Ulster's), who were nicknamed "Celestials because of their blue facings. The 10th Hussars have the name of the "Chainy Tenth," from the metal ornament on the pouch belt. The 19th Hussars are sometimes called the "Dumpies," from the short stature of the men who composed the regiment of Bengal cavalry from which it was formed. The 20th Hussars share this nickname, as also do the 21st Hussars. The "Eagle Takers" was the proud byname of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who captured the French eagle at Barrosa. "Cheeses" is a nickname which has been applied to the Household Cavalry, and was given because a century ago it was remodelled on a somewhat more democratic basis, and some "gentlemen" therefore de- The Royal Scots Fusiliers are known as clined to join! Come on, Cheesemongers, the "Earl of Mar's Grey Breeks." The regicharge!" was the cry of the colonel at Waterment was first raised by Lord Mar in 1678. loo. 66 The Royal Fusiliers have been called 'Cherry Pickers" is a name given to the "Elegant Extracts." The reason assigned 11th Hussars from the cherry colour of the for this odd nickname is that at some unoveralls. They have also been called "Cheru-specified period many of the officers had been bim." A story is told of a party of the transferred from other regiments. regiment having been surprised in a cherry garden during the Peninsular War. "Coalheavers" is a nickname for the Grenadier Guards, originating, it is said, in the permission formerly given to the men to work, in plain clothes, in the coal trade. The second battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, formerly the 86th Regiment, were County Downs." known as 66 "Cross Belts is a name for the 8th Hussars. "The Daily Advertisers " is a name applied, for unknown reasons, to the 5th Lancers. The 17th Lancers are the "Death or Glory Boys' -a name easily explained, as their banner bears a skull underneath which are the words or glory." The 9th Lancers are known as the "Delhi Spearmen," from the dexterity with which they used their lances in the Indian Mutiny. The 'Devil's Own was the nickname of the old 88th, now the Connaught Rangers. The Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment) includes the former 57th, known as the Die Hards," from their splendid courage at Albuera. The "Dirty Half Hundred" is a name for the former 50th, now part of the Queen's Royal West Kent Regiment. The 8th Hussars are the "Dirty Eighth." Why this designation should be suitable to! this regiment is one of the mysteries of the usually good-natured spirit of satire to which military nicknames are due. The Royal Munster Fusiliers are made up of the former 101st and 104th Regiments. "Dirty Shirts" was the name given to the 101st, who fought in their shirt sleeves at Delhi. The 18th Hussar Regiment is known as "Drogheda Light Horse," because it was first raised in the middle of the last century by the Marquis of Drogheda. Evergreens" is a name for the 13th Hussars. The "Excellers," now incorporated in the Prince of Wales's Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment), derived their name from the regimental "XL." The Durham Light Infantry comprise the former 68th and 106th Regiments. The 68th were known as the "Faithful Durhams." The Bedfordshire Regiment was nicknamed "Featherbeds," because for a very long period it saw no active service. Its flag begins with Blenheim and ends with Chitral. The "Fighting Fifth" was a name for the Northumberland Fusiliers. The 15th Hussars have well earned their designation of the "Fighting Fifteenth." The Prince of Wales's Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment) include the 40th, often styled the "Fighting Fortieth." In the Royal Irish Rifles are amalgamated the 83rd and the 86th Regiments. The first were known as "Fitch's Grenadiers." The former 54th, now the Dorsetshire Regiment, were known as the "Flamers." The "Gallant Half Hundred" is a nickname for the former 50th, which now form part of the Queen's Royal West Kent Regi ment. "Gardiner's Dragoons" is a name for the 13th Hussars. "Garvies" was the nickname of the former 94th, which now forms part of the Connaught SHAKESPEARIANA. 'HAMLET,' I. iv. 36 (9th S. iv. 222).—I did not at this time of day expect in the 'Shakespeariana' of 'N. & Q.' to meet with an emendation so wildly conjectural as that proposed by MR. G. H. SKIPWITH. Emendations of this kind have long been at a dis count, and their revival in your columns in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white would be nothing short of a calamity. hairs, but competency lives longer." MR. SKIPWITH says that he had "looked through various suggestions on this well-line 9 to and, which receives the approval Hanmer changed the adversative "but" in known crux in the Eighth Series." If he had of the latest Variorum editor. read them with any care he would not have comes sooner by white hairs, is short lived"Superfluity ventured to speak of "the unmeaning 'eale"" after DR. FURNIVALL'S demonstration (8th S. longer, is long-lived an undesirable result; but competency lives x. 70) that “eale" is the original reading, as a With the emphasis on "longer," the adversa-a desirable result." phonetic abbreviation