2"> S. VII. Feb. 5. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



117 



have extended his ranp;e much farther. In fact, 

 " the rising of the lights " always figured as a 

 heading in the Bills of Mortality, from the time of 

 Queen Elizabeth to our own days, when the me- 

 dical nomenclature of the Company of Parish 

 Clerks gave way to the more scientific terms of the 

 Registrar-General. It seems extraordinary that, 

 until about twenty years ago, the registration of 

 diseases and deaths should have remained in the 

 hands of the parish clerks of London, who re- 

 tained the uncouth, and often absurd names which 

 had been handed down from the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. In the bills of mortality for 1814 I find 

 some headings worthy to keep company with " the 

 rising of the lights." " Twisting of the guts," and 

 "eaten by lice," are entered as causes of death; 

 " suddenly" figtu'es as a very convenient heading 

 for doctors uncertain of their diagnosis. 



Three words occur which I should be glad to 

 have explained : " horshockead," " headmould- 

 shot," and "stronguUion." The two former words 

 are sometimes bracketed with water in the head; in 

 other tables "headach" and "headraouldshot" are 

 conjoined. Jatdee. 



N'esh (2"^ S. vii. 66.) — An eflfort to reintroduce 

 this good old English word was long ago made by 

 Rev. Wm. Crowe. In his beautiful poem Lewes- 

 don Hill, so especially grateful to a Dorsetshire- 

 man and a Wykehamist, he has the lines : — 

 (" Invenias etiain disjecti membra poetcB."') 



" tall oaks of lusty green 



The darker fir, light ash, and the nesh tops 

 Of the young hazel join, to form thy skirts, 

 In many a wavy fold of verdant wreaths." 



C. W. Bingham. 



This very expressive word is quite common in 



Derbyshire, where it denotes people being weakly 



and delicate. Any one who is susceptible to cold 



is said to be " nesh," " a poor nesh thing." 



L. Jewitt. 

 Derbj'. 



Herhert Family (2"'^. S. vi. 479.) — Dennis, 

 Nathaniel, and Vincent Herbert are names fa- 

 miliar to many elderly Lynn people, but your 

 correspondent Three Mullets mistakes the date 

 of their existence. It was at the end of the last 

 century that the first of the name settled at Setchey 

 or Wormegay, near Lynn, where they became 

 partners in a large brewery, still existing. The 

 family came from Biggleswade, where they traded 

 as merchants. Subsequently some of them settled 

 at Baldock, and others at Huntingdon, where, I 

 believe, they still exist. The anecdote about 

 Lord Herbert discovering his cousins on the stage 

 of a theatre at Lynn must be a fiction. Lynn 

 possessed no theatre until 1760, or thereabouts, and 

 I can find no trace of a Lord Herbert ever visiting 

 the town. The Biggleswade Herbert may pos- 

 sibly bear the Pembroke arms, and yet have no 



descent from that house ; for this they may have 

 to thank their seal engraver. It is well known 

 that since the creation of the first Baron Caring- 

 ton every ambitious Smith uses his lordship's 

 arms, and the custom of adoption is very preva- 

 lent amongst parvenus. A. H. Swatman. 

 Lynn. 



Culverkeys (2"^ S. vii. 48.) — The Culverkey is 

 also thus alluded to by Walton * : — 



" Among the daisies and the violets blue, 

 Red hyacinth and j-ellow daffodil ; 

 Purple narcissus, like the morning rays, 

 Pale gander-grass and azwe culverkeys." 



From this it would appear to have a light-blue 

 flower. A culver is a dove or rock-pigeon ; thus 

 Du Bartas — 



" A skilful gunner .... 

 Levels directly at an oak hard by, 

 Whereon a hundred groaning culvers cry." 



The Culver cliffs at the east end of the Isle of 

 Wight are no doubt so named from the wild 

 pigeons which haunt their crevices. What is 

 gander-grass ? f Edward King. 



French Epigrams (2'"' S. vi. 525.) — The trans- 

 lation of A. B. R. has lamentably flattened the wit 

 of both the French epigrams which he has brought 

 under your readers' notice. In the closing lines of 

 the first epigram, — 



" Depuis que Law est Catholique, 

 Tout le Roj'aume est Capucin," 



the point of the original lay In the proper title of 

 the Capuchins, which designates them an order of 

 mendicants. And in the two last lines of the 

 second epigram — 



"vQui, par les regies de I'Algebre, 

 A mis la France h, I'HSpital." 



Which he has rendered — 



" Who, teaching Law at mass to kneel, 

 Made France do penance ever since." 



Where the epigrammatist plays upon an equivorjue, 

 the translator has only seen that a hospital may be 

 translated " the poorhouse." He seems to have 

 been unconscious that the Mary de VHopital, a 

 different person from the chancellor of the same 

 name, was the author of V Analyse des Injiniment 

 Petits, to which the student in Algebra would gra- 

 dually advance. H. W. 



The Middle Passage (2"'^ S. vi. 460.) — The 

 slave-traflSc embraces three processes, or periods, 

 entailing their proportionate amount of misery 

 and physical suffering on the negro, before be- 

 coming the property of his master. The first 



[* Or rather by John Davors, whose poem is quoted by 

 Walton.] 



[f Ganderglas, perhaps ragwort, called in some parts 

 gandergoose, which may be a modern corruption of the 

 older word. — Vide Nares's Glossary/, edit. 1857.] 



