298 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2*>d S. VII. April 9. '59, 



at Cambridge, he entered orders, and became 

 chaplain to William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and 

 subsequently to his son Kobert Earl of Salisbury. 

 At a later period he was clerk of the closet to 

 James I. and Charles I. ; and after passing through 

 every order of the Church, and enjoying the rare 

 honour of being translated to six different sees in 

 succession, he became Archbishop of York, and 

 died in 1640. Le Neve, in his Lives of the 

 Bishops, says that the grandfather of the arch- 

 bishop had a considerable estate and a very good 

 preferment at court, both of which he lost in 

 1539, being ruined, and narrowly escaping with 

 his life, owing to his conscientious opposition to 

 the six articles. Would any of your correspon- 

 dents kindly inform me who was the grandfather 

 of the archbishop ? Dr. Neile's seal, when 

 Bishop of Durham, is to be found in History of 

 Durham, vol. i. p. 482. H. S. S. 



Greenwood Family. — 1. Is there any family in 

 England, by the name of Greenwood, bearing the 

 following arms : argent, a fess sable ; in chief 

 three spur-rowels, and in base three ducks sable. 

 Motto, "Ut prosim"? 



2. Does such family possess any record of Miles 

 Greenwood, an officer in the Puritan army of 

 Cromwell ? 



3. Who was Capt. Greenwood, appointed for 

 the garrison at Berwick in July, 1650 ? 



Greenwood. 

 New York. 



Minav Queries initlb ^UiStocrS. 



L7iff, the Mainstay Parting. — I have a manu- 

 script poem in which occurs the following passage. 

 The poem is descriptive of a voyage in which two 

 ships come in contact at sea : — 



" The father gathers strength from his despair, 

 And all the sailor on bis spirit comes. 

 His practic'd hands are busy — ' ho ! ship, there ! 

 Lvff — luff your helm, ye lubbers' — the mainstay 

 Farts by the yard-arm and is swept away." 



Now, what I wish to know is if the command, 

 " Luff — luff your helm," be correct under the 

 circumstances ? and can such a thing happen by 

 vessels coming in contact as "the mainstay" being 

 parted "from the yard-arm?''' William Bruce. 



["LuflF!" is "the order of the helmsman to put the 

 tiller towards the Zee-side of the ship, in order to make 

 the ship sail nearer to the direction of the wind." (Fal- 

 coner.) How far this would prevent a collision between 

 two ships must entirely depend upon their relative posi- 

 tion. It might be the best command that could be given 

 — it might be the worst. The parting of the main- 

 stay "by the yard-arm," i. e. at its superior extremity, 

 would be a serious accident at any time, but especially at 

 the moment of a collision. Does the poet mean to repre- 

 sent collision as the cause of the parting? Or have the 

 two incidents only the same connexion as Tenterden 

 Steeple and the Goodwin Sands?] 



Accession Service, 1751-2. — In a Prayer-Book 

 printed in 1752, the State Services for Nov. 5, 

 Jan. 30, May 29, are directed to be used by an 

 Order in Council dated Windsor, 12th Sept. 

 1728, " in the second year of our reign," and 

 signed " Townshend." The service for June 22 

 (King's Accession) is directed to be used on that 

 day instead of on June 1 1 (which last day had 

 been directed to be observed by an order under 

 the sign manual dated " May 14, in the 1st year 

 of our reign "). The order directing June 22 to 

 be observed is dated Kensington, 8th Oct. 1751, 

 " in the 25th year of our reign," and signed 

 "Holies Newcastle." Why was this change made? 

 And, in point of fact, did not George II. begin to 

 reign on the 11th of June ? Selrach. 



[The change was rendered indispensable on account of 

 an Act of Parliament (24 Geo. II. c. 23. a.d. 1751) hav- 

 ing annihilated eleven days in the month of September, 

 1752 — a month memorable for having only nineteen 

 days and no full moon. It was enacted by this statute, 

 " that the natural day next immediately following the 

 2nd of September, 1752, shall be called and reckoned as 

 the fourteenth day of September, omitting the eleven 

 intermediate nominal days of the common calendar ; that 

 the daj's which followed next after the said 14th of Sep- 

 tember shall be reckoned in numerical order from that 

 da}', and all public and private proceedings whatsoever 

 after the 1st of January, 1752, were ordered to be dated 

 accordingly." George II. commenced his reign on the 

 11th of June according to the Old Style; and on the 

 22nd of June according to the New Style.] 



Oas. — Can anyone favour me with the deri- 

 vation of the word gas ? A. H. 



[Webster refers gas to the S. gast, G. geist, D. geest, 

 spirit, ghost. Other lexicographers are of opinion that 

 tlie origin of gas is still undetermined. The term is said 

 to have been first scientificalh' emploj-ed by Van Hel- 

 mont, who distinguishes gas from bias. Bias was the 

 " stellar influence," or the "aura vitalis." (Opera Omnia, 

 1707, p. 399. et passim.) The learned Jews, iiowever, 

 who in the Middle Ages wrote on scientific subjects, pro- 

 bably had somd share in the introduction of the word gas. 

 DD3, gasas, and in its briefer form, DJ, gas, is a rabbin, 

 verb properly signifj'ing to be inflated, though it has 

 passed into other meanings. Hence the adj. D3, gas, and 

 the subst. n-1D3, gassuth. Gassuth ruacli, inflation of 



spirit.] 



Gentleman. — Will any of your readers be good 

 enough to direct me where to find who are le- 

 gally gentlemen ? Stephen's edition of Blackstone 

 states who are Esquires, but passes over Gentle- 

 men with very slight notice. G. E. 



[Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Queen 

 Elizabeth, in his work entitled The Common Wealth of 

 England, 4to. 1621, p. 28., thus defines a gentleman: 

 " Ordinarily (says he) the King doth only make knights, 

 and create barons or high degrees ; for as for Gentlemen 

 they be made good cheape in Englande ; for whosoever 

 studieth in the laws of the r§alme, who studieth in the 

 universities, who professeth liberal sciences, and, to be 

 -short, who can live idlely, and without manual labour, 

 and well beare the port, charge, and countenance of a 

 gentleman, hee shall be called Master (for that is the 