of "evil" no more un- tive "but" expresses the contrast between meaning than is the twice-repeated "deale" the result of superfluity and that of comfor "devil." petency. E. M. DEY. In his impossible transmutation of "eale" into "base MR. SKIPWITH was anticipated in 8th S. x. 23. On this transmutation another contributor (8th S. x. 70) remarks, with just sarcasm: "To read 'base' for eale requires almost the courage of that prince of emendators, Peter, in Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' who substituted 'broomsticks' for 'silver fringe.' I have nothing to add to my own final note (the last of three) on this passage, 8th S. x. 450. With the exception of modernizing the spelling of "eale," I did not, in the emendation which I proposed, and to which I adhere, add to or remove from the text a single letter: The dram of evil Doth o' the noble substance fall a doubt R. M. SPENCE, D.D. Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B. "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,' I. i. 29-36 (9th S. v. 63).—I ask my esteemed friend MR. MERTON DEY whether there is not a more likely solution of the supposed difficulty than that which he has proposed. I think there is. Let us suppose "I" understood in line 35, and all is plain : And, in a word, [I] but even now worth this, And now worth nothing. If, as MR. DEY supposes, "worth" referred to the spices and silks, I think their worth would have been stated in ducats, and not in the very indefinite “this." But it may be asked, Does Shakespeare ever use "worth" in the sense of estimation of a man by his means? In one other passage at least he evidently does : 'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,' II. ix. 59–62. Eccles's note on Portia's words is as follows: There is surely an obscurity in this reply. She injudicious choice he had made; he ought not, seems to consider him as having offended by the therefore, to assume the character of a judge in deciding upon his own merits, which, indirectly, he may be said to do by this indignant inquiry." offend in making this choice; indeed, the It is hard to see how the prince could reverse was the case, so far as the lady was concerned. Unless we may suppose the impersonal author of the casket's contents felt, in some inexplicable manner, that he was aggrieved by the unlucky suitors, Eccles's said indirectly to decide upon his own merits theory will not hold. If Arragon may be by his indignant inquiry, then, as a decision, his words required no reply, and Portia's remark was volunteered and in the nature of a rebuke to one who was suffering from mortification and disappointment. Had these words been uttered by Kate the cursed, the explanation offered by Eccles would, perhaps, be plausible; but, coming from Portia, this meaning (to use Dr. Furness's fitting words regarding another speech of Portia's) "is not exactly in harmony with that sympathetic tenderness of hers which was like the gentle rain from heaven." that she considered herself responsible for Portia's reply indicates the offence given by having insisted on this choice of the caskets, and, by saying that she was thus incapacitated to act as judge on his merits, gave good promise of the acumen which she was to display later on. While admiring the adroit manner of escaping from the dilemma, we can also note the kindness shown in her refraining to add to Arragon's discomfiture. As Capell very properly marked Too long a pause for that which you find there as an "aside," so may we be sure Portia did (II. ix. 53) not mean to utter a criticism upon Arragon's very natural protest, but wished, by deftly 'KING JOHN,' II. i. 118, 119. K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority. monsieur." 'CORIOLANUS,' IV. vii. 55.Rights by rights fouler, strengths by strengths do faile. It seems probable that "fouler" represents "foulter" in the manuscript. The latter word may be found in Florio's 'Montaigne,' book ii. chap. viii., where Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat, is translated If you be wise, the horse growne-old betimes cast-off, 'JULIUS CÆSARr,' V. i. 14.— hoped that, under Queen Victoria as under Queen would coincide with the turn of the tide of war. Elizabeth, the arrival of the English Volunteers -Times, 2 February, p. 5. The magnificent patriotism of to-day hast been free from any exception such as occurred in 1803 : "A pleasantry of Pitt at this time has been preserved by tradition. It seems that one battalion which he was forming (or in the formation of which he was consulted) did not show the same readiness as distinguished the rest. Their draft rules which they sent to Pitt were full of cautions and reserves. The words except in case of actual invasion were that at no time, and on no account whatever, were constantly occurring. At length came a clause they to be sent out of the country. Pitt here lost patience, and taking up his pen he wrote opposite to that clause in the draft the same words as he had read in the preceding-except in case of vol. iv. p. 82. actual invasion'!"