Hathersage. Please reply to the Editor of ' N. & Q.' TRIN. COLL. CAMB.
HORSE ON COLUMN (A SADDLER'S SIGN) IN PICCADILLY (11 S. xi. 29). MR. LANDFEAR LUCAS asks for information about a detail in an illustration reproduced in my book ' The Story of Bethlehem Hospital.' I am able to add a note to his query by citing F. G. Stephens in his ' Catalogue of Prints and Drawings. 1 In his description of ' The Arrest,' which is plate iv. of ' A Rake's Progress/ he writes (vol. iii. pt. i. p. 140, No. 2202) :
" Behind the lamp cleaner a saddler's sign, being a statue of a horse, stands on a post, with, on the pedestal, the name Hods [on], sadle[r]."
This, then, is the saddler's shop, with its appropriate sign, which is also engraved by the artist of ' The Military Prophet ' as standing at the corner of Piccadilly and St. James's Street in 1750.
GEOFFREY O'DONOGHUE. Bethlehem Hospital, S.E.
XANTHUS, EXANTHE, EXHANTUS (11 S. xi. 46). The explanation of the words " the sweet river Hippanus is made bitter when it passeth the pole Exanfhe " is quite simple, and has nothing to do with the Xanthus or " Exhantus." ^Herodotus (bk. iv. chaps. Hi. and Ixxxi. ) says of the Hypanis, the modern Bug, that for the first part of its course (five days' voyage) it is a small river with sweet water, and for the latter part (four days' voyage), after a bitter spring pours into it,
