372 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 71., May 9. '67. 



thirteenth century. Jacob, the father of Corne- 

 lius and John, had been thrice burgomaster of 

 Dordrecht ; was the Dutch ambassador at Lubec 

 in 1658 ; and in 1657 was appointed to a judicial 

 and financial office (raad-en-rekenmeester) which 

 he held when his sons were murdered. (Simons's 

 Johan de Wit en zijn Tijd, i. 35., Amst. 1832-42.) 

 So there could be no ground for calling him " a 

 mere timber-merchant." 



The truth as to the personal habits of the De 

 Wits is not easy to get at. Sir William Temple's 

 description is probably near it. I quote from 

 Basnage, not having the Remarks on the State 

 of the United Provinces at hand. Of John he 

 says: 



"Toute sa suite, h la reserve de quelques coramis et 

 clercs, entretenua dans son Bureau aux depens du Public, 

 etoit compos^e d'un seul valet, qui fasoit tout le service 

 ordinaire de la maison. Lorsque ce Ministre fasoit des 

 visites de ceremonie, le valet mettoit un simple raanteau 

 de livrde, et suivoit la carrosse dans la rue. Dans les 

 autres occasions 11 alloit souvent k pied, suivi de son 

 valet, et quelque fois seul comme le plus simple bourgeois 

 de la Haye." — Basnage, ii. 318. 



This simplicity is exaggerated in later accounts. 

 Grohmann, in his Historisch-hiographisches Haiid- 

 worterhuch, vii. 674., says : 



" Johan de Wit hatte sich eben so selir durch sein Ta- 

 lent, als durch sein mftssigung ausgezeichnet. Der Fru- 

 galitat und Bescheidenheit seiner Republik unterworfen, 

 hat er nicht mehr als einer Bedienter und eine Magd." 



As he went in his own coach to take his brother 

 from the prison, we may conclude that the man 

 described by Sir W. Temple as making himself 

 generally useful, did not add to his duties those of 

 coachman and groom. From what we know of 

 John, we might expect to find him free from os- 

 tentation of wealth or frugality. I shall be glad 

 to be referred to original authorities, especially as 

 to the habits of Cornelius. Mr. Simons's book 

 contains much valuable matter inconveniently put 

 together. Three volumes of rather lifeless bio- 

 graphy, with notes nearly equal to the text at the 

 end of each chapter, very long statistical appen- 

 dices, and neither index nor table of contents, 

 make a search difficult and uninviting, and con- 

 tinuous reading is out of the question. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



QUARRY. 



(2°* S. iii. 203.) 



It is scarcely to be wondered at, if this term of 

 the chase has, as Mr. Keightlet asserts, puzzled 

 lexicographers ; for technical terms are naturally, 

 and as a matter of course, a weak point with them ; 

 the greater part of their knowledge of such terms 

 is necessarily obtained at second-hand ; and we 

 cannot expect perfect accuracy on such matters 



in a general dictionary. Technical terms more- 

 over are, more than any others, perhaps, liable to 

 corruption, both in their origin and in their use ; 

 one might almost say that they are necessarily 

 and essentially corruptions, the terms of the chase 

 more especially; on this account they very fre- 

 quently become a puzzle to philologists. Nor do 

 I imagine that foreign languages are one whit 

 more exempt from this defect than our own ; or 

 that foreign dictionaries are more immaculate 

 than those of this country in the exposition of the 

 terms of the chase. 



My belief with regard to this word curee, which 

 Mr. Keightlet supposes to be the origin of our 

 quarry, and which he rightly interprets " the re- 

 ward given to animals of the chase," is, that it is 

 itself a corruption ; and my reason for this belief 

 is that there is no word in the French language, 

 that I am aware of, of the same form, in which it 

 can be supposed to have originated. It appears 

 to me more likely to be a corruption, than an 

 isolated unconnected term of which no rational 

 account can be given. The fact of its corruption 

 I deduce as follows. 



The primary idea peculiar to the chase, whether 

 falconry or hunting, is seeking, — questing, as the 

 craft call it now-a-days, — that is, searching for 

 something in order to bring it : qucerere — in old 

 French querir, whence the object sought would 

 be queri. The meaning of the now obsolete querir 

 is undoubtedly to search for and bring, and as the 

 great proportion of our old terms of the chase 

 came to us from the French, I have no hesitation 

 in believing the old French queri to be the origin 

 of our quarry (although Skinner gives it with a 

 doubt), more especially when I find the earliest 

 English authority writing the word, as used in 

 England, querre. 



1 will give some extracts from my copy of the 

 Boke of S. Albans, 1595, to confirm my view of 

 the matter : 



"Anhawke flieth to the riuer diverse wayes . . . she 

 flieth also to the querre to the creep and no other way." 



" Querre. — If yoij see store of mallards feeding in the 

 field, if your hawke flee couertly under hedges or close 

 by the ground, by which meanes she nymeth one of them 

 before they can rise, you shall say that foule was killed 

 at the querre." 



" How a man shall make a hawke to the Querre. — Take 

 a tame mallard and set him in a faire plaine, and let him 

 go whither he wil, then take your hawke uppon your 

 fiste and go to that plaine, and being a good distance off, 

 hold up your hand, and see if your hawke can espie the 

 mallard, yea or no, by her owne corage, and if you find 

 she haue discerned the foule and desire to flee thereto, let 

 her kil it and plume wel thereon, and in this sorte serve 

 her three or foure times, and doubt not she is perfitly 

 made to the querre," &c, 



I cannot doubt that, although in these extracts 

 the term querre is used in a purely technical sense, 

 denoting the peculiar flight of the hawk in chase, 



