Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/80

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72


NOTES AND QUERIES. [* s. XL JAN. 24, wre.


which he died on 23 April [?] in that year, bequeathing nearly 100,000^. to his nephew, H. Archer, Esq., member for Warwick.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

"TYPULATOR" (9 th S. x. 428, 516). Since writing my reply I have found another quo- tation in Davies's 'Supplementary Glossary':

"No innkeeper, ale-house keeper, victualler, or tipler shall admit any person or persons in his house or backside to eat, drink, or play at cards, tables, bowls, or other games in time of common prayer. Grindal, 'Remains,' p. 138."

A ' Law-Latin Dictionary ' of 1718 contains the following item : " A tippling-house, Domus Tipularia, cauponula."

The 'Ingolamells Court Rolls,' cited in my previous communication, is a translation from Latin by the Rev. W. O. Massingberd, rector of Ormsby, Lincolnshire. It contains one very curious entry at p. 144, where it is recorded, under date 17 October, 1355, that seven persons "are in mercy for the assize of beer, also because they have not sent for the tipplers of beer." Presumably the Latin word here is typulatores. F. ADAMS.

Though I am perforce writing only from memory, I seem to have a distinct recollec- tion of reading frequently, in original Court Rolls, such presentments as "Et quod A. B. est communis tipulator cerevisie et fraxit assisiam " (and that A. B. is a common tippler of beer and hath broken the assize).

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

    • LE GRAND PEUT-^TRE " (9 th S. xi. 28).

The following is from the ' Notice sur Rabe- lais ' which appears in " (Euvres de F.

Rabelais, a Paris, chez Ledentu 1837,"

p. vii :

" Les faiseurs de contes qui out si ge'nereusement prete k Rabelais tant de pretendus bons mots, n'ont pas plus respecte" ses derniers moments que le reste de sa vie. lls pr^tendent que, pres de mourir, il se^fit affubler d'un domino, rpetant ces paroles de 1'Ecriture : Beati qui moriuntur in Domino. On dit aussi que le cardinal du Bellay ayant envoy6 savoir de ses nouvelles, le mourant repondit au page: Dis h monseigneur 1'etat ou tu me vois. Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-etre. II est au md de la pie : dis-lui qu ; il s'ytienne. Pour toi, tu ne seras jamais qu'un fou. Tire le rideau, la farce est jouee.'"

Dr. Ramage in his ' Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors ' (second edition 1875), p. 392, has the following :

"'Je m'en vay chercher un grand peut-estre.' Ihese were the last words, according to Motteux, of Rabelais on his death-bed." It is, I think, worth noticing that, according to the above quotations, as well as the


Editorial note (ante, p. 28), the phrase is " un [not le] grand peut-etre." Of course, the saying in some form or other may well have been used by a " victim of the French Revo- lution," as stated in the query.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

GROAT : BITS (9 th S. ix. 84 ; x. 454, 491 ; xi. 58). In the ante-bellum days, up to about 1858, the subsidiary silver coin of the United States was supplanted in circulation by Mexican and Spanish pieces of the approxi- mate value of the eighth and the sixteenth of a dollar. These last were the old reals and half-reals. They had various names in different parts of the United States. In New York and its vicinity the real was called a shilling and the half-real a sixpence; in Philadelphia and Baltimore they were known as the " 'levenpenny bit" and " fi'penny bit " respectively, or more familiarly " levy " and " fip " ; while through the South and West they went by the names of bit and picayune. The dime was often called a " short bit." Their circulation was finally suppressed by law, and the coins are no longer seen. The words survive in literature and in familiar speech. Another coin known as the pistareen, and of the nominal value of t wen ty cen ts, ci rculated for a time I do not mean the twenty-cent piece issued from the United States Mint, but a foreign coin. Under these titles the ' Century Dictionary ' should be consulted. JOHN E. NORCROSS.

Brooklyn, U.S.

KILMANY (9 th S. xi. 25). I regret having fallen into error in saying that the Rev. D. P. Fen wick was parish minister of Kilmany. He succeeded Mr. Brewster of Kilmany as Presbytery Clerk, but his parish was Logie, adjoining the charge that is associated with Chalmers's vivacious youth and Brewster's dignified manhood. My mistake should have been impossible, for I had an intermittent correspondence with Mr. Fen wick, and com- municated with him on a theme of deep common interest shortly before his lamented death in 1900. A mural tablet to his memory has just been placed inside the church with which his whole career as parish minister was identified. THOMAS BAYNE.

Frequently has the temptation been upon me to protest against that Kilmeny spelling. But while I have been vouchsafed strength to resist it, my old friend THOMAS BAYNE has succumbed. However, he is right, for the parish of Kilmany never had any alliance with that giddy, if good-looking, young person who went out to hear the yorlin sing, but landed in questionable company, and did