NOTES AND QUERIES. [i 2 s.ix. ^-30,1921.
Acid Test (12 S. viii. 449).—Mr. Wilson, late President of the United States, gave currency to this expression by employing it in one of his public papers at a time when, because of the majority here not being of a mind with him, all that he said was subjected to close and unfriendly criticism. Many "phrases" which he coined or employed ("too proud to fight," "mental neutrality," &c., &c.) were taken up and passed from tongue to tongue; this was one of them. C. S. D.
New York.
The Smallest Pig of a Litter (12 S. viii. 331, 376, 417, 435, 4S3, 497; ix. 15).—On the border of Somerset and Devon, when I was a boy, I often heard the smallest pig of a litter called "The Parson's Pig." The implication being, of course, an economy in the matter of tithes! C. Corner.
Sunnybank, Easton, Wells, Somerset.
During a recent visit to Somerset I made enquiries for the local name of the smallest pig of a litter, and found that it is known as "Nestle-tripe," "Squeaker," and "Cadman," three names Within an area of nine miles. Archibald Sparke.
Another form of the word "pennuck" given by Mr. Vernon (12 S. viii. 497) is "rinnuck," which I have heard on and near the Severn "wharf." H. C.
In Massachusetts—"Runt." C. S. D.
COMBE HOUSE, HEREFORDSHIRE (12 S.
viii. 510). Tn reference to the enquiry in
your issue of the 25th ult., Combe House,
near Presteign, is now the property of
Mary Victoria, Clara Anne Margar3t, Harriet
Helen Mabel, and Charlotte Virginia-,
daughters and co-heirs of the late Edward
Coatos by his wife Mary Aim, eldest daughter
of John S. Bannister, of Weston House,
Pembridge. The Coa-tes family was origin-
ally settled ia Yorkshire.
Tho preseat occupier of Combe House is
Major H: N. M. Clegg.
THOMAS B. ECROYD.
Credenhill Park,*Hereford.
ALDEBURGH: ECREVISSE (12 S. ix., p. 26).
In the 'Imperial Dictionary' (1867), by
John Ogilvie, LL.D., under crayfish/crawfish,
is the following : " Qu. is not fish in these
words from the last syllable of the French
ecrevisse ? " WALTER E. GAWTHORP.
DOUBLE FIRSTS AT OXFORD (12 S. viii. 249,
294, 334, 396). The Frederic Rogers;-, of
Oriel noted on p. 295 as having won a Double
, First in 1832, became Lord Blachford (not
- Blaekford) in 1871. The barony was con-
ferred by Mr. Gladstone, his contemporary at Eton and Oxford, with whom he had been associated in ecclesiastical movements as well as in officiaj life. He was Permanent Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1860
- to 1871, and was given a Privy Councillor-
ship as well as a peerage in the latter year, dying in 1889. ALFRED BOBBINS. DISRAELI, ROGERS, OR SHAFTESBURY (128. ix. 52). As full a reply as has yet been attempted to the query of Mr. Arthur G. HARGREAVES was furnished in ' N. & Q.' (10 S. vi. 62) exactly fifteen y^ears ago by myself, in a note entitled " Verify your References." Herein the whole story was told of the Froude allusion and the Belloc mistake, with a full quotation of Speaker Onslow's note attributing to the Stuart Earl cf Shaftesbuiy the authorship of the phrase in question. I then described that note as furnishing the original of the story, as far as it can be traced "for it may not be original after all, ' and I retain my doubt on that head. But it was in 'N. & Q.' that the earliest systematic attempt was made to trace the parent of what Mr. Har- greaves rightly calls so fine a child. ALFRED ROBBING. Mr. Osmund Airy, in ' D.N.B.' xii. 130, says that Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-83) " was reputed a deist, but the state of his mind is perha,ps best represented by the anecdote in Sheffield's memoirs, which represents him as answering the lady who inquired as to his religion ; ' Madam, wise men are of but one religion,' and when she further pressed him to tell what that was, ' Madam, wise men never tell.' ' But I have s'een this anecdote also fathered upon the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671- 1713), author of the ' Characteristicks of Men, Manners. Opinions, and Times,' and grandson of Cromwell's " little man with three names" a far rarer "characteristic^ " then than now. The anecdote, however, accords well enough with what we know of the first Lord Shaf tesbury's mordant wit ; and has been appropriated, consciously or xmconsciously, by many clever people since his dav. A. R. BAYLEY.