-Stanhope's 'Life of Pitt,' Upton. · R. B. CAMPBELL AND VIRGIL. Under the Sed te victa situ verique effeta senectus, Ore refert. Eneid,' vii. 435-6. Their bloody sign of battle is hung out. Taken, of course, from North's 'Plutarch': "The signal of battle was set out in Brutus's and Cassius's camp, which was an arming scarlet coat." But compare 'The Last East Indian Voyage,' London, 1606-Sir Henry Middleton's voyage to Bantam and the Moluccas describing the Portuguese settle-But man cannot cover what God would reveal. ment of Ternaté in the Moluccas, the Portu- Hæc adeo tibi me, placida cum nocte jaceres guese then being at war with the Dutch: Ipsa palam fari omnipotens Saturnia jussit. 'Æneid,' vii. 428-9. The twelfth day came news the Hollanders False wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan; were in sight, and out went their bloody Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one. colours at the fort" (Hakluyt Society's re- Quare age, et armari pubem, portisque moveri print, 1855, p. 44). PERCY SIMPSON. ENGLISH VOLUNTEERS SERVING ABROAD: AN INTERVAL.-Addressing the City of London Volunteers, who arrived at Cape Town on 29 January by the ss. Briton, "Lord Roberts remarked that the officers who organized the Volunteer force in 1859 never dreamt that the Volunteers would ever serve in South Africa. The last time a Volunteer force left England was to help the Dutch-and they arrived just in time to save Flushing from the Spaniards. He Eneid,' vii. 429-30. Lætus in arma para. But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, Say rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth excessive smoking. Though he was so well GIPSIES.-The parish register of Didsbury, near Manchester, records the burial, on From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the 18 August, 1579, of "John the sonne of north? Alarum verbera nosco,....... Letalemque sonum; nec fallunt jussa superba Magnanimi Jovis. Eneid,' xii. 876-8. Littoreas agitabat aves, turbamque sonantem Agminis aligeri. Eneid,' xii. 248-49. Charles baptist egiptian." At Aberdeen, Other little touches of Mantuan inspiration or reminiscence might be added to the above. Apart from such coincidences, how-clame." An accusation at Durham, in 1549, ever, the correspondence, mutatis mutandis, against Baptist Fawe, is well known to those of the Wizard and Lochiel to Alecto and interested in gipsiology, as also the committal Turnus seems to be sufficiently exact to at Devonshire Lent Assize, 1598, of Charles suggest that Campbell's Virgilian studies Baptist, with Oliver and Bartholomew Baptist, counted for something in the conception bury record is new. for wandering like Egyptians; but the DidsThe Manchester Conand composition of his Lochiel's Warning.' stable's Accounts, in A. C. MOUNSEY. 1618-19, contain payment of ijs. viijd. for "whippinge of eight counterfeit jpsies that were taken with a privie search.' H. T. CROFTON. Jedburgh. - a A CHAINED CURATE.-Chained books, such as those at Guildford (eighty-five in number, and now being rearranged), at Wimborne, Hereford, or other places, are familiar to many of your readers. A chained man, church, is perhaps sufficiently unusual to however, in recent times, in a Cornish merit record in the pages of N. & Q.' Shortly after Dr. Benson's appointment to the bishopric of Truro he made an explora. tion of the diocese, described in his recently published life : THE MOUSE (ISAIAH LXVI. 17). The revisers have, in several places, altered and improved the zoological renderings of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament. It seems a pity that they did not at least suggest ina marginal note an alteration in this, for there can be but little doubt that the animal intended (y), which is forbidden to be eaten in Leviticus xi. 29, is the jerboa (sometimes called jumping mouse), the flesh of which is eaten by the Arabs and Egyptians to this day, and is said to resemble that of the rabbit. It is also mentioned in the first book of Samuel, chap. vi., and said to mar "At one place, several years before, the Curatethe land," no doubt from the great destruc-in-charge had been chained to the altar-rails while tion of grain, &c., which would be caused by he read the Service, as he had a harmless mania large numbers of them. W. T. LYNN. which made him suddenly flee from the church, if his own activities were for an instant suspendedas, for example, by a response. The churchwarden, a farmer, kept the padlock key in his pocket until the service was safely over."-Life of Archbishop Benson,' vol. i. p. 429. R. B. Blackheath. THE LAW LIST.'-Probably most people would take the English 'Law List' to be a pretty safe evidence that the owner of any name included in it was alive. It is, however, nothing of the sort as regards a very important portion, namely, barristers. There must be some hundreds of names of men who are dead included in it. Many names have been printed year after year for fifty years without address! But one fact will be better than any amount of speculation; that fact is that Andrew Steinmetz died in a miserable condition in University College Hospital in 1877, as I know from having seen the certificate of his death at Somerset House; nevertheless, his name was in the 'Law List' for 1898, twenty-one years after his death. He brought on blindness by Upton. MACKY'S 'COURT CHARACTERS.' - In the Tixall library sale at Sotheby's on 6 November, 1899, lot 189, was a MS. volume described in the catalogue as follows: "Davis.