9* s. xii. SEPT. 19, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
231
race of his life at Norwich, where he first
took breath to run it. In the MS. collection
of Antony Norris, in my library, quoting
Smith's obituary, he is said to have lost his
credit by an attempt on Mrs. Bermet.
His son Sir Wm. Rant, of Thorpe Market, married Elizabeth, daughter of Jas. de Grey, Esq., of Merton, and his daughter and eventual heiress married Robert Britiffe, Esq., and her daughter and heiress married Sir Wm. Morden Harbord, Bart., and was the ancestress of the present Lord Suffield.
The cousinship of Temple with Rant i.e., blood relationship cannot come through the latter's wife, Miss Dingley, but must be looked for through his mother, Mary Ward, of Boxley, or his grandmother, Catherine Gilbert, of Norwich. WALTEE RYE.
St. Leonard's Priory, Norwich.
- A PRETTY WOMAN ' : ' No ACTRESS ' : ' THE
EDEN ROSE ' (9 th S. xi. 509).' The Rose of Eden : Arabic Legend,' will be found on p. 107 of * On the Seaboard, and other Poems,' by Susan K. Phillips, second edition, Lon- don, Macmillan & Co., 1879.
CHARLES A. FEDERER.
"I" PRINTED WITH SMALL LETTER (9 th S.
xi. 448 : xii. 73, 172). The dot is a survival from MS. times, when it served to distinguish the "i" among a number of precisely similar strokes, as in such words as " minimum " and "nurninum." J. T. F.
If C. L. F. will just write a few such words as ciuil (with older u for v), illumine, or 'minim, without being particular as to the round bends of m, n, and u, he will soon see the "raison d'etre of the dot over the small *'."
SIMPLICISSIMUS.
For the origin of the dot over the small " i " see ' H.E.D.' under ' I.' C. C. B.
SQUARE CAP (9 fch S. xii. 28, 111). A refer- ence to ' Historic Dress of the Clergy,' by the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A., confirms the editorial foot-note to this query that the square cap of an Augustinian canon was the biretta, and not the familiar college cap or mortar-board. Mr. Tyack's work contains an illustration of the cap.
RICHARD LAWSON.
I do not know whether the fact has been noted in these columns, but in Charles Gould's 'Mythical Monsters,' 1886, p. 104, a woodcut represents the royal diadem of the Chen dynasty from the San Li T'u, which almost exactly resembles the college cap of to-day, and is indeed claimed by the author to indi- cate its origin. It may perhaps be noted, in passing, that it is Mueller (not Muller) and
Mothes who are the authors of the * Archao-
logisches Worterbuch.'
J. HOLDEN MAcMlCHAEL.
[The fifth edition of 'Meyers Konversations- Lexikon,' s.v. Mothes. gives the joint author as H. A. Miiller.]
"To MUG" (9 th S. xii. 5, 136). In 'The Slang Dictionary ' (edition of 1874) various meanings of mug and to mug are given, in- cluding the ideas of the face, fisticuffs, and intoxication, but the work assigns only mug- up for the theatrical use of the term. The defi- nition therein given is " Mug-up, to paint one's face or dress specially with a view to imper- sonation. Theatrical." But there is another theatrical meaning for mug, which is plainly indicated in Pierce Egan's ' Life of an Actor* (chap, iii.), in which the swindling manager, Mr. Screw, when describing to the hero, Peregrine Proteus, the members of his com- pany, observes :
"Then last, but not least, in the company is my low comedian, Mr. Ephraim Mug -Cutter. The history of the stage cannot boast such an original ' cutter of mugs ' as Ephraim. He is a century before all the actors in the kingdom, living or dead. With as much pliability as putty, he can cry on one-half of his face and laugh on the other side at the same time."
That this meaning is still in use may be gathered from a very recent note in the Tatler concerning the actor's mouth, which is often crooked :
- ' At one time it was considered the mark of the
low comedian, for nearly every one of them had a mouth twisted either to the right or left as the result of 'mugging.'"
ALFRED F. BOBBINS.
MR. E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN says he has never heard the verb "to mug" in connexion with fighting. Neither have I, but I have often heard lads in South Notts describe a blow in the mouth as "a mug in the muss."
C. C. B.
In the Derbyshire dialect "the mug" is not the face, but the mouth only. "Hide that ugly mug" = mputh. "Ah gen him a good muggin' " hit him on the mouth ; and "hey 's getten a muggin'." "Mug" is not used in Derbyshire that I am aware of to denote drinking. " Hey pows his ugly mug intow aw shapes " ; " His mug 's like a side- oven when t' door 's oppen."
THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
The following is taken from Miss Baker's ' Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases ' :
" Mug. To supply with beer, to give beer as a bribe. A farmer said to his wife, ' Come ! mug the
