Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/471

This page needs to be proofread.

iis.iii.jr>-Ei7 f i9ii.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


465


" SECURITAS EST TUTISSIMUM BONUM. "- H. W. asked for the source of this quotation at 9 S. xi. 466. Seneca, ' Dialog.,' II. xiii. 5, lias something like it : " Securitas autem proprium. bonum sapientis est " ; and there is a still closer resemblance in a passage quoted in Lange's ' Polyanthea,' s.r. 'Se- curitas,' from Carolus Paschal ius (Pasquali), ' De Virt. et Vit.,' cap. 35 : " Hanc securi- tatem nos dicimus esse proprium viri boni sapientisque bonum, omni imperio firmius, omni magnitudine maius."

EDWARD BENSLY.

THE LIBERTY OF BLACKFRIARS. An in- teresting little case preserved among the Lord Chamberlain's papers reminds us how very tenacious of its privileges was the Liberty of the Great Wardrobe at Black- friars.

The two Sheriffs of the City of London with attendants, came to the Wardrobe, and arrested Mr. Tyas, ftie chief clerk, because the pavement was not to their liking. As Mr. Tyas was 80 years old, however, they thought it wiser to take his servant John Hinde. Mr. Tyas expostulated with the Sheriffs, and said they had nothing to do there, but that he himself had as good a charter for the Liberty as the Lord Mayor had. John Hinde, in spite of it, was carried off, and confined in the Counter Prison, Wood Street, for seven days.

Mr. Tyas told the Master of the Wardrobe, who told the King, and he issued a warrant to arrest the Lord Mayor's servant who had arrested Hinde ; and, though the Sheriffs came to plead for him, the man was con- fined in the Marshalsea. See the Lord Chamberlain's papers, Warrants 1603-13, V. 128, p. 298. C. C. STOPES.

" BACON " : " HOBBY-HORSE." In the ' N.E.D.' the earliest instance of "bacon" is quoted from a poem dated circa 1330, " For beof ne for bakoun." It is therefore of interest to note that at least one earlier instance (I do not know how many more there may be) is found in Welsh. This occurs in the * Hanes Gruffydd ap Cynan,' ed. Arthur Jones, Manchester University Press, 1910, p. 128, where, describing the death of Trahaiarn at the battle of Mynydd Cam (A.D. 1081), the biographer says, "a gucharki wydel a wnaeth bacwn o "honaw val o hwch," i.e., " and Gwcharis the Irish- man made bacon of him as of a pig." The earliest MS. of the biography is of about the middle of the thirteenth century, so that even if we assume the Welsh version (it


I is probably a translation from the Latin) to have been first written then, this use of " bacon " is nearly a century older than that given in the ' N.E.D.' The w^ord occurs in O.F. as " bacon " or " bacun " ; but the form " bacwn " makes it likely that

| the derivation is rather from the English " bacown."

A similar case is that of " hobby-horse " (see 11 S. ii. 209, 257, 317, 417), for which the earliest reference in the ' N.E.D.' is 1557. The word in the form of " hobi hors " occurs in Dafydd ap Gwilym, the Welsh poet of the fourteenth century. I cannot at the moment find the poem in which it occurs, bat I believe there is no doubt as to its authenticity, which cannot be said of some of the poems attributed to Dafydd.

H. I. B.

CUCKOO RIMES. The following cuckoo- notes or rimes are not no\v in general use. I have known them in three Midland counties t

In April cuckoo come ; In May he play his drum ; In June he change his tune ; In July away he fly.

In April he show his bill ; In May he sings happy day ; In June his song he prune ; In July away he fly.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

NOVEL BY G. P. R. JAMES WITH THREE. TITLES. When G. P. R. James Was in America he wrote a novel which he called ' A Story without a Name,' and which ran through thirteen numbers of The Inter- national Monthly Magazine of New York, commencing in December, 1850, and ending in December, 1851. In the latter month it was published in London in three volumes under the title of ' Revenge,' though 1852 was printed on the title-page. It has been said that the change of title was made with- out the author's consent, and I can well believe that James would not have agreed to the title that was chosen, since ' Revenge ' was the name of one of the short stories in his ' Book of the Passions.' On the other hand, his publishers probably objected to the novel's original title, as another novel called ' A Story without a Name,' by a writer calling herself " Ananke," had been published in London in 1844. James's novel appeared, under its original name in a one-volume edition published at New York in March, 1852.

I suppose, however, that James eventually heard of Ananke' s book ; for when the one- volume edition of his own work was reprinted