-The Characters of all the Nobility and Gentry of England and Scotland, serving in and under the Government of Queen Anne, manuscript (135 11.), very neatly written, half bound, folio, 17—. This was written about 1712 by Mr. Davis, an English Gentleman at Venice, and carried to the Elector of Hanover, afterwards K. George 1.'-MS. note on fly-leaf.” Thinking from this description that the manuscript might be of considerable historical vately. interest, and knowing of no printed book on blame is attributable. Manuscripts are the subject by an author named Davis-"ticklish" things to dabble in; and the legal although well acquainted with John Macky's maxim caveat emptor may well be applied to Court Characters' I inspected the same their purchase, whether at auction or priwith a view to purchase as an addition to W. I. R. V. my extensive collections, and then at once perceived from the context that it was merely "HEEL-BALL" OR "COBBLERS' WAX." (See a transcript (in a large and fair clerical hand ante, p. 137.)-I am surprised that MR. THOS of the early part of the eighteenth century) RATCLIFFE should speak of these two quite of Macky's work as above, but with no such distinct articles as if they were the same title as given, nor, indeed, any. And the questhing. Both are correctly described in the tion thereupon occurred to my inind whether 'H.E.D.,' and I should have thought that the words of the original title had been every one knew the difference in composition quoted, and whether this MS. ever contained and use. Heel-ball is a hard substance made the like on a leaf which had been purposely of wax, lamp-black, &c., and is used for abstracted, or (as being loose) lost since it polishing the sides of the heels and soles of was catalogued for sale. As the result, I boots and shoes, also for making rubbings of need hardly state that I was "off" the pur- brasses, &c. Cobblers' wax is not so hard, and chase. it softens at once in the warmth of the hand. The Court Characters,' published with It is made of pitch and rosin, and is used, the Memoirs of Macky's Secret Services,' as MR. RATCLIFFE says, in making "waxed although not printed until 1733 (ie., some ends"; also as an application to some wounds, seven years after his death), was, according being considered to be "a very drawing to the title-page, drawn up by him pursuant to thing." I remember a poor, but characteristic the direction of H.R.H. the Princess Sophia joke in the 'Pogmoor Almanack,' in the (Electress Dowager of Hanover), at some time between, as it would appear from internal evidence, 1703 and 1706, when the author visited that kingdom and the other Courts of Germany en route for the Island of Zant, in the dominion of Venice, where he possessed a portion of an estate. At the desire of the princess he then gave her, we are told, "the characters of the great men of England and Scotland"-meaning, no doubt, a transcript LETTER WRITING. (See ante, p. 101.) of the original and then unpublished MS. The decay of letter-writing-admitted and which service, with many others, her lamented-has not been caused solely by the Royal Highness acknowledged by letters penny post. It has been brought about more to him. Another (the Tixall) transcript by the quickness of communication which must have been made, about 1712, by the railway system has rendered possible, the above-named Mr. Davis-possibly from and by the multiplication of cheap daily that which had been some years previously newspapers. It is needless for me to write given to the princess; for, unless we are to to my friend in the country an account of understand that the word "written" con- what is happening in town when, perhaps, tained in the note on the fly-leaf thereof was he himself may be travelling thither by the loosely intended (as I can well imagine it next express train, and, if not, can learn towas) for the more precise "transcribed," the day's events from to-morrow's morning paper. first portion of such note is incomprehensible. What we need, in literature as well as in In any case it would be interesting to have letter-writing, is to resist the impulse to live some further light thrown on its subject. as quickly as we can. W. C. B. The price of 31. realized at the sale for the Tixall transcript was, in the circumstances, remarkably high, and I think fully justifies my opinion that the unfortunate purchaser and his competitors considered they were bidding for a valuable original unpublished MS. by one Davis; and I regret that (in the public interest) I should have to cause the buyer any disappointment with his "little lot." To the auctioneers no forties, of a schoolmaster hearing his class Durham. "THE EVOLUTION OF EDITORS.'-Under this heading Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his ‘Studies of a Biographer,' tells us that in the last edition of 'Johnson's Dictionary' "published during his life" we find that in 1785 (Johnson, by the way, died in 1784) the word "editor" meant "either 'publisher' simply, or editor in the sense in which the name describes Bentley's relation to Horace or Warburton's to Pope." |