256 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 124. 



version proceeded from Greece. Thus, the Bo- 

 hemian word is cyrkew, the Russian zerkow, the 

 Polish cerkiew. The use of derivatives of ecclesia 

 (which I would remind Mr. Stephens is also 

 originally Greek) in the Roman languages, no 

 doubt arises from the circumstance that that word 

 had been adopted into Latin, whereas the other 

 had not. J. C. R. 



The Konigsmarks (Vol. v., pp. 78. 1 15. 183.). — 

 It is certain from the State Trials, ix. 31., that 

 Count Charles John Konigsmark, the murderer of 

 Mr. Thynn, was the elder of the two brothers; 

 for it appeared on the trial that the younger, 

 Philip Christopher (a dozen years later the gal- 

 lant of the young Princess of Hanover), was at 

 that time a youth still under the care of a travel- 

 ling tutor, who was examined on the trial. This 

 is stated in the Quarterly Review, art. " Lexing- 

 ton Papers," to which inquirers had been already 

 referred (Vol. v., p. 115.). I am a little at a loss 

 to account for J. R. J.'s distribution of his epi- 

 thets ; he calls the case of the elder brother 

 " mysterious" and that of the second " well-known" 

 when in truth the former case is, and has been 

 well-known these hundred and fifty years. Whereas 

 the second case was so long a mystery that it was 

 nowhere told but in a corner of Horace Walpole's 

 Reminiscences, and he was mistaken as to the 

 identity of the victim, — a mistake but recently 

 cleared up. I believe, too, that until the dis- 

 covery of the Lexington Papers, no one altogether 

 believed the story; and the minuter details of the 

 case, such as by whose order, and how, and when 

 and where the deed was done, and how and 

 where the body was disposed of, are still so far 

 mysterious that Walpole's Reminiscences and the 

 Princess's own notes differ essentially on all those 

 points. C. 



L Homme de 1400 Ans (Vol. v., p. 175.). — 

 I have not immediate means of access to the 

 Fi-ench work referred to in No. 121. of " N. & Q.," 

 and therefore do not know how far the personage 

 there alluded to is described as " imaginary ; " but 

 it appears to me that Cagliostro may have intended 

 reference to his great friend and predecessor in 

 Rosicrucian philosophy, the Count de St. Germain. 

 This arch-impostor, who attained no small cele- 

 brity at the court of Louis XV., pretended to be 

 Possessed of the elixir of life, by means of which 

 e had prolonged his existence from a period 

 which he varied according to the supposed credu- 

 lity of his audience ; at one time carrying back 

 the date of his birth to the commencement of the 

 Christian Era, at others being content to assume 

 an antiquity of a few centuries, being assisted in 

 his imposture by a most accurate memory of the 

 history of the times, the events of which he re- 

 lated, and also by an able accomplice who attended 

 him as a servant. On one occasion, when describ- 



ing at a dinner table a circumstance which had 

 occurred at the court of " his friend Richard L of 

 England," he appealed to his attendant valet for 

 the confirmation of his story, who, with the 

 greatest coolness replied : " You forget. Sir, I have 

 only been 500 years in your service." " True," 

 said his master, " it was a little before your time." 

 The origin of this able charlatan, of whom many 

 other amusing stories are related. Is not known. 

 He was sometimes thought, from the Jewish cast 

 of his features, to be the " wandering Jew ;" while 

 others reported that he was the son of an Arabian 

 princess, and that his father was a Salamander. 



E. H. Y. 



Close of the Wady Mokatteh Question (Vol. iv., 

 p. 481.; Vol. v., pp. 31. 87. 159., &c.). — I 

 should not have said another word on the above 

 question, had not Dr. Todd seen fit to give 

 a somewhat different turn to the criticism on 

 Num. xi. 26. As it is, I must beg space to say, 

 that it is the learned whose attention I solicit to 

 examine the value of our respective criticisms, and 

 not that of the unlearned, as Dr. Todd intimates. 

 I do not think that there are many regular readers 

 of the " N. & Q." who can be classed amongst the 

 unlearned. To the judgment of the learned, there- 

 fore, I now resign this protracted disquisition. 



MosES Margoijouth. 



Was Queen Elizabeth dark or fair ? (Vol. v., 

 p. 201.). — Paul Hentzner, who was presented to 

 Queen Elizabeth at the palace of Greenwich, de- 

 scribes her majesty, who was then in her sixty-fifth 

 year, as " very majestic ; her fiice oblong, fair, 

 but wrinkled ; her eyes small, yet black and 

 pleasant. She wore false hair, and that red." 

 Delaroche, however, in his well-known picture 

 at the Luxembourg, has given her a very swarthy 

 complexion. 



Query: What was the celebrated Lunebourg 

 table, of some of the gold of which, according to 

 Hentzner, a small crown which she wore was 

 reported to be made ? H. C. 



Workington. 



Meaning of Knarres (Vol. v., p. 200.). — A knare 

 is a knot or lump, '^'^ knarry, stubby, knotty" (Coles's 

 Dictionary, 1717). It was, no doubt, as J. Br. 

 says, sometimes written gnare ; and in that form 

 is the root of Shakspeare's ^^ gnarled (or knotty) 

 oak." In Norfolk and Suffolk, small plantations — 

 not " scrubby woods" — are called carrs, as J. Bb. 

 states, but certainly not from knare, but, as I 

 rather think, from their square shape, carre. Those 

 that I am acquainted with in those counties are 

 generally of that form, and look like plantations 

 made on purpose for game. When you hear a 

 carr mentioned in those counties, you always think 

 of a pheasants' preserve. I know not whether the 



