NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. in. JAN. is, 1917.
-As I get the ' N.E.D.' by the volume and
not by the section, I do not know what
examples of " vail " in this sense are given.
But it is curious that practically the same
sense can be got from the word in this case,
whether you wrongly take it to represent
" raise " or rightly take it to mean " lower."
That, of course, is due to the fact that when
you take off your hat to bow, you may raise
it or lower it, according to the fashion of
the day. If we had no other way of knowing
how they bowed in the seventeenth century,
yet we should know it by this use of the
word " vailing." I think about forty years
-ago a fashion of bowing came in which
might certainly be called " vailing the hat,"
but which could hardly be called " gently
vailing " it, for it was banged down to the
knee with all the force possible, as if one was
trying to fell an ox. I believe that this
fashion has had its little day and is now
gone out. S. H. A. H.
" To TOUCH FOB " The phrase " to
touch (a person) for" (money, &c.), in th e sense of " to get something out of a person, with implication of some craftiness, I had supposed to be quite a recent birth of slang ; but the ' N.E.D.' carries it back to 1760. .1 have recently noted a coincidence which invests the phrase with an antiquity not only respectable, but venerable. In colloquial Latin tangere (aliquem aliqua re) is used in the same way. See Plautus,' Epidicus,' 705, istam ob rem te tetigi triginta minis (I touched
- you for, did you out of, 30 minae). Cf. also
the anonymous line quoted in Cic. ' de Or.,' ii. 64, 257 ; tangere hominem vult bolo (for -a] good haul), Plaut., 'Poenulus,' 101; cere militari tetigero lenunculum, 1286 ; bene ego ilium tetigi, ' Pseudolus,' 1238.
Analogous is a phrase in ' The Vicar of
Wakefield,' cap. xx., which seems to have
been missed by the ' N.E.D.' The needy
scholar, describing his methods of raising
".the wind, says :
"The moment a nobleman returns from his
travels I strike for a subscription If
they let me have a dedication fee, I smite them once more for engraving their coat-of-arms at the top."
H. K. ST. J. S.
THOMAS DE QUINCE Y'S STAY IN EIFIONYDD, SOUTH CARNARVONSHIRE. De- tailing retrospective impressions of a visit to North Wales after a lapse of eighteen years, interesting particulars are given in the fascinating ' Autobiography' appertaining to rural Llanystumdwy. In recalling past ^memories De Quincey erroneously concluded
that the parish alluded to Eifionydd was in
Merionethshire. It is in South Carnarvon-
shire. He stated his having spent four
months in Wales July to November, 1802.
Light has incidentally been thrown on
certain incidents by investigations directed
towards substantiating recorded annals and
supplying omissions in detail and personalia.
The Rev. Henry Hughes, Brynkir, South
Carnarvonshire, an authority on religious
antecedents and facets of history bearing on
this part of the principality, has been at
especial pains to verify information as to
the exact sojournable spot in a lengthy,
luminous sketch on ' De Quincey, Wales,
and Methodism,' appearing in Y Drysorfa
(The Treasury), July, 1900.
After translating some memorabilia in extenso from undoubted attestations cir- cumstantially ascertained, he unhesitatingly affirmed the place to be Glanllynau a farmhouse not only tallying with De Quincey's description, but in near proximity to the Cambrian line of railway, a short distance from Afonwen Station, on the journey to Criccieth, and within the parish of Llanystumdwy. Following up the thread of discovery, the narrator declared the name of the farmer and host. Evan Owen was then 59, and his wife five years younger, both zealous Calvinistic Methodists. They had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. ANEURIN WILLIAMS.
CONTESTED LONDON LORD MAYORAL ELECTIONS. As, despite much prefatory muttering in the City, there was no con- test for the 1916-17 Lord Mayoralty, there can be recalled, without fear of its being drawn into a precedent, what is probably the earliest journalistic account of such an occurrence. In Dawks' s News- Letter of Oct. 1, 1698, it was recorded that
" On Thursday (according to Custom) com- menced the Election for a Lord Mayor of the City of London : The Candidates were Sir Francis Child, Sir Richard Levit, and Sir Peter Daniel, but upon view, the Majority, by Hands in the Hall, was declared for Sir Francis and Sir Richard; however a Poll was demanded by Sir Peter, which was readily granted, which begun at five a-clock the same Afternoon, which still continues, so that we cannot judge how it will go, the Common- Hall being to return Two out of the Three to the Court of Aldermen, out of which they are to make choice of One of them to be Lord Mayor of this City for the Year ensuing."
In his next issue Dawks was able to give the result, stating that the poll which had opened on the Thursday
" continued until Seven a-Clock on Saturday night, at which time the Books were shut up by joint consent, and the number of the Poll cast
