30 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n'i S. VII. Jan. 8. '59. 



there is no harm in turning for a derivation to classical 

 antiquity, suggests that conundrum affords one of those 

 rare instances in which a word is part Greek, part Latin ; 

 and he is also of opinion that, to bring out the true deri- 

 vation, we must take the term conundrum in its strictest 

 sense. Accordingly, the Portuguese conundrum, " What 

 does a dog make when he goes into the sun ? Do you 

 give it up? A shadow," and the waterman's conundrum, 

 when he asked a brother waterman who was rowing by, 

 " What makes it so cold, rowing on the Thames? Give 

 it up ? 'Cos it's wherry cold," — are neither of them, saj's 

 our friend, conundrums in the strict sense of the term: — 

 but only such as these ; the soldier's conundrum, " Why 

 is death like an Enfield rifle? Give it up? Because it's 

 a debt-6'-natur" — and again the Jew's conundrum, 

 " Whj"^ ish greedy peoples like oysters? Give it up? 

 Because they're sheljish : " — the distinction lying in this, 

 that the conundrum proper, or true conundrum, must in- 

 dicate an imaginary or fanciful agreement between some 

 two objects that have no real congruity. This similitude 

 of the two must of course be expressed in the answer, 

 which is to the conundrum what the point is to the epi- 

 gram ; — but still with this peculiarity, that it (the 

 answer) always suggests some amusing feature of resem- 

 blance, common to the two incongruous objects indicated 

 in the question. 



This feature, then, common to the two objects and ex- 

 pressed in the answer, which is the essence of the conun- 

 drum, might in Greek be termed koivov Svolv (commune 

 duorum). Substitute the Latin duorum for the Greek 

 Svoiv, and we have koinon duorum, or, more briefly, koinon 

 d'rum ; whence conundrum. 



Another suggestion is that conundrum is only a modi- 

 fied and disguised form of the Latin conventum, an agree- 

 ment. It is to be borne in mind, as some palliation of this 

 very unlikely -looking derivation, that conventum in old 

 books sometimes stands conuentum. Thus " Conventum 

 tamen," Juv. vi. 25, is in the Aldine ed. (1515) " Conuen- 

 tum tamen." It should also be remembered that, in in- 

 stances where u has thus slipped into the place of v, the 

 pronunciation of the word has sometimes been modified 

 in consequence, as in the case of salve (monosyllable), 

 salue (dissyllable). This circumstance considered, it 

 certainly does not appear quite impossible that conuentum, 

 pronounced as written, may have been gradually trans- 

 formed into conundrum. 



When we say that, of several derivations which have 

 been suggested for conundrum, the two now offered ap- 

 pear the least improbable, it will probably occur to some 

 minds that the etymology of conundrum stands in need 

 of farther illustration.] 



'■'• Maystre off Garnet'' — Will you permit me to 

 repeat my Query (2"* S. vi. 91.) about the au- 

 thorship, &c., of the MS. of the "Maystre off 

 Game" ? I extract a few lines to show that it is 

 not unworthy of attention : — 



" Now I wyll proue how hunters lyue in the worlde 

 most ioifull of eny other man: ffor whan the hunter 

 ryseth in the mornynge, and seth the ffayre and swet 

 mornynge and cler wedyr and brj'ght, and hereth the 

 songe off the small fowles which sj'nge so swefly, w' 

 grete melodye and ffull of loue, euych in hys langage, 

 affter y* he lerneth off hys awn kynde, and whan the 

 Sone is a ryse, he shall see the ffresh dew vpo the small 

 twynggs and grass, and the sone whych by hys vertue 

 shall make hym shyne, and that is grete joi and lykyng, 

 unto the hunters herl," &c. 



E. H. K. 



[Of the Master of the Gams there are no fewer than 

 ten MSS. in the British Museum, vijc. one in the Cotto- 



nian Library, Vesp. B. 12., a beautiful and clear MS. on 

 vellum ; prefixed to which, in the same hand with the 

 rest of the volume, is the English Giffard and Tuity, 

 filling a few pages as introductory of the Master of the 

 Game. There are six, viz. three on vellum and three on 

 paper, in the old Eoyal Librar}': two on paper in the 

 Harleian; and a paper MS. (Additional 16,165) written 

 by or for John Shirley, an English poet of the fifteenth 

 century, unknown to Ritson, although particularly men- 

 tioned by Tanner in his Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica. 

 This last is the only MS. of the Master of the Game which 

 distinctly states, in its colophon title, that the treatise 

 itself was written by Richard Duke of York, who was 

 killed at the battle of Agincourt. The MS. itself is in- 

 disputably of the middle of the fifteenth century : and com- 

 pletely corroborated by the title of a ballad, written by 

 Shirley, contained in one of Thoresby's MSS., dated in 

 1440, and described in his Ducatus Leodiensis. It is right 

 to add that for this information we are indebted to the 

 kindness of our learned friend Sir Henry Ellis.] 



" Christians awake ! See." — As you have opened 

 your pages for this subject, the present season 

 seems a fit one for asking the authorship and cor- 

 rect version of that which is by very far the most 

 popular Christmas Hymn in this neighbourhood, 

 and even more so in South Yorkshire than here. 

 I mean that beginning — 



" Christians awake ! Salute the happy morn." 



J. Eastwood.* 



Eckington, N. Derbyshire. 



[This hymn is printed in Montgomer5''s Christian 

 Psalmist, and is there attributed to John Byrom.] 



Visitations of the Bishop of Norwich. — A cor- 

 respondent of the Guardian states that this bishop 

 has been forbidden by statute for some centuries 

 past to summon his clergy more frequently than 

 once in seven years. The clergy themselves (he 

 adds) were the cause of this arrangement, having 

 petitioned the Crown to diminish the number of 

 visitations on account of the expenses consequent 

 on a journey to meet the bishop. Can any of 

 your correspondents give a reference to the statute 

 alluded to, and inform me whether the same tender 

 care has been taken of the clergy of any other 

 diocese, by the same or by any other statute ? 



Vhyan Rheged. 



[Blomefield, J5rMi.o/iVo7-/o?^,iv. 553., edit. 1806, states, 

 that " the visitation of the diocese of Norwich is a profit- 

 able emolument of the spiritualities of the see, and is 

 under a certain limited custom; as first, every bishop hath 

 right after his inthronization, to hold his primarj' visita- 

 tion as soon as he pleases ; and the customary fees are 

 double to those of an ordinary visitation, which the bishop 

 by custom can hold only every seventh year, computing 

 from the time of his primary visitation ; and accordingly 

 I find, that from the most early times to Queen Elizabeth, 

 by all the public registers of the see, no bishop ever 

 visited otherwise ; though since that time, contrary to the 

 aforesaid act, which grants the spiritualities only ' in as 

 large and ample a manner as any bishops of the same see 

 have had the same,' one or two of the bishops held il- 

 legal visitations — illegal, I say, because they held them 

 within less than seven years, and consequently in a more 

 large and ample manner than any bishop of the same see 

 ever did, before the act." Again, by a composition be- 



