472
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[9 th S. 1. JUNE 11, '98.
and stripping cows." Carlisle Market is largely
supplied from Ireland, and Irish dealers and
drovers come over with the cattle ; hence the
use of the Hibernian term there.
W. R. TATE. Walpole Vicarage, Halesworth.
This word is used in the same sense in Nottinghamshire and some adjacent counties, but is most frequently heard as "stropper." Milking a cow that is " going dry " is called " stripping " or " stropping " her. C. C. B.
THE STANDING EGG (9 th S. i. 386). Noting the reference to the old story of Christopher Columbus and the egg in your issue of 14 May, it seems strange to me that the fact that an egg at least most eggs can bo stood on end on a flat surface is so little known, though it requires some patience and a steady hand to perform the operation. Out of curiosity I tried the experiment once with a basket of newly laid eggs, and managed to balance nearly every one of them, first on the break- fast table without cloth, then on a marble mantel-piece. Since then I have frequently repeated the experiment with a similar suc- cess, and have convinced doubters that the feat can be accomplished without the clumsy expedient of breaking one end.
J. J. HISSEY.
Thatched House Club.
VALETTUS (8 th S. xii. 447). This is valet in its Latin form, and " was anciently a name specially denoting young gentlemen, though of great discent or quality," <fec. (Jacob's 'New Law Dictionary,' 1732).
EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.
ORDERS OF FRIARS (9 th S. i. 168, 338). I have to thank the correspondents of 'N. & Q.' who have noticed my inquiry. It was of the Bonhommes, and not of the Observants, that I said they had only two houses in Eng- land. It is well known the Observants had houses at Canterbury, Richmond, Newcastle, Southampton, and other places, as well as at Greenwich. Henry VII. seems to have encouraged the Observants by refounding Franciscan houses, and I suppose his three convents of friars, of which Lingard says they "fell in the next reign," were of this order. Bacon, in his ' Historic of Henry VII.,' says, towards the end : " He built and en- dowed many Religious Foundations besides his memorable Hospitall of the Savoy " (p. 233, ed. 1629) ; but he does not say to what order they belonged. See the article ' Observants, a Reformed Order of Franciscan Friars,' in Dr. Cutts's 'Dictionary of the Church of Englamd ' ; but he gives no authorities.
Fuller, in his ' Church History ' (vol. iii. ed.
Brewer), gives an account of the abbeys in
England, and mentions the two houses of the
Bonhommes (not the Observants) at Ashridge
and Edington, saying he believes they had
no more. Bale, afterwards bishop, was a
Carmelite friar, and hence, perhaps, we know
more of that order than of the others.
Has not the picture of St. Dominic, men- tioned by Dr. Cutts in his 'Scenes of the Middle Ages,' been removed from the National Gallery ? That by Bellini (d. 1516) is not, I believe, that which Dr. Cutts refers to.
S. ARNOTT.
Baling.
' The History of the College of Bonhommes at Ashridge ' was written by the Rev. H. J. Todd, and privately printed by the Earl of Bridg water in 1823. The college was com-
Eleted in 1285, and was founded expressly in onour of the Blood of Jesus, for it received two portions of the Holy Blood, brought out of Germany by Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, who founded the college for a rector and twenty canons, of whom thirteen were to be priests. Only seventy copies of the ' History ' referred to above were printed, at a cost, it is said, of 5,OOOJ.
Perhaps MR. ANGUS can say to which section of the Boni Homines those of the Buckingham college belonged. Probably they were " religious observing the rule of St. Austin." John Skelton speaks highly of these " religious " :
Of the Bonehoms of Ashrige besyde Barkhainstede,
That goodly place to Skelton most kynde, Where the sank royall is, Crystes blode so rede,
Wherevpon he metrefyde after his mynde ; A pleasaunter place than Ashrige is, harde were to
fynde,
As Skelton rehersith, with wordes few and playne, In his distichon made on verses twaine : Fraxinas in divo frondetque viret sine rivo, Non est sat divo similis sine flumine vivo.
' The Garlande of Laurell,' vv. 1461-9.
In Cassell's new ' Gazetteer ' Asheridge is described as a hamlet in the parish of Chesham, from which place it is two miles distant. JAMES HOOPER.
Norwich.
GOUDHURST, IN KENT (9 th S. i. 87, 154, 337, 374, 418). I think MR. JULIAN MARSHALL is needlessly hard upon me. Is it the case that I am never kind, reasonable, or helpful ? ! have letters from all parts of the world that speak in a very different tone. I hold that it is a legitimate matter for complaint that we should be asked to solve place-names (always a very difficult thing to do) by correspondents who do not care to make any previous
