134
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. 11. AUG. 12, me.
A COFFIN-SHAPED GARDEN BED (12 S-
i. 91, 193, 333). In a book by Mr. J. Alfred
Gotch, F.S.A., ' Early Renaissance Architec-
ture in England,' I find this, which may
be taken as a proof of a certain connexion
between " coffin " as flower-bed and " coffer "
in an architectural sense :
"In the year 1615, one Walter Gedde published a book of pattern glazing called ' a Book of Sundry Draughts Principally serving for Glaziers and not impertinent for Plasterers and Gardeners.' "
By the way, I would suggest to MB. W. WOODWARD, F.R.I.B.A., to come to France and visit again our Renaissance castles, where a number of " coffers" of any shape, and -even square, may be seen. P. TURPIN.
LATIN CONTRACTIONS (12 S. i. 468 ; ii. 19, 57). At the last reference YGREC explains that " Sma tot hs expoitoru " is set against sums of money resulting from the sale of ships. The phrase is quite incomprehen- sible, and the good handwriting of the copyist is not indicative of correctness. In the third word the first o appears to me to be a mistaken reading of a carelessly formed d, and I think the whole phrase would be : " Swnma totalis expenditoruw," i.e, "the -commissioners' or agents' sum total."
The expenditor must have been an official whose duty it was to weigh out (expendere) -after collection of money. French has not- retained this word. In English we have "" spend " and its derivatives ; and also " expenditure." Low Latin, expendvtura. Expenditor has been degraded in Spanish, wherein expendeddr may mean either a passer- out of counterfeit coin, or a taker- in of stolen goods. Italian a spenditore = steward, also spendthrift.
" Summa onens," or " ouens," is equally due to the bad writing the copyist had to transcribe. I would read ri for the second n. We require a genitive, we are dealing with shipping, and one of the mean- ings of onus is ' cargo."
The third difficulty " Pp" " apparently presents a dative perhaps YGREC could tell what the " Latin " for " poll " is in the document if it gives the word in full.
ALFRED ANSCOMBE.
COLOURS OF BADGE OF.THE EARLS OF WAR- WICK (12 S. ii. 49, 95). The tincture of the sitting bear which Lord Warwick uses not as a badge, but as a second crest (an heraldic solecism) is argent, as is that of the ragged staff. The actual Earls of Warwick have, of coursa, no real right either to the demi- swan or to the bear and staff of the old IVarwicks ; they are not even co-heirs of a
cadet branch of the original family. In this
connexion their motto, " Vix ea nostra
voco." has a humorous significance. Lord
Warwick, however, possibly maintains that
he has as much right to adopt the badge
of the King-maker as the first Xorman earls
had to annex the bear and staff from the
Saxon line, descendants of the famous Guy.
OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B. Fort Augustus.
The Rous Roll gives for Henry de Beau- champ, Duke of Warwick, who died in 1446, a bear argent, collared gules, studded of the first, with chain attached and reflexed over the back or. The previous Earls of the Beauchamp line appear to have used the ragged staff only as a badge, although their supporters were two bears.
When did the muzzle first appear ?
S. A. GRCNDY-XEWMAN.
WATERLOO HEROES (12 S. ii. 11). I have seen the pamphlet which accompanied the engraving of the picture of ' The Waterloo Heroes.' The title-page is as follows :
" Descriptive Key to the Grand Historical Engrav- ing entitlea ' The Waterloo Heroes,' and repre- senting the Duke of Wellington receiving hia illustrious Guests at Apsley House on the anniver- sary of the glorious eighteenth of June. " Published by Henry Graves & Company,
" 6 Pall Mall, " Also Key plate to the engraving."
A. H. MACLEAN.
ASIAGO (12 S. ii. 48). In his notice of the quaint little settlement of the " Sette Comuni " L. L. K. states that according to Badeker " all " the inhabitants now speak Italian. Naturally they must understand Italian to get on with their neighbours, but if it is meant that they speak Italian only, the statement is certainly erroneous and exaggerated. My edition of Badeker's ' Siid- bayern, Tirol,' &c., is dated 1906, and states at p. 454 that "the greater part of the 30,000 inhabitants speak Italian only." Baron von Czoernig, in his monograph ' Die deutschen Sprachinseln im Siiden des ge- schlosdenen deutschen Sprachgebietes in ihrem gegenwartigen Zustande' (Klagenfurt, 1889, p. 11), says that of the 25,137 inhabitants 8,000 still speak their German dialect. An American friend of mine, Mr. W. D. McCrackan, visited the " Sette Comuni " in
1896, and published an account in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Xo. 2,
1897, of his visit to this " Teutonic Survival on Italian Soil," and says that this dialect is spoken only in four of the seven " communes," and then chiefly ir the family
