ZH 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. X. Nov. 10. '60. 



and up and down St. James's Street, wlien its 

 pavement had its flights of steps, and ranks of 

 sedan chairs standing by the Clubs ; but the hair 

 of those military striplings was worn like other 

 folks', quite short, and their spruce little pigtails 

 were not of their own growth, but bought ware, 

 and tied on behind, just as much as the small dressy 

 blue-rosetted gilt gorget under their chins was 

 fastened before. Open near me lies vol. xxiv. of 

 the Archceologia, with Mr. Repton's paper upon 

 hats, read thirty years ago, and in which that writer 

 says : — 



" This absurd fashion (df pigtails) continued till as 

 late as the beginning of the present century, when, by 

 the good sense of the age, they were nearly exploded." — 

 P. 189. 



Well indeed do I remember some venerable old 

 gentlemen, on whom the poet's advice was lost — 



" Be not the first by whom the new is tried, 

 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside," — 



and whose Tory principles would have as soon let 

 them put on a bun waistcoat and blue coat with gilt 

 buttons, as to lay aside their pigtails. So much for 

 S. H. M.'s fact, now for his fancy : — In my eyes, 

 so very far is Dr. Archer's wit " undeserving to 

 be called so," that I look upon it as one of the 

 brightest flashes that have glistened upon the 

 pages of " N. & Q." To me, instead of losing, it 

 has gained brilliancy by the so slight yet happy 

 change of the original wording of the lines. By 

 " man," the poet meant " mankind," that is women 

 as well as men — girls as well as boys. But Dr. 

 Archer, by his clever adaptation, put a keener 

 point upon his sarcasm as he twitted, with ladies 

 as well as gentlemen for his hearers, the young 

 fop for the womanish length of hair that hung 

 upon his shoulders. Antipigtail. 



Mode of coNCLUDiNa Letters (2"* S. x. 326.) 

 — I take " faithfully " to be commercial, repre- 

 senting a willingness to serve your correspondent 

 in all matters of business; " truly " to convey the 

 notion of a personal acquaintance ; and " sin- 

 cerely " to intimate the higher degree of friend- 

 ship. If "faithfully" be the positive, I would 

 hold " truly " to be the comparative, and " sin- 

 cerely " to be the superlative, of courtesy. 



Job J. Bakdwell Woekard, M.A. 



Farrendine (2"« S. X. 170. 297.) — I beg to 

 remark that C. W. C. has (of course unwittingly) 

 changed the word Farrendine, as proposed in the 

 Query, into " Ferrandine." I think, therefore, 

 that my conjectural derivation from Farringdon 

 meets the Query less unsatisfactorily ; especially 

 as Berkshire was formerly one of the principal 

 seats of the cloth manufacture, though it has long 

 since declined. JofiN Williams. 



Arno's Court. 



Sea Breaches (2»* S. ix. 288.)— There is a 

 slight error in F. C. B.'s Note on these, when he 



says " there is an account of them in the Life of 

 Wm. Smith of Deanston" &c. He means, I pre- 

 sume, the Memoirs of Wm. Smith, LL.D., the 

 father of English Geology, by his nephew Profes- 

 sor Phillips, London, 1844. At pp. 50-54. will be 

 found an account of his labours, which will doubt- 

 less be interesting to E. G. R. C. H. 



Round Robin (2"'' S. x. 287.)— The following 

 definition is given by Mr. Timbs, in his useful 

 little work, Things not Generally Known : — 



" This is a circle, divided from the centre, like the 

 famed Arthur's Round Table, whence it is thought to 

 have originated. In each compartment of the ' Robin ' is 

 a signature ; so that the entire circle, when filled, exhibits 

 a list, without priority being given to either name. 



" It is, however, stated that the Round Robin, without 

 which British sailors would be deprived of their ri^ht of 

 petition, was first invented in Athens, on the occasion of 

 the conspiracy of Aristogeiton and Harmodius against 

 the tyranny of the Pisistratidae. The Romans, in imita- 

 tion of the Greeks, not to indicate their preference to any 

 either among their guests, or friends, or slaves, wrote their 

 names in a circle, in such a manner that it was impossible 

 to say which was first, second, or last, in their estimation." 



In the Imperial Dictionary (Blackie & Son), 

 voce " Round Robin," we find : — 



" A written petition, memorial, or remonstrance, signed 

 by names in a ring or circle. The phrase is originally 

 derived from a custom of the French oSicers, who, in 

 signing a remonstrance to their superiors, wrote their 

 names in a circular form, so that it might be impossible 

 to ascertain who had headed the list. It is now used to 

 signify an act by which a certain number of individuals 

 bind themselves to pursue a certain line of conduct." 



Aliquis. 



Dr. Bliss's Selections from the Old Poets 

 (2"^ S. X. 183.) — 



" As you came from the Holy Land,*' &c. 

 This beautiful old ballad, which Mr. Gctch 

 believes to be now " printed for the first time," will 

 be found, though with some variations, in Percy's 

 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Bohn's edit., 

 1845, p. 112.) The MS. in the Bodleian, referred 

 to by Dr. Bliss, in which the authorship is attri- 

 buted to Raleigh, must have escaped the Bishop's 

 researches, since he makes no allusion to Sir 

 Walter in his prefatory remarks. T. C. S. 



Lists of Nonjurors (2°* S. x. 289.) — In a 

 volume of Laur. Howell's "Collections for Cam- 

 bridge," which are among the Rawllnson MSS. 

 (B. cclxxxl. fol. 474.) there is a list of clergy, 

 fellows of colleges, and schoolmasters who had 

 not taken the oaths in 1699. It agrees very nearly 

 with that printed in Kettlewell's Life, with some 

 omissions, a very few additions, and occasional 

 variations in names and descriptions. 



W. D. Macrat. 



Doing Gooseberry (2"« S. x. 307.) — Is not 

 this the short for "doing gooseberry picker"? 

 Under the circumstances described by An Old 



