480 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2tt<i S. YII. June 11. '59. 



building not permitted, because it would have been re- 

 fused if asked for, but winked at by the Papal Govern- 

 ment." 



P.S. The following extract from The Union 

 newspaper of March 18. has just met my eye : — 



"We recently quoted froni the Paris Vnivers a circum- 

 stantial account of an atrocious crime committed by some 

 Jews of Fokchan}', Wallachia. They had seized on a 

 Christian lad, and had subjected him to the most horrible 

 martyrdom before puttfng him to death. The statement 

 of the Univers was too important to be passed over in 

 silence by the Wallachian authorities, who consequently 

 appointed a commission to investigate the matter. This 

 commission, which comprised delegates from the French, 

 English, Austrian, Prussian, and Russian consulates at 

 Bucharest and a Wallachian deputy, has concluded its 

 labours, and published a report which asserts the alle- 

 gations of the Univers to be false from beginning to eud." 



The Guardian of last Wednesday (May 11.) 

 gives another instance of this miserable fana- 

 ticism, which seems to be ou the increase amongst 

 foreign Christians : — 



"On the 12th ult. the people of Galatz made a ferocious 

 attack on the Jewish inhabitants of the city, whom they 

 accused (according to a wretched superstition) of having 

 taken blood from a Christian boy, in order to make use of 

 it in their Easter ceremonies! The synagogue was de- 

 stroyed, the Bibles and scrolls of laws "found in it torn to 

 pieces, the shops broken open and plundered, and about 

 200 Jews more or less injured." 



■WAITS : ANOMES : MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



(2"« S. vii. 341.) 



Minshew tells us that the term waits or 

 wayghtes was used to signify a wind instrument, 

 a hautboy^ and there can be no doubt that such 

 was often the case. Butler,' in his Principles of 

 Musick, 1636, mentions the '■'■waits or hohjys" and 

 the term is so explained in the Dictionaries of 

 Kersey, Wright, Halllwell, &c. In the Prompto- 

 rium Pa?-vulorum, wayte is explained by " specu- 

 lator foris," " explorator foris," and there is good 

 reason for supposing that it came to us from the 

 old German toacht, a vigil or watching (see George 

 Soane's New Curiosities of Lite?'atu7'e, ii. 252.). 



The waits were minstrels, at first annexed to 

 the king's court, who sounded the watch every 

 night, and in the towns paraded the streets, during 

 winter, to prevent theft, &c. A regular company 

 of waits was established at Exeter in 1400; and 

 though suppressed by the Puritans, were re- 

 stored in 1600. Dr. Busby, in his Musical Dic- 

 tionary, in v. Waygutes, says : — 



" This noun formerlj' signiiied hautboys, and which is 

 remarkable, has no singular number. Irom the instru- 

 ments its signification was, after a time, transferred to 

 the performers themselves, who, being in the habit of 

 parading the streets by night with their music, occasioned 

 the name to be applied generally to all musicians who 

 followed a similar practice." 



The reverse of Dr. Busby's argument was pro- 



bably the fact ; but the subject is by no means as 

 clear as could be wished. I may add that in a 

 roll of officers in the service of Henry VII., now 

 before me, one of the entries is "Musicians for the 

 wayghtes." 



I have no conception what musical instrument 



can be meant by the word anome. Query, is it not 



a misprint in the early editions of Doctor Faustus? 



Edward F. Rimbault. 



That the wordM;ai7 originally meant a musician, 

 or rather a player of wind instruments, is clear by 

 its use in the romances of Kyng Alysaundcr and 

 Sir Eglamour. We find, however, that at some 

 subsequent period it came to mean a hautbols. 

 Minshewgives"w'aiYes, a wind instrument, wic?e Ho- 

 bois;" and m'R.^'hevvioo^^s.EnglisTi-French Dic- 

 tionary appended to Cotgrave, and dated 1650, we 

 have " the ivaites, les hautbois." This will answer 

 one of A. A.'s queries, but I know of no passage 

 in which the word occurs. I regret too that I can 

 throw no light at present upon ai\ome. 



H. Coleridge. 



I may be allowed a remark to say, that "waits" 

 has been usually considered as a corresponding 

 word with the Scottish " waith," meaning ivander^ 

 ing or roving about from place to place, in allusion 

 to the ancient "menstrales" of our country, a 

 class of whom, as recorded, was nearly three 

 centuries ago under the patronage of the civic 

 corporation of Glasgow, and at the town's ex- 

 pense clothed in coats of blue. A remnant of 

 this custom, still popularly called waits, yet exists 

 in the magistrates annually granting^ a kind of 

 certificate or diplcyna to a few musicians, gene- 

 rally blind men of respectable character, who 

 perambulate the streets of the city during the 

 dead hours of the night and morning for about 

 three weeks or a month previous to New Year's 

 Day, in most cases performing on violins the slow 

 soothing airs peculiar to a portion of the old 

 Scottish melodies ; and in the solemn silence of 

 repose the effect is very fine. At the commence- 

 ment of the new year these men call at the houses 

 of the inhabitants, and, presenting their creden- 

 tials, receive a small subsci-iption. 



I think in the extract referred to by A. A., 

 from Thome's Early English Prose Romances^ 

 "waits" is most naturally to be taken as signi- 

 fying not the musical instrument, but the player, 

 and that in this passage this was the intention of 

 its author, though perhaps a little obscurely ex- 

 pressed. G. N. 



NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



(2-"i S. vii. 341.) 

 The number stated by the anonymous corre- 

 spondent in the Manchester Guardian, is correct 



