344 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9<»s.iv. Oct. 28/99. devices, must be of very early origin. See an interesting article in the June number of Modern Language Notes (xiv. 333), by Mr. Oliver Farrer Emerson, in which he quotes from the Early English 'Genesis and Exodus,' 11. 3178-91, which describe Moses finding the bones of Joseph :— Almost redi was here fare, Moyses bi-Sojt him ful gare Of oat Se is kin haueS sworen, Iosepes bones sulen ben boren ; Oc fie Nil* haueS so wide spiled, }>at his graue is Sor vnder hiled, On an gold gad Se name god Is grauen, and leid up-on Se flod; Moyses it folwede Sider it flet, And stod Sor Se graue under let; for he doluen, and hauen S03t, And funden, and hauen up-bro3t (>e bones ut of Se erSe wroken, Summe hole, & summe broken. Mr. Emerson adds the Latin of Petrus Comestor('Historia Scholastica,' Exod. xxvii., in Migne, 'Patrol.,' cxcviii. 1155):— "Factum est autem ut Nilus, prater solitum, adhuc inundaret terrain, in qua erat sepulcrum Joseph. Tonebantur autem juramento asportare ossa ejus. Tulit Moyses scriptum in lamina aurea nomen Domini tetragrammaton, quae sujierposita aquse, supernatant, usque dum veniensstaret supra ubi erat sepulcrum. Et effodientes sustulerunt ossa, quse sublata leguntur eis prophetasse, forte de difficultate itineris. It appears that there are two Talmudic versions of the discovery:— "According to one, Moses was told that the bones were sunk in the bottom of the Nile, but, at his prayer that they should be shown him, the coffin rose to the surfaco of the river. According to the other, Joseph's coffin was hidden away in the royal sepulchre, among the sarcophagi of the kings, and Moses did not know which it was. He prayed, and the coffin of Joseph moved out from among the other sarcophagi by some miraculous power." My apology for so long a quotation is that Modern Lanqvage Notes is not in the hands of many students of folk-lore. Kobt. J. Whitwell. C.C.C., Oxford. "Gentilitial" = Heathenish.—The 'His- torical English Dictionary' records the adjective gentilitial with the senses of (1) national, (2) family, (3) of gentle birth. In the 'Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe,' re- cently issued by the Hakluyt Society, on p. 179, under date 10 May, 1616, the diarist writes: "This Eueninnge the king went to Pocara a village of the Bannians full of their Pagodes and other gentilitiall
- This is clearly the right reading; see the Latin
below. The ail of the Corpus MB, is a scribal blunder, impietyes." Here the adjective is evidently used in the sense of " heathenish." On p. 361, under date 7 December, 1616, Roe writes of "little Temples and alters of Pagods and Gentiliticall [sic] Idolatrye." In this case (and possibly m the former) gen- tilical may be meant. Donald Ferguson. Croydon. Misprint.—For the benefit of those who, like myself, take an unholy pleasure in the errors of the press, I consign the following to the pages of ' N. & Q.' :— " Scourging of the White Horse (The), by the author of Tom Brown's School Days, illustrated by Richard Boyle," &c. Frank Rede Fowke. 24, Victoria Grove, Chelsea, S.W. " Characterie." — The editors of the 'H.E.D.' appear to have missed this word, which occurs in more than one work on shorthand, and particularly in Dr. Timothy Bright's ' Characterie: an Art of Shorte, Swifte, and Secret Writing by Character' (London, 1588). James Dallas. A Relic of Old London : Godfrey's Court.—The following from the London Argus, 26 August, is worthy of a niche in 'K&Q.':- " An interesting street name-stone has just been discovered in demolishing a set of old cupboards at St. Lawrence Jewry, near the Guildhall, The stone is oblong and massive, and bears the inscription :— GODFREYS COVRT 1670. Godfrey's Court is situated in Milk Street, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalene, which was united to that of St. Lawrence after the Great Fire, the former not being rebuilt. The Court is quite small, and is shown in Ogilby and Morgan's map of the City, 1677, a date at which the stone just discovered was already in position. It is not yet known what may be done with the stone, but it is by no means impossible that it may be offered to the Guildhall Museum." _ C. P. Hale. Kino Alfred's "Parliament" at Shif- ford.—Mr. J. M. Falkner, in his recently published 'History of Oxfordshire,'p. 41, note, refers to the story of Alfred's holding a parliament at " Sifford," supposed to be Sliif- ford, in the parish of Bampton, co. Oxford. He remarks that "some contend that the meeting place was East Shefford," in Berk- shire. From the reference to "one of the Cotton MSS.," and from the translation, I conclude that this information is derived from Dr. Plot's ' History of Oxfordshire,' 1705, p. 23. The O.E. passage given by the latter is part of the collection of apophthegms known
