144
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[9 th 8. I. FEB. 19, '98.
their lips, and muttered some words in a whisper
with the rest of the people. This ceremony over,
they all got up, and the play went on. On inquiring,
I was told that this was an office of devotion called
the Angelus, which I believe none but the Spaniards
would have thought of performing at such a time
and in such a place. But the mvstery of the farce
is that a certain convent enjoys the privilege of this
transitory devotion, and a deputation of the friars,
who receive money for it at the door (under pretext
of relieving the poor), by this method share part of
the profits of the theatre. This deduction from their
revenue excepted, the comedians enjoy the same
rights as the rest of the citizens. They do not live
excommunicated, as in France, nor are they denied
the funeral service at their death ; but they do not
erect monuments to their memory, as in England.
The italics are mine. W. J. LAWRENCE.
"SYBRIT" AND BANNS IN LATIN. In Thomas Hay wood's 'English History and Merlin's Prophecies' occurs the following passage, describing the ceremonies at the coronation of Queen Mary :
"Then six Bishops went to the place prepared for the Nuptiall Ceremony, the King standing on the left hand and she on the right. Then the Lord Chancellour asked the Bands [sic] betwixt them, first in Latin and then in English."
I have not seen Haywood's book, but give the reference and quotation from the letter of a friend, who had been discussing with me the etymology of the East Anglian word sybrit, or sibbit, the local word, still in use, for banns. It has more than once been con- tended that this word is derived from some old Latin formula, si quis sciet, or the like.
I shall be very glad if any reader of
- N. & Q.' can supply a Latin form of banns.
Nail has a long note on the word sybrit, and scoffs at Moor's derivation "from the beginning of the banns, as they used to be published in Latin, si quis sciverit" Nail, commenting on this, says :
" Later on, in his appendix [to ' Suffolk Words and Phrases,' 1823], Moor admits, with compunctious visitings, the sad downfall of his exultation over this happy etymology. On consulting the Latin liturgies no such passage could be found."
JAMES HOOPEE.
Norwich.
[Is not the correct title of this work of Thomas Heywood 'The Life of Merlin, surnamed Am- brosius : his Prophecies and Predictions interpreted and their Truth made good by our English Annals ' ?]
MORTIMER'S HOLE, NOTTINGHAM. As the extract below, which refers to an interesting matter of English history, elucidates some doubts on the subject, I have deemed it worthy to be enshrined in ' N. & Q.'
The Rev. John Lambe, M.A., of Clare Hall, Cambridge, rector of Ridly, co. Kent, and schoolmaster of Southwell, co. Nottingham,
who was born at Nottingham in 1685, states,
in one of his own MS. commonplace (or note)
books, in my possession, dated 1720, as
follows :
" There [i. e.,at Nottingham] Mortimer was seized
going to bed to Queen Isabel [wife to Edw. II.], y the King and his friends who^ were brought into the Castle by torchlight thro a secret way under ground, beginning far of [off] from the said Castle till they came even to the Queens Bed- chamber ; by these words of Stow it is plain that the hollow Entrance on the top of the Rock on the South side of the Castle is very ignorantly called by some, Mortimer's Hole; The place always showed for Mortimer's Hole when I was a boy [i. e., between 1692 and 1700] was on the left side of the way to Lenton in a narrow bottom between two hilly Rocks upon one of which (almost over against [= opposite to] the great Yard of the Castle to the North) there stands a poor Cottage sometime an Alehouse, it is a little way before the Entrance into the Park along the foot way to Lenton. Mortimer was carried to London and hang'd on y c Com'on Gallows at the Elmes [Tyburn], where he hung by the Kings [Edw. III.] Order 2 days and 2 nights [in 1330].
"As to Mortimers hole My Friend M r Athorpe Counsell r at Law in Nott : is of another Opinion he is very positive, that the hollow passage on the South side of the Rock, which goes down to a Spring- Well in Brewhouse Yard now com'only called Mortimer's hole, is the Real one ; and that it always was called so.
" There are large Remains in Nott. Park near the Lene River, of a Religious house cut all out of the Rock underground so that Cattle feed upon it, and now and then are in danger of Slipping their feet into the Chimney Tops. It was as appears by several Rooms still remaining, certainly a large place, but Dugdale and Thoroton say nothing of it and 1 can find no account of it. but I Suppose it to have been a Cell to the Great Priory of Lenton."
W. I. R, V.
A PSEUDO-DICKENS ITEM. In the excel- lently compiled 'Dictionary of Authors' (recently published by Mr. George Red way) the author has inserted in the bibliography under ' Dickens, Charles,' the following entry among the introductions, prefaces, &c., for which the novelist was responsible : "Methods of Employment, 1852." To one who, like myself, has a special acquaintance with the subject of Dickens's writings, this seems a strange theme to be associated with the author of 'Pickwick,' and, desiring to ascertain upon what foundation the alleged authorship is based, I examined the Catalogue in the British Museum Reading - Room, with the result that I there discovered the work in question duly recorded (press-mark 787 a. 43). This little production is a 12mo. pamphlet of thirty-seven pages, the full title of which reads as follows :
Methods of Employment. Being an Exposure of the unprincipled schemers, who, through the means
