9* s. ii. DEC. 24,
517
owned by Ernulph de Hesding, had seven
burgesses in the town of Gloucester paying
rent to him, as of his manor. In both case
the occupants were probably serfs settle
with consent. So, though the City of London
was free of all Norman landlordism, it
citizens held houses in numerous county
towns, as with Deorman, of London, whos<
true status has never been explained. Ht
had such a house in Oxford. Was it the
survival of a Roman villa 1 ? A. HALL.
THE PAPAL BULL AGAINST A COMET (9 th S ii. 477). PROF. BUTLER appears to have over looked a communication of my own in 7 th S i. 471, in reply to a query headed ' Cursing i Comet at Constantinople.' It is evident tha the story of a Papal bull exorcising the comei is an invention of a later age. I have examined the collection of bulls in the work referred to by PROF. BUTLER. There are only four issued by Calixtus (Callistus)III., relating to the mendicant and other religious orders and no mention whatever of a comet.
W. T. LYNN.
Blackheath.
" WELKING" (9 th S. ii. 427). Many of Scott's archaisms may be traced to Spenser, or even further back. The first eclogue of the 'Shep- heard's Calendar' closes with sunset, when " the welked Phoebus gan availe his weary waine"; and the beautiful twenty -third stanza of the 'Faerie Queene,' canto i., opens with the
gentle shepheard in sweete even-tide, When ruddy Phoebus gins to welke in west.
" Welke " is equivalent to " wither " or " wane " or " roll up " (A.-S. wealwian, to dry, wither, shrivel); and Scott's "welking" in the passage in ' The Pirate ' no doubt conveys the idea of contracting, in contrast with the " waving " set over against it. There would be an apparent coming and going of the horns in the mist ; they would retire and advance, according to the motion of the leviathan and the uncertain atmospheric environment. But " welking " may also mean simply rolling, or wallowing, for A.-S. wealwian signifies "to roll" (volvere), , as well as to "roll up." Cp. ivelkin, or rolling sky (A.-S. wolcen, cloud). THOMAS BAYNE. Helensburgh, N.B.
Scott was merely quoting from 'King Lear,' IV. vi. :
Horns whelk'd and waved like th' enridged sea. And something went wrong.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
ALGERNON (9 th S. ii. 248, 293, 389, 454). I am much obliged to H. H. S. for his interest-
ing information on the subject of moustache
cultivation; but I had already satisfied
myself that the trouveres did not exaggerate,
having, since the appearance of my article,
read the following in Giovanmaria Cecchi's
comedy ' L' Esaltazione della Croce,' III. vii. :
Pouero & te, s'vn di que' Persiani
Apre la bocca, e't' inghiottisce viuo,
Se gik nelF andar giu non t'auuolgessi
Ne mustacchi, che gl' han fino alia cihtola.
Mention of the growth of the beard down to the waist occurs in the old French romances, though I cannot now give references. I had also recalled to mind Defoe's description of Crusoe's beard :
"My beard I had once suffered to grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long ; but as I had scissors and razors, I had cut it pretty short, except what grew on my upper lip, which 1 had trimmed into a large pair of Mahometan whiskers, such as I had seen worn by some Turks whom I saw at Sallee. Of these mustachios or whiskers, I must say they were monstrous, and would in England be thought frightful."
To Defoe, then, "mustachios "and "whiskers" were synonymous. F. ADAMS.
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY (9 th S. ii. 184, 276, 71). I should have added in my reply at the last reference that B. de Vigenere, by his work having been published in 1583, also anticipated the seventh book of Porta, which is generally thought to contain the first allusion to the idea, as the latter was not published till 1589. C. S. HARRIS.
BOETHIUS (9 th S. ii. 462). Those who are nterested in Boethius will be glad to be eferred to an able consideration of his book jy the late Canon Liddon in a sermon at St. Paul's, 7 August, 1887, printed in the Contemporary/ Pulpit, Oct., 1887, pp. 99-101. le was also the subject of the Hulsean Prize ilssay at Cambridge, by Mr. H. F. Stewart, \I.A., of Trinity, 1891 ; and a new English ranslation by Mr. H. K. James, M.A., ippeared in 1897. A correspondence in the Spectator, April, May, 1892, is worth noting.
W. C. B.
LOCAL NAMES OF THE COWSLIP (9 th S. ii. 87, 92). Hulme, in his ' Familiar Wild Flowers,' 878, vol. i. pp. 89-91, says that the cowslip Primula veris), which is probably a corruption f cow's-leek, in some parts of the country is ailed the paigle, and in old herbals the herb- 3 eter, the pendent flowers suggesting a bunch f hanging keys, the badge of the great V.postle. The plant is known in Germany s Schlusselblume, or key-flower. In olden imes the cowslip was deemed particularly eneficial in all paralytic ailments, and is
