188 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 121. 



" For amongst other excellent and divine things 

 -which owed their orijfin to your Athens, and in which 

 we participate, nothing is more admirahle than 

 those mysteries wliich have caused us to pass from 

 a wild and uncivilised condition to one of amelioration 

 and humanity ; or, to speak more correctly, they first 

 brought us to life, as indicated by the term initiation 

 (beginning), which the mysteries have retained; since 

 this new kind o( life (regeneration) is not only attended 

 with happiness, but is succeeded by the hope of a better 

 destiny after death." 



T. J. BUCKTON. 

 Lichfield. 



Sterne at Paris (Vol. v., p. 105.). — In Me- 

 moires (Tun Voyageur qui se repose, by Mons. 

 Dutens, or Ducliillon, as he also called himself, is 

 an amusin<5 account of a scene between Sterne 

 and him, at Lord Tavistock's table at Paris, on 

 the 4th June, 1762. M. S. 



The Paper of the present Day (Vol. iii., p. 181.). 

 — A. Grayan's note on the " First Paper Mill " 

 reminds me of a too long neglected remark of your 

 correspondent Laudator 'J emporis Acti on the 

 inferiority of the paper made in the present days 

 as compared with that of olden times. As a 

 matron, whose proper business it is to be curious 

 in such matters, I venture to suggest that the 

 \iniversal use of calicos and printed cottons in the 

 place of linen articles of dress, is the true cause of 

 the deterioration of the paper of our books. The 

 careful inspection of the rags of present days on 

 their arrival at a paper-mill, will, I think, confirm 

 my statement, if any gentleman who still clings 

 pertinaciously to the linen shirts of " better times " 

 is disposed to doubt the fact. Margaret GATTr. 



Cimmerii, Cimhri (Vol. iv., p. 444.). — If the 

 belief which derives the Cimbrians from Gomer, son 

 of Japhet, be on the increase, I fear the move- 

 ments of our restless race are not altogether pro- 

 gressive. 



But there is good reason to think, that the 

 Cimbri were of the Brito-Gallic race and tongue. 

 Morimarusa (Pliny, iv. 27.) does not belong to 

 Indogermanic, or any such high categories as will 

 prove nearly what you please. It is a piece of 

 exact and determinate Brito-Gallic. 



Pompeius Festus and Plutarch agree in stating, 

 that the meaning of the name was robbers; — not, 

 of course, as applied to individual offenders, or to 

 any offenders, but as the hereditary boast of pre- 

 datory tribes. " Thou shalt want ere I want " is 

 the motto of the Lords Cranstoun, and was the 

 motto of all Cimbrians. 



Cimmerii has certainly every appearance of 

 being the same name as Cimbri. In like manner, 

 Cymmry becomes Cumbria and (unaccountably) 

 Cambria ; Ambrosius becomes Emmrys, and Hum- 

 ber Hymmyr. What remains of the old word Cimbr, 

 or Cimmr, as meaning Latro, is the verb cym- 

 meryd (and its cognate words), to take, or, more 



etymologically, to apportion : Dividers of booty. 

 The change of the sharp iota into that short vowel 

 of which wc possess not the long, but of which the 

 long is the French eu, forms the difficulty ; but 

 the savajjes of Asia, and those of Cains Marius, 

 may be conceived to have used vowels of shriller 

 pronunciation than the Gatils and Britons. 



The Brigantes of Yorkshire, &c., bore a synony- 

 mous appellation, still used in French and Armo- 

 rican, and not wholly extinct in Welsh. Of a 

 race named Cimbri, "or Cumbri, in this island, 

 nothing whatever is known from ancient geo- 

 graphy or history. And probably no such name 

 co-existed with that of the Brigantes. For, if 

 the two synonymes were used together, neither 

 would express a distinctive peculiarity. The fable 

 of the Brut probably has a core of general truth, 

 when it refers that name to the days of the 

 Cambro-Scoto-Saxon tripartition, disguised as 

 Cambro-Albano-Loegrian. A. N. 



Rents of Assize (Vol. v., p. 127.).— Pvents of As- 

 size, Redditus assisa de assisa vel redditus assisus. 

 The certain and determined rents of ancient tenants 

 paid in a set quantity of money or provisions ; so 

 called, because it was assised or made certain, and 

 so distinguished from redditus mobilis, variable rent, 

 that did rise and fall, like the corn rent now re- 

 served to colleges. (Cowel's Interpreter.) Ob. q. 

 mean respectively obulvs and quadrans. 



The great pipe is a roll in the Exchequer 

 wherein all accounts and debts due to the king 

 delivered and drawn out of the remembrancer's 

 offices, are entered and charged. I presume the 

 Bishop of Winchester's great pipe was a roll of all 

 accounts and debts due to him in right of his 

 bishopric. 



" Ad regis exemplar, lotus componitur orbls." 



J. G. 



Exeter. 



Lord Coke (2nd Institute, 19.) gives this defi- 

 nition : 



" Redditus assisus, or redditus assistc : vulgarly, rents 

 of assise, are the certain rents of the freeholders and 

 ancient copiholders, because they be assised, and cer- 

 tain, and doth distinguish the same from redditus mo- 

 biles, farm rents for life, years, or at will, which are 

 variable and incertain." 



Ob. q. means three farthings, " ob." being^^ au^ 

 abbreviation of obolus, a halfpenny, and " q." of 

 quadrans, a farthing. 



The great pipe in the document referred to 

 apparently means the pipe roll of the Bishops of 

 Winchester, of which some account may be seen 

 in the report of the case of Doe dem. Kinglake v. 

 Beviss, in 7 Common Bench Reports, 456. 



C. H. Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



Monastic Establishments in Scotland (Vol. v., 

 p. 104.). — In- Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland^ 



