Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/182

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116


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io<* s. v. FEB. 24, im.


-can give Dr. Murray the date and exact words of the statute (if any) that disestab- lished the pillory and the ducking-stool.

ROBT. J. VVlIITWELL. Oxford.

CHARING CROSS : BAYSWATER. In the review of Mr. Holden MacMichael's excellent

  • Story of Charing Cross and its Immediate

Neighbourhood ' which appeared ante, p. 97, is is noted that ** Mr. MacMichael dismisses the derivation [of Charing Cross] from chere reine with Prof. Skeat's comment that it is

  • too funny to be pernicious. ' " At 8 th S. vi.

204 PROF. SKEAT quotes this derivation from Hampson's 'Medii ^Evi Kalendaria,' 1841, and adds: "I believe this delicious piece of humbug is still admired." Quite so, for at a public dinner which I attended a few months ago a popular member of Parliament, in proposing the health of Queen Alexandra, compared Her Majesty with her predecessor Queen Eleanor of Castile, with regard to the position which they both held in the hearts of their people, and observed, with Hibernian exuberance: "Not a cabman passes the statue of King Charles but he recalls the chere reine after whom Charing Cross was named." It is obvious, therefore, that, in the interests of after-dinner oratory, it will not do to extinguish this attractive legend. Its first appearance dates, I believe, from a paper in The Gentleman s Magazine for 1814, part i. p. iii, in which a suggestion is made, "in reference to the fond epithets usually applied to the first Edward's beloved Queen, and to the then prevalency of the French language," that "the conjectural reading

  • Chere Reyne'" should be substituted for
  • ' Charing Cross."

For another widespread error ' N. & Q.,' I fancj', is responsible. This is the statement that Bayswater, which was formerly known as "Bayard's Watering," is a corruption of "Baynard's Watering." This notion seems to have originated with an esteemed corre- spondent, E S. (the late Edward Smirke, F.S.A.), in a paper contributed by him to 1 st S. i. 162. It is true that in the Middlesex Domesday we find that a certain "Baini- ardus" held three hides of the Abbot of Westminster, "in villa ubi sedet iecclesia Sancti Petri," but there is not a scrap of evidence to show that this land was situated in or near the modern Bayswater, or that the Domesday tenant was in any way connected with that locality.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

CHARING AND CHARING CROSS. I suppose that the favourite " derivation " of Charing


from Chere Reine, supposed to be the dear queen of Edward I., goes near to being the silliest on record. It is seventeen years since it was pointed out that "La Charring" was mentioned in 1252-3, when Eleanor " was a little girl of nine years old " ; see 7 th S. viii. 507. But the strange thing is that every one seems to have overlooked the fact that there is another Charing, in Kent, to the north-west of Ashford. Now Charing in Kent is men- tioned in an A.-S. charter of 799, in which King "Cenulph" restored some land at Charing to Christ Church, Canterbury. Of course, the spelling Cenulph, in place of Coenwulf, is enough to show that the copy of the charter is late ; but it may well be a copy of a genuine charter of the eighth cen- tury. The lands restored are described as "Cerringges, Selebertes ceart, Briningland, et Burnan ' (Birch, 'Cart. Saxon.,' i. 411). Hence both the Charings were alike named from the Cerringas or Ceorringas, the name of a tribe or family, lit. "the Ceorrings," or "sons of Ceorra" Ceorra is a known per- sonal name (see Birch, 'Cart. Saxon,' i. 423). WALTER W. SKEAT.

BURTON'S 'ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.' (See 9 th S. xi. 181, 222, 263, 322, 441 ; xii. 2, 62, 162, 301, 362, 442 ; 10 th S. i. 42, 163, 203, 282 ; ii. 124, 223, 442 ; iii. 203 ; iv. 25, 523.) Absence on the Continent having prevented me from returning the proof of the last in- stalment, I should be glad if I could now supply an addition which I had intended to make.

P. 17, n. 9 ; 5, n.u. Add further John Lyly, 'Euphves. The Anatomy of Wyt' (1579) ; Philip Stubbes, 'The Anatomic of Abuses' (1583) ; Robert Greene, ' Arbasto, the Anato- mie of Fortune' (1584) ; Thomas Nash, ' The Anatomie of Absurditie ' (1589) ; and Robert Greene, ' The Anatomie of Lovers Flatteries ' (at the end of Part II. of ' Mamillia,' entered in the Stationers' Register 1583, earliest known edition 1593). It is a curious coinci- dence that Greene's 'Arbasto' has on its title-page (i ivherein also Gentlemen may Jinde ^easaunte conceytes to purge Melancholy," and bears the motto " Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci."

EDWARD BENSLY.

SARDINIAN CHAPEL, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. A good deal of interest centres at present in this ancient edifice, which is marked for effacement at the hands of that omnivorous body the London County Council. Out- wardly it is unattractive enough to the ordinary beholder, with its bare, dull walls. But for those of the Roman Catholic faith,