Feb. 7. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



133 



ceeded during many years. It was a subject of a 

 grant to the Stanleys by Queen Elizabeth, and 

 of an act of parliament in the reign of James L, 

 under which the isle became vested in the Duchess 

 Dowager of Athol, as heir of the body of James, 

 seventh Earl of Derby, and ultimately became 

 vested by purchase in the crown. It may be said 

 that during the time of authentic history, the Isle 

 of Man was not an independent kingdom, until the 

 regality was granted by the crown, as already 

 mentioned. Wm. Sidney Gibson. 



Newcastle-on-Tyne. 



LONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER. 



(Vol. ii., pp. 131. 172.) 



When I wrote my note upon Long Meg of 

 Westminster, I was not aware of the following pas- 

 sage in Fuller's Woi-thies (Westminster, edit. 1662, 

 p. 236.) : 



" As long as Megg of Westminster. — This is applyed 

 to persons very tall, especially if they have hop-pole- 

 height, wanting breadth proportionahle thereunto. IThat 

 such a gyant-woman ever was in Westminster, cannot 

 be proved by any good witness (I pass not for a late 

 lying pamphlet), though some in proof thereof produce 

 her gravestone on the south-side of the eloistures, which 

 (I confess) is as long, and large, and entire marble as 

 ever I beheld. But be it known, that no woman in 

 that age was interred in the clnstures, appropriated to 

 the sepultures of the abbot and his mnnkes. Besides, I 

 have read in the records of that Abby of an infectious 

 year, wherein many monkes dyed of the plague, and 

 were all buried in one grave ; probably in this place, 

 under this marble monument. If there be any truth in 

 the proverb, it rather relateth to a great gun, lying in 

 the tower, commonly call'd Long Megg ; and in trouble- 

 some times (perchance upon ill May day in the raigne 

 of King Henry the eighth), brought to Westminster, 

 where for a good time it continued. But this Nut 

 (perchance) deserves not the cracking." 



Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, inserts among 

 the Local Proverbs, " As Long as Megg of West- 

 minster," with the following note : — 



" This is applied to very tall slender persons. Some 

 think it alluded to a long gun, called Megg, in trouble- 

 some times brought from the tower to Westminster, 

 where it long remained. Others suppose it to refer to 

 an old fictitious story of a monstrous tall virago called 

 Long Megg of Westminster, of whom there is a small 

 penny history, well known to school-boys of the lesser 

 sort. In it there are many relations of her prowess. 

 Whether there ever was such a woman or not, is im- 

 material ; the story is sufficiently ancient to have 

 occasioned the saying. Megg is there described as 

 having breadth in proportion to her heigiit. Fuller 

 says, that the large grave-stone shown on the south 

 side of the cloister in Westminster Abbey, said to 

 cover her body, was, as he has read in an ancient 

 record, placed over a number of monks who died of 

 the plague, and were all buried in one grave j that 



being the place appointed for the sepulture of the 

 abbots and monks, in which no woman was permitted 

 to be interred." — Edit. 1811, p. 207. 



I shall not enter into the question, as to whether 

 any "tall woman" of "bad repute" was or was 

 not buried in the cloisters of Westminster, as it is 

 very likely to turn out, upon a little inquiry, that 

 the original " long Meg" was a " great gun," and 

 not a creature of flesh and blood. 



" Long Meg " is also the name of a large gun 

 preserved in the castle of Edinburgh ; and, what 

 IS somewhat extraordinary, the great bombard 

 forged for the siege of Oudenarde, in 1382, now 

 in the city of Ghent, is called by the towns-people 

 " Mad Meg." 



A series of stones, situated upon an eminence 

 on the east side of the river Eden, near the village 

 of Little Salkeld, are commonly known as " Long 

 Meg and her Daughters." 



These notices, at any rate, are suggestive, and 

 may be the means of elucidating something per- 

 haps more worth the knowing. 



Edwaed F. Rimbault. 



THE introduction OF STOPS, ETC. 



(Vol. v., p. 1.) 



My enquiry into the use of stops in the early 

 days of typography will, if it prove nothing else, 

 show that the Tablet of Memory is not an authority 

 to be depended upon on that subject. I have ar- 

 ranged the authorities which I have consulted in 

 chronological order. 

 1480. Epistola F. Philelphi ad Sextum IV., printed 



at Rome. 

 1493. Politian's Latin translation of HerodiaUy 

 printed at Bologna. 



In both these books the colon and period are 

 used, but neither the comma nor semicolon. 

 1523. Dialogi Platonis, printed at Nuremberg. 



Here I find the comma and period, and also the 

 note of interrogation, but not the colon or semi- 

 colon. 



1523. Ascensius declynsons, with the playne Ex- 

 positor, without date, place, or printer's 

 name. 



This publication is ascribed by Johnson to 

 Wynkyn de Worde, and therefore printed between 

 1493 and 1534. I find in it the following amusing 

 passage relative to the ancient art of punctuation : — 



" Of the Craft of Poynting. 

 *' Tliere be fiue maner poynts, and divisions most aside 

 with cunnyng men : the which, if they be wel usid, 

 make the sentens very light, and esy to understond 

 Iwth to the reder and the herer, and they be these: 

 virgil, come, parenthesis, playne poynt, and interrogatif. 

 A virgil is a sclender stryke : lenynge forwarde this 

 wyse, betokynynge a lytyl, short rest without any per- 

 fetnes yet of sentens ; as betwene the five poyntis a fore 



