382
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. v. MAY 12, im
a 'choppen plock ' for chopping up small
wood upon." T. P. ARMSTRONG.
LAWS OF CRICKET (9 th S. v. 288). In the chapter of the Badminton ' Cricket ' devoted to the history of the game the date 1774 is recorded as the earliest on which the laws of cricket were published, so far as was known to the writer. MR. NORMAN'S note is there- fore sure to be of general interest, unless there has been some subsequent discovery of which I am not cognizant.
HOLCOMBE INGLEBY.
Heacham Hall.
PROVERBS IN HERBERT'S 'JACULA PRU- DENTUM' (9 th S. v. 108, 177). Here be some attempts at explanation which may perhaps be helpful in suggesting others :
Being an ill beast itself, the wolf knows what an ill beast thinks.
It is well to have a horse ready broken, a man who is open to learn your ways.
A gentle hawk half trains herself.
Germans are cleverest with their fingers.
Do not dwell in a newly built house ; let somebody else put it to the test.
Do not finger a sore eye.
Figures may be made to prove anything.
You must be chary about admitting men (including women) to confidence.
Do not reckon your coin before you get it.
If it were not for idleness everybody would do a little wright's work. " I have a bone in my leg " was formerly a common ex- cuse for inaction, whereas it ought to have been the justification for activity.
Supper is bad (or was considered bad) for an old man.
The more refined people are the less need there is to attack them with coarse weapons ; "a little ill finely wrapped" will do them sufficient injury. ST. SWITHIN.
"The wolf knows what the ill heart thinks." The wolf has been always accepted as emblematical of a vile and cruel person. Would it not be natural that any one with such a mind would soon find out the guile lurking in the hearts of those whose thoughts were wicked as his own 1
" Disorders of the eye are to be cured with the elbow." To use "el bow -grease" is a common phrase, indicative of persevering labour ; so, I think, we may translate thus : "Fancied disorders or sorrows will soon be cured by industry."
"Count not four, except you have them in a wallet." Another way of saying, "Don't reckon your chickens before they are hatched."
BATTLE SHEAVES (9 fch S. v. 230, 296). I
have on no fewer than five occasions visited
the battlefield of Towton, near Tadcaster, in
Yorkshire (fought on Palm Sunday, 1461),
and seen with my own eyes the dwarf rose-
bushes growing in great luxuriance on the
field which is still called the "Bloody
Meadow." J. R. Planche has thus alluded to
the circumstance :
There still wild roses growing,
Frail tokens of the fray, And the hedgerow green bears witness Of Towton Field that day.
A lady in the neighbourhood once told me that on bringing some of the little bushes for transplantation, her gardener told her that they would only grow on the battle- field, and of that he was firmly convinced. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.
THE PLOCKS (9 th S. v. 127). Halli well in his 'Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words' gives the meaning a small field. He considers " plock " and " pleck " to be synonymous, the former being in use in Herefordshire and the latter in the county of Warwick. See Skeat's ' Etymological Dictionary/ and for further illustrations, ' N. & Q.,' 6 th S. viii. 25, 98, 178, 458.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.
If there are any especial payments on account of great and small tithes, or arrange- ments with church wardens about church dues, it is possible that the word "plocks" may have connexion with Muse Plots or Marsh Plots, which are noted in 9 th S. iii. 88, 176, as existing in two parishes of Surrey and Hants with reference to charges as above upon the land. VICAR.
Plock, one of the eight palatinates of the kingdom of Poland. Here in London we have the Seven Dials. In Blandford Forum, Dorset, is it only one thoroughfare named the Plocks, or is it several streets meeting in a circle, as in Seven Dials ? If the latter, perhaps what I have said explains it. ALFRED J. KING.
101, Sandmere Road, Claphara, S.W.
This word occurs in a little poem entitled ' Keepen up o' Chris'mas '
Var we 'd a-work'd wi' al our might, To scour the iron things up bright ; An' brush'd an' scrubb d the house al droo, An' brote in var a brand, a plock O' wood so big 's an uppenstock
and is explained by Barnes in his * Gram- mar and Glossary of the Dorset Dialect ' as " a block ; a large block of wood, particularly
