306
NOTES AND QUERIES.
intersect a line drawn from pronoun to pro-
noun, in the form of the Greek chi, whence
chiasmus. The term seems to be of compara-
tively recent use, as I do not find it in the
older grammars. F. ADAMS.
106A, Albany Road, Camberwell.
BOULTER SURNAME. In Bardsley's 'Eng- lish Surnames,' fifth edition, 1897, p. 275, this surname is derived from the occupation of a sifter of flour. It is true that the sifting part of a mill is still called the " boulter," though I am told that modern machinery is rapidly making it obsolete. A Boulter family at Tewkesbury in the seventeenth century used a shield which bore three garbs. But the ancient Boulters, or Bolters (for the name is spelt both ways), of Norfolk and Devon, and the Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1742, all bore bird-bolts, showing that there was an independent origin of the surname, from the occupation of a bolt-maker. See the 'H. E. D.' W. C. BOULTER, M.A.
Norton Vicarage, Evesham.
CORRECT MEASUREMENT. As * N. & Q.' has a mission to ensure accuracy the following may be worthy of insertion :
" In a book on surveying, published in Germany, by Jakob Koebel, about 340 years ago, the author gives the following instruction, accompanied by a woodcut, as to how the length of a foot is to be found : ' To find the length of a rood in the right and law- ful way, and according to scientific usage, you shall do as follows : Stand at the door of a church on a 8unday and bid sixteen men to stop, tall ones and small ones, as they happen to pass out when the service is finished ; then make them put their left feet one behind the other, and the length thus obtained shall be a right and lawful rood to measure and survey the land with, and the sixteenth part of it shall be a right and lawful foot.' "
The cutting is from the Engineer, 28 Sept., 1888. AYEAHR.
{ IVRY.' I do not know whether it has been pointed out that Macaulay's well-known line in his ' Ivry,'
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood,
is seen to have a special significance and fit- ness when we remember the actual words of Coligni to his assassin, Besme : " Respecte ces cheveux blancs, jeune homme." In ' His- toric Anecdotes' (Colburn & Bentley, 1830) the remark is given thus : " Young man, respect my gray hairs, and do not stain them with blood." This makes the resemblance still more striking, but the date appended to
- Ivry ' is 1824, and the English writer may
have had Macaulay's line in his mind, if the above date is that of publication, and not merely of composition. Perhaps some one
could inform me whether there is any French
authority for the full expression, of which
the English might possibly be the translation.
C. LAWRENCE FORD. B.A. Bath.
AN EIGHTEENTH -CENTURY "CORNER." In an article entitled * Leaves from an Old Diary ' in ' Paper and Parchment, Historical Sketches/ by A. C. Ewald, F.S.A. (London, 1890), I find the following :
"Mercantile history repeats itself: here is an entry as to an eighteenth-century 'corner': '1703, Nov. 16. The Lords ordered several persons to attend upon account of engrossing coals, and among them two noted Quakers ; 'tis said the chief reason of their being so dear is, that several persons in the north, and some Londoners, have farmed most of the coalpits about Newcastle, with design to sell them at what price they please.' "
H. ANDREWS.
"WHIG." In the report on the Duke of Buccleuch's MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm., 15th Rep., App. viii.) is an early instance of this word in a letter which (p. 230) the late Sir William Fraser dates c. 27 Oct., 1677 :
" It wes tallkt in plain tearms, that iff the Hyland men wer forst to march to the west to suppress a rebelleion of the Vigs, they should not only hav frie quarter bott liberty of plundering, and, iff they pleased, to settell themselves there as a new planta- tion and posses the countrey for a reuard."
Q. v.
WE must request correspondents desiring infor-
mation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that the answers may be addressed to
them direct.
. TRANSCRIPTS OF PARISH REGISTERS. It is usually stated that "True Copies" or " Transcripts " of the entries made in parish registers began, and were continued, in consequence of the ordinance of the Con- vocation of Canterbury, 1597-8, and of the seventieth Canon of 1603, which embodied that ordinance. That canon required "a true copy" to be transmitted by the church- wardens once every year "unto the bishop of the diocese or his Chancellor," " within one month after the twenty-fifth day of March." Hence we speak of "Bishops' Transcripts," and look for them (often in vain) at the Bishop's Registrar's office. And Rose's Act of 1812, following in many things { the seventieth Canon, required copies to be "sent to the Bishop's Registrar." But such copies of the year's entries of the parish registers were regularly made long before 1598. Entries recording the fact occur in many register*
