166
NOTES AND QUERIES, cio* s. m. MARCH 4, IQOS.
sind well disposing memory (praysed be Allmyghty
<jrod therefore), doe make and ordaine this my last
will and testament in manner following."
He then expresses the usual Christian senti- ments of the period, gives the conditions of the will, and finishes up :
" This is my lafet will and testament (and I revoke -all wills formerly made by me whatsoever), and whether it be law or not this shall stand and noe law whatsoever shall alter it."
It was proved 24 January, 1684/5.
HERBERT SOUTH AM.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that the answers may be sent to them
direct.
"PERIT." Some eight years ago I received most valuable help from some of your readers and others in elucidating the English use of the word droit. The history of the word remains a mystery. (See 8 th S. x. 255, 278, 305, 338, 383, and 'N.E.D.,' s.v.) I am now investigating the name of the still more infinitesimal twentieth part of a droit, variously spelt "perit," "perrit," "perrot," <4 periot." The weight is thus given in various works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, e.g., Bradley's ' Family Dictionary ' of 1725, s.v. 'Weight': "The Moneyers sub- divide the grain thus : 1 grain contains 20 mites, 1 mite 24 droits, 1 droit 20 perrots, 1 perrot 24 blanks," the perit being thus gJ^, and the blank -^oVoo- of a grain. When I wrote before, one correspondent suggested for this seriesof diminutive weights a Dutch origin. That they were at least known in Holland appears from a passage in Murray's ' Handbook to North Germany ' <ed. 1838, p. 40), in reference to the " Tulipo- mania " : " These tulip roots were never
bought or sold, but the bulbs, and their
division into perits, became like the different stocks in our public funds, and were bought and sold at different prices from day to day."
I recently spoke about the possible use of these minute weights to a distinguished mathematician, who expressed to me his opinion that they were merely a cumbrous mode of expressing, with considerable exact- ness, fractions of a grain, which we now more simply do by places of decimals. Each place of decimals is really a new denomination = fa of the preceding, only we do not speak of it as such, or give it a distinctive name, like mite, or droit, or perit, and this subdivision can by a decimal notation
be carried to infinity, whereas the seven-
teenth-century system went down only to
the equivalent of 5 places of decimals. Thus
the seventh part of a grain is decimally
xpressed by the circulating decimal '142857,
whereas in the seventeenth century it would
have been expressed as 2 mites, 20 droits,
11 perits, 10-| blanks. The French centigram
is equal nearly to 0154323488 grain, where
the value of the last decimal figure 8 is a
weight equal to TITS'OOOOOO' f a Rrain, or less
than 3"]-o of a " blank," or T^STI of a " perit."
The subdivision of the grain was evidently
founded on thatof the troy ounce in to 20 penny-
weights of 24 grains, the proportions 20 and
24 being repeated twice over below the grain.
Mr. R. J. Whitwell tells me that he has found
an example of the word droit in a document
dated about 1564, but not the smaller
weights, perits and blanks. Any further
information as to origin and history of the
system will be most welcome.
J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.
IRRITABILITY OF CHARACTER. Voici une anecdote que raconte Monsieur Ramon de Mesonero Romanes dans son livre ' Memorias de un Setenton ' (Madrid, MDCCCXXX., pp. 96- 97):-
"Deseando Wellington (no se si por impulse propio 6 por excitacion agena) tener su _ retrato pintado por el celebre Goya, pasu, acompaiiado de su amigo predil'ecto, el general Alava, a casa del artista que, como es sabido, era una quinta de recreo y de labor orillas del Mauzanares, camino de San Isidro. Sabe todo el mundo tambien la excentricidad y braveza del caracter de Goya, que le habia grangeado tanta popularidad como sus mismas obras, y que esta condicion, verdadera- mente excepcional, se habia exacerbado con una sordera tan profunda que no alcanzaba a oir d cuatro pasos el estampido de un canon. Pues bien, dadas estas premisas, presentose el Lord acompa- uado de Alava, en el estudio de Goya, a quien le bastaba una hora de sesion para bosquejar un retrato, y este puso inmediatamente manos ;i la obra. Cuando ya lo crey6 en estado de poderle ensenar, lo presento al Lord, el cual, 6 sea por escasa iuteligencia, o sea por natural despego, hizo un gesto despreciativo y afiadio no pocas palabras expresivas de que no le gustaba el retrato ; que era uu verdadero mamarracho, y que no podia aceptarlo de modo alguno ; todo lo cual decia en ingles al general Alava para que lo trasladase al artista por conducto de su hijo don Javier que estaba presente, y por el lenguage de los dedos que era el \inico que podia servir a Goya -Observaba este con recelo y disgusto los gestos del Lord y sus contestaciones con Alava ; y el hijo de Goya, persona muy instruida y que conocia la lengua inglesa, se negaba politicamente a poner en conocimiento de su padre ninguna de las apreciaciones ni palabras del Lord, procurando convencer a este de su equiyocado concepto respecto a la pintura ; pero ni las juiciosas
