Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/134

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. m. FKB. n, 1005.


a paper on them, but on account of his illness it had to be read for him. There were several pieces of pottery, some spoons, knives, and a few glass bottles. Some of the spoons were of pewter, others of brass. Upon a few were initials, one being marked with "S. G.," and another with " H." To these the date of the middle of the seventeenth century has been assigned. One is marked with " T. S.," and is thought to belong to the period 1680-90. The knives were considered to belong mostly to the seventeenth century, but one is, not improbably, of an earlier date. The author of the paper bought a "greybeard" jug, which when purchased was corked down, and when opened was found to contain a variety of small articles ; and he says that he has little doubt " as to the nature of this deposit inside a corked jug, found in the clay of the mill-stream bank." The articles were " a small piece of cloth or serge formerly red of the shape of a heart, and stuck full of round-headed brass pins, a small quantity of supposed human hair, and some clippings of finger- nails." Mr. Warren thinks that they con- stituted a "malevolent charm," the intended victim of which was most likely a woman. These old-world relics are of vast interest, but probably the most interesting was a portion of the shrine of St. Edward, which it is supposed was carried away at the time of the Reformation. It is pleasing to be able to record, upon the authority of the Dean of Westminster, that this fragment has been restored to the Abbey authorities.

For the particulars here given I am indebted to Mr. Reuben Vlrich, who was present at the^meeting, and I thought the matter of sufficient interest for preservation in <N. &.Q.' W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY.

Westminster.

SHAP, WESTMORLAND. I beg to point out to Mr. R. D. Trimmer and Mr. 0. G. Crump <see ' Calendar of Charter Rolls,' 1903, i. 594), to Father Gasquet (see Transactions Royal Historical Society, xvii. 3, and ' Collectanea Anglo-Prsemonstratensia,' i. viii.), and to all others whom it may concern, that the village and abbey of Shap are in the county \of Westmorland. As a matter of fact they are at least six miles from the nearest point in Cumberland, to which county they are ascribed by the gentlemen in question. There seems no adequate reason for depriv- ing Westmorland of the only monastery it possesses. Q. V.

FRANCIS BACON : SINGULAR ADDRESS. My attention has been drawn to the following


singular address to Bacon, which appears on the third leaf of ' The Attourney's Academy,' by Thomas Powell, third edition, 4to, 1030 :

" To true Nobility and Tryde Learning, beholden to no Mountaine for Eminence, nor supportment for his Height, Francis, Lord Verulam, and Viscount St. Albanes.

give me leave to pull the Curtaine by, That clouds thy worth in such obscurity, Good Seneca, stay but a while thy bleeding T' accept what I received at thy Reading : Here I present it in a solemne straine,

And thus I pluckt the Curtayne back agaiue. The same

Thomas Powell."

1 do not think that this passage has yet been used by any of the Bacon-Shakespeare advo- cates, though it is pretty sure to be no%v seized upon by them. I do not myself think that it lends any fresh support to their cause, though it may, no doubt, be so handled as to seem to do so. Powell has other dedications or addresses couched in somewhat similarly mysterious terms, so that we need not lay too much stress upon this one. As I conceive, the lines mean no more than that Powell, considering that Bacon, like Seneca, was unjustly degraded and punished, offers him the assurance of his gratitude for the instruc- tion which he had received from him, either orally or from his writings ; and also expresses his unabated faith in the worth and integrity of his preceptor. But I am not sanguine enough to hope that so simple an explana- tion as this will be accepted by the Baconians.

BERTRAM DOBELL.

THE CHINOOK JARGON. In most parts of the world, where Englishmen come into regular contact with native races, some form of mixed language springs up as a means of communication. Pidgin English is the best known, and has been exhaustively illustrated by Leland in his 'Pidgin English Sing-Song.' Even more curious is the Chinook Jargon, which has been an object of interest to philologists for a century; but it is only since the discovery of gold in the Yukon territory that it has penetrated to any extent into our literature. Our dictionaries have not as yet included much Chinook only a few botanical terms, names of roots and fruits, such as camas,2)owitch,iva2)p&too. The general reader, however, now finds Chinook words, not only in works of travel, but especially in the con- stantly swelling volume of fiction written around the Klondyke. There is one novel with a Chinook title, ' The Chicamon Stone,' by C. Phillipps-Wolley, chicamon being the jargon word for "gold." And I cherish the memories of at least two heroines with Chinook names, viz., Jack London's Tenas