Jan. 3. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



13 



Lorde 1460 untill the yeare of our Lorde 1595. 

 Can any of your readers say In what library a copy 

 of this treatise can be found ? Indagator. 



[A copy is in the Bodleian library. The full title is, 

 " The Mutable and Wavering Estate of France, from 

 1460 to 1595; tofjether with an Account of the Great 

 Battles of the French Nation both at Home and 

 Abroad. 4to. Lond. Tho. Creede, 1597."] 



Caldoriaria Societas. — A copy of the Latin 

 Bible of Junius and Tremellius, now in my pos- 

 session, has on the title : 



« Sancti Gervasii, 1607. 



" Sumptibus Caldorianae Societatis." 



Will you kindly inform me who constituted this 



body, and why they were so called ? Quidam^ 



[Cotton, in his Typographical Gazetteer, has given 

 the following notices of this body : — 



" Caldoriana Societas, qu. at Basle or Geneva? An 

 edition of Calepine's Lexicon, fol. 1609, bears for im- 

 print Sumptibus Caldoriana: Societatis." " An edition 

 of the controversies between Pope Paul V. and the 

 Venetians, bears for imprint, ' In Villa Sanvincentiana 

 apud Paulum Marcellum, sumptibus Caldorianse So- 

 cietatis, anno 1607,' but is by no means of Spanish 

 workmanship. I rather judge that the whole of the 

 tracts connected with this business, which profess to 

 have been printed at various places, as Augsburg, 

 Saumur, Home, Venice, &c., have their origin in the 

 Low Countries, and proceeded from the presses of 

 Antwerp, Rotterdam, or the Hague."] 



Millers of Meath. — The millers of the county 

 of Meath, in Ireland, keep St. Martin's day as a 

 holiday. Why ? n. 



[Because of the honour paid to St. Martin in the 

 Western Church, whose festival had an octave. Formerly 

 it was denominated Martinalia, and was held with as 

 much festivity as the Vinalia of the Romans. Among 

 old ecclesiastical writers, it usually obtained the title 

 of the Second Bacchanal : 



" Altera Martinus deiu Bacchanalia prjebet ; 

 Quem colit anseribus populus multoque Lyaso." 



Thomas Naogeorgus, De Regno Pont. 



Thus translated by Barnabie Googe : 

 " To belly cheare yet once again doth Martin more 

 encline, 

 Whom all the people worshippeth with rosted geese 

 and wine."] 



Kissing under the Mistletoe. — • What is the 

 origin of kissing under the mistletoe ? An M. D^ 



[Why Roger claims the privilege to kiss Margery 

 under the mistletoe at Christmas, appears to have 

 baffled our antiquaries. Brand states, that this druidic 

 plant never entered our sacred edifices but by mistake, 

 and consequently assigns it a place in the kitchen, 

 where, says he, " it was hung up in great state, with its 

 white berries ; and whatever female chanced to stand 

 under it, the young man present either had a right, or 

 claimed one, of saluting her, and of plucking off a 

 berry at each kiss." Nares, however, makes it rather 



ominous for the fair sex not to be saluted under the 

 famed Viscum album. He says, " The custom longest 

 preserved was the hanging up of a bush of mistletoe in 

 the kitchen, or servants' hall, with the charm attached 

 to it, that the maid who was not kissed under it at 

 Christmas, would not be married in that year. "] 



Trinity Chapel^ Knightshridge. — Was Tri- 

 nity Chapel, Knightsbridge, which has been re- 

 built several times, ever parochial ? Can I be 



referred to any memoir of the Rev. Gamble, 



Chaplain to H. R. H. the Duke of York, who in 

 the early part of the present century was minister 

 of It? H.G.D. 



[The chapel, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, belonged 

 originally to an ancient hospital, or lazar-house, under 

 the patronage of the abbot and convent of Westminster. 

 It was rebuilt in 1629, at the cost of the inhabitants, 

 by a license from Dr. Laud, then Bishop of London, as 

 a chapel of ease to St. Martin's-in-the- Fields, within the 

 precincts of which parish it was situated ; but the site 

 was subsequently assigned to the parish of St. George, 

 Hanover Square, and at present forms a part of that of 

 Kensington. The Rev. J. Gamble was minister ot 

 this chapel in 1794-5; in 1796 he was appointed 

 chaplain of the forces, and in 1799 rector of Alpham- 

 stone, and also of Bradwell-juxta-Mare, in Essex. In 

 1 805 he was married to Miss Lathom of Madras, by 

 whom he had a son. His death took place at Knights- 

 bridge, July 27, 1811.] 



^'■Please the Pigs." — Whence have we this 

 very free translation of Deo Volente ? Porcus. 



[This colloquial phrase is generally supposed to be 

 a corruption of " Please the Pyx," a vessel in which 

 the Host is kept. By an easy metonymy, the vessel 

 is substituted for the Host itself, in the same manner 

 as when we speak, in parliamentary language, of " the 

 sense of the House," — we refer not to the bricks and 

 stones, but to the opinion of its honourable members.] 



Meaning of Barnacles. — Can any of your readers 

 throw any light on the terra " barnacles," which 

 Is constantly used for " spectacles " ? I need not 

 say that the word In the singular number is the 

 name of a shell-fish. Piscator. 



[Phillips, in his JForld of Words, tells us that 

 " among farriers, barnacles, horse-twitchers, or brakes, 

 are tools put on the nostrils of horses when they will 

 not stand still to be shoed," &c. ; and the figure of the- 

 barnacle borne in heraldry (not barnacle goose, which 

 is a distinct bearing), as engraved in Parker's Glossary 

 of Heraldry, sufficiently shows why the term has been 

 transferred to spectacles, which it must be remembered 

 were formerly only kept on by the manner in which 

 they clipped the nose.] 



The Game of Curling. — As an enthusiastic 

 lover of curling, I have been trying for some time 

 past to discover any traces of the origin of the 

 game, and the earliest mention made of it ; but, I 

 am sorry to say, without success. 



I should therefore feel much obliged to any of 



