2»<i 8. Jfo 67, Jan. 81. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



93 



JDcemon. Heu ! parce nihil egi, nihil. 

 S. Ignatius. (^Rapto gtadio ab Angela.^ 



Parcam, nocere cum malus parcas bonis." — P. 185. 



The stage directions show a great command of 

 decoration and machinery. The scene is fre- 

 quently changed ; and in the second act a boat in 

 danger is exhibited. We see the difficulty of the 

 fairies in our pantomimes to keep their fire-tipped 

 wands alight ; and the sword of real fire, carried 

 through a whole scene, and used with sufficient 

 energy to look terrible, would puzzle our pro- 

 perty men. 



The extract given by E. H. M. does not state 

 in what town the Rua de Romaa was. Ebora 

 would be out of the way of business ; but the 

 "English Merchant" may have gone there from 

 curiosity, as the Museum is said to be the best in 

 Portugal, and he must have been a man of learn- 

 ing and observation. Few could give so accurate 

 an account of what was said in two languages, 

 one of which at least, the Latin, he was n(Jt in the 

 habit of hearing spoken. H. B. C. 



V. U. Club. 



CANNON-BALL FOUND IN A TREE. 



(1" S. viii. 366.) 



My gardener has just brought me a cannon- 

 ball which his father found, in splitting<«p an old 

 pollard, about forty years ago. There were two 

 of them in the same tree, of exactly similar di- 

 mensions. A man who was working with him 

 has got the other ; which I have not seen. 



It appears that the tree stood somewhere on 

 the heights, north of this city, commonly known 

 as Stoke Hill ; but the precise spot my informant 

 is unable to point out. 



As the neighbourhood of Exeter was the scene 

 of military operations during the civil war, when 

 the army of Fairfax occupied a position in and 

 about Silverton, we may conclude that these balls 

 were fired on some occasion from his cannon. We 

 may further rationally conjecture, that the garri- 

 son of Exeter would have an advanced post on 

 these heights, over which the high road to Sil- 

 verton ran ; and that a cannonading of this post 

 would be the prelude to any attack on the city. 



Now, allowing for loss by corrosion, the ball in 

 question is undoubtedly that of a field-gun then 

 in use, called a saker. The extreme range of this 

 gun was (according to the old " Tables of Gun- 

 nery," during the Commonwealth), 2180 yards; 

 and, the fact of the balls having lodged in a tree, 

 which upwards of 200 years ago could not have 

 been a very large one, is sufficient proof that they 

 were nearly spent. In one case, this would in- 

 dicate the position whence they were fired as on 

 some part of the hill above Pynes House, the seat 

 of Sir Stafford Northcote, Bart., — exactly the 



position that would have been chosen by Fairfax's 

 artillery advancing from Silverton, through Thor- 

 verton, for attacking that on the opposite heights. 

 In the other case, if the tree stood further to the 

 north-east, this distance would give the position 

 of the advancing force as on the rising ground 

 between the villages of Stoke-tanon and Rewe, 

 on the direct road from Silverton to Exeter. I 

 give the distances as measured on the Ordnance 

 Map. Again, the circumstance of the two balls 

 lodging in the same tree, shows that the position 

 of the Exeter men was probably close at hand ; 

 and that their assailants were no mean artillerists 

 may be inferred from this correct shooting ; since 

 they must have been fired either from two dif- 

 ferent pieces, or from the one successively, not 

 together : for two shot fired at once from a gun 

 are sure to diverge more or less, have a shorter 

 range, and not unfrequently split against each 

 other, one or both. 



The ball mentioned by Mr. Scott is more diffi- 

 cult to be accounted for, from its size ; since 

 such large guns were not used in the field. 



The " demy-cannon," of 1646, threw a shot of 

 3051b., which is the nearest to the dimensions 

 given by him ; and we can scarcely refer to any 

 other period than the civil-war for a solution of 

 the difficulty ; although the use of cannon was 

 far more ancient, yet I do not recollect any men- 

 tion of them during the wars of the Roses. Now, 

 if this ball were not fired in anger, it is probably 

 the result of some artillery experiments or prac- 

 tice ; in which case the position of the tree It was 

 imbedded in would have been either upon the 

 slope of some steep acclivity, or in a line with, 

 and not fiir from it, — some such butt being ne- 

 cessary to prevent the balls ranging over the 

 country. Does Showboroug [?] present any fea- 

 ture of this description ? A. C. M. 



Exeter. 



RELIABLE. 



(2°'» S. iii. 28.) 



I am not going to defend the word " reliable," 

 but to extend the objection to all words of the 

 same class. It is damaging to language to give 

 foreign terminations to native words : thus, a 

 Greek termination to a Latin word is faulty, and 

 so is a Latin one to an English. I therefore 

 should object to any English word, unless of dis- 

 tinctly Latin origin, ending in " ble " or " able ; '* 

 but of course it is now too late in the day to 

 remedy this, except by avoiding as much as pos- 

 sible the use of such words. If the ending " ble" 

 is allowed, then reliable is formed strictly accord- 

 ing to analogy ; for its synonym " credibilis " is an 

 exactly similar word. " Credo " does not pro- 

 perly mean to believe at all ; it is just as imper- 



