Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/301

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9* s. x. OCT. 11, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


293


faces. This is alluded to in ' Twelfth Night, II. iii. 17, where, on the entrance of the clown while Sir Andrew Aguecheek is con- versing with Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew exclaims, "Here comes the fool," and the clown replies, " How now, my hearts ! die you never see the picture of 'We three'?' In the present day the joke assumes the form of a card, on which are portrayed the heads of two donkeys (a small mirror being sometimes affixed), with the legend, " When shall we three meet again ? " F. ADAMS.

Consult the Mirror, vol. vii. ; Hone's

  • E very-Day Book,' i., ii., and ' Table Book ' ;

Beaufoy's ' Tokens ' ; Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixxxviii. ; Ackermann's c Tokens ' ; Jour- nal of the Archaeological Association, 1853 ; Larwood's ' History of Signboards ' ; " Gen- tleman's Magazine Library " (' Archaeology '), 1886 ; Walford's ' Londonia,' 1879 ; and ' N. & Q.,' 1" S. ix. ; 4 th S. xii.

EVERAKD HOME GOLEM AN.

71, Brecknock Road.

"MALLET" OR "MULLET" (9 th S. ix. 486; x. 93, 173, 193). Regarding Tewkesbury mustard the following may perhaps be of interest :

" Old Fuller says that the mustard of Tewkes-


shire Achievements,' p. 21) representing two ser- vants contending for the superiority 01 their re- spective masters. 'My master,' exclaims the one, ' spends more in mustard than thine does in beef,' while the other rejoins, ' The more saucy men his followers.' This, as Shakspere would say, was a biting jest. In his play of 'Henry IV.' (Part II. Act II. sc. iv.) he has praised the Tewkesbury mus- tard, and handed down the proverb 'As thick as Tewkesbury mustard ' as illustrative of the wit of the neighbourhood, strong, thick, pungent. In times past the nobles were great farmers, and the Lords of Berkeley eminently so. Not less, perhaps, the great Duke of Buckingham their neighbour at Thornbury ; but while the attention of Maurice, Lord Berkeley, was given to the rearing and feeding of pigs, that of the Duke of Buckingham was given to the cultivation of mustard. A curious bandying of the slang in vogue in those days is preserved in the matter of a quarrel between these two nobles. The Duke called Lady Berkeley ' a false chorle and wiche,' and her husband ' false unnatural Maurice,' and bade him ' go feed pigs as he did before, when he dwelt at Portbury,' wnereupon Lord Berkeley retorted in the tu quoque style, that 'such words belonged to the Duke and his erledom, and that he sent them back again to stop mustard pottes.'-"- Oloucestershire Notes and Queries, 1881, No. 1, p. 45, Ixxi.

JUBAL STAFFORD.

Edgeley, Stockport.

In 'The Pirate' (chap, vi.) the following expression occurs, used by Mistress Barbara


Yellowley on the occasion of the intrusion of Norna of the Fitful Head at Harfra in the Shetland Isles :

" ' Honest woman !' echoed Baby' Foul warlock thief ! Aroint, ye limmer ! ' she added, addressing Norna directly ; ' out of an honest house, or shame fa' me, but I '11 take the bittle to you.' "

An appended note says :

" The beetle with which the Scottish housewives used to perform the office of the modern mangle, by beating newly-washed linen on a smooth stone for the purpose, called the beetling stone."

Ignotum per ignotius, it does not tell us exactly what the bittle was.

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

"SENCE": "SENSE" (9 th S. x. 184). Of these two forms sense appears to have been more common in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries or perhaps I should speak only of the latter period but sence is not infrequently met with. In Warner's 'Albion's England ' (1612) I fyave found sense only, but the other form may* occur also ; Raleigh, in his 'History' (1614), uses sense; Sir Thomas Browne in the 'Vulgar Errors ' (1646), sence; Culpeper in 'Galen's Method of Physick' (1654), sence ; Sylvester in his ' Du Bartas ' (1633), sense and sens-less; Bacon, 'Natural History ' (1664), sense ; Marston (Smith's reprint), sense; Chapman in 'All Fooles' (Smith), sence; Ramsey, 'Of Poysons ' (1660), sense; Selden, 'Table- Talk' (Arber), sense; Lyly, ' Euphues ' (Arber), sence ; Puttenham, ' Arte of Englishe Poesie ' (Arber), both sence and sense, but the former most frequently. I have not thought it necessary to give exact references, and have given the dates of such works only as I quote from original editions. Smith and Arber, however, both follow the original spelling. It is evident that sence died hard. C. C. B.

CHARLES II. IN WEST DORSET (9 th S. x. 141, 236). All readers of ' N. & Q.' have perused MR. J. S. UDAL'S interesting communication under this heading. What actually occurred almost directly after the incidents in Sep-

ember, 1651, so pleasantly recorded, may

found in an old brochure entitled 'Col. jounter's Account of the Miraculous Escape of King Charles II., 6 October, 1651.'

HARRY HEMS Fair Park, Exeter.

KNURR AND SPELL (9 th S. ix. 385, 452, 511; x. Ill, 196). R. B R has forgotten the name used on Tyneside for this game. It is there " nown as " trippet and coit," and in the !.D. Society's ' Northumberland Glossary' a description of the game will be found under