2°<i S. VIII. Sept. 17. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



229 



taken as the S in VIDES is in reality some old-fashioned 

 contraction, a word crumpled up which might somewhat 

 vary the sense. For instance, the true reading might 

 be, — 



" Debilis es ; vide tamen vitam nomine ipsius + ." 



Of course, however, this is only conjecture. 



In the first six letters of this posy (Deblis), we may 

 possibly detect some traces of the party to whom the ring 

 belonged. " Debiles personse" were persons who, through 

 bodily or mental infirmity, were incapable of managing 

 their own affairs. The purport then might be; "True, 

 thou art debilis, thou canst not help thyself or take care 

 of thyself; yet know that in Him who died for thee thou 

 hast the prospect of a better life hereafter :" on which 

 supposition the ring may have been affection's gift to the 

 sufferer ; and let us hope it was not worn as a mere charm 

 or amulet, as similar articles often were. 



But if, as frequently was the case, the posy contains a 

 verbal reference to the owner's name, Deblis may be a 

 quaint allusion to the old name De Bles = De Blois, which 

 we think very probable. Cf. " Henricus de Bles," a pain- 

 ter ; " Joannes de Blesis," alias J. de Blois ; and " Blesum 

 Castrum," the town of Blois. The nearest equivalents in 

 modern English to the old " de Bles," or " de Blois," ap- 

 pear to be the not very unusual surnames " Bliss," " Bligh," 

 « Deeble," " Dibble."] 



Leese : Lance?s. — I should be glad to know at 

 what period, and by what authority, the word 

 leese was altered into lose in the authorised ver- 

 sion of 1 Kings xviii. 5. ; and lancers into lancets in 

 verse 28 of the same chapter ? I find the anti- 

 quated forms still standing in an Oxford edition 

 (Basket), a.d. 1727; and in all the preceding 

 editions to which I have access. If these were 

 Dr. Blayney's or mere printers' corrections, they 

 were surely somewhat adventurous. 



C. W. Bingham. 



[The Holy Bible appointed bj' Royal Authority is 

 National property — nor ought a word to be altered ex- 

 cept by the same authority. It has, however, been fre- 

 quently altered and improved by persons who have 

 produced no such authority. If these alterations have 

 been sanctioned by the University and King's Printers 

 in Bibles to be read in Churches, all editions have usually 

 followed them. The word " leese " was altered to " lose " 

 in Bentham's Cambridge edition, large 4to., 1762; and 

 in Baskerville's Cambridge royal folio, 1763. The word 

 " lancers " was altered to ," lancets " in John Basket's 

 London 4to., 1716 ; but restored to " lancers " in his sub- 

 sequent editions. Blayney, Oxford, 1769, has adopted 

 " lose " and " lancets," which has been followed from that 

 time. Much greater care is now, and has been for some 

 years, taken by the Universities and the King's Printer 

 with regard to the accuracy of the text, than was formerly 

 the case. — Geoege Offob.] 



"Pull Garlich." — Can any of your readers in- 

 form me why a person submitting tamely to ill- 

 treatment is said to " pull garlick ? " whence the 

 expression "pill-garlick" for a souffre-doulenr. 



H. W. 



[We are informed by a friend learned in the vernacu- 

 lar of Wales, that to make a person ""pull his leek " is 

 equivalent in the Principality to making him "eat his 

 leek." This may throw some light on the saying " to 

 pull garlick" in the sense now indicated by H. W. We 

 think, however, it was sufficiently shown by our corre- 



j spondents in l'« S. iii. 42. 74. 150., that by fii7-garlick we 

 I are to understand one who peels garlick. " Filled- garlick," 

 indeed, was one whose hair had fallen off through disease, 

 as is clear from a citation in Todd's Johnson. But for 

 j9!7 garlick, a servile person -who peels garlick, see the lines 

 of Skelton, 1" S. iii. 74., where the pyllers of garlyek are 

 classed with those who cary sackes to the myll, with 

 thosd Avho shyll pescoddes, and with those who rost a 

 stone. 



The term pil-garlick, as we now hear it occasionally 

 used in conversation, has this peculiarity, that it not only 

 signifies, in a general sense, one who has suffered ill- 

 treatment, but, specially, one who has been abandoned by 

 others, and left in the lurch ("a ■poor forsaken wretch," 

 Todd's Johnson') ; the speaker, the party who uses the term, 

 being himself the forsaken sufferer, the pil-garlick. " At 

 first I was well Unpported ; but in the end all my backers- 

 up proved to be backers-out, and so poor pil-garlick was 

 left in the lurch," The "poor pil-garlick" of this mo- 

 nody is evidently no other than the speaker himself. 



Garlick of necessity isolates. The Greeks forbad those 

 who had eaten garlick to enter their temples. But, con-- 

 nected with our mediaeval therapeutics, there was a pecu- 

 liar case, in which those who had to do with garlick 

 were placed in a state of isolation. The leprosy was a 

 common disease ; lepers were shunned, they dwelt apart ; 

 and a prime specific for leprosj' was garlick. " Macules 

 et nsevos, scabriciem cutis, scabiem, lepras et porriginem 

 capitis emendat," Brunfels, Herbarium, 1540, p. 135. " It 

 is also good against the foule white scurffe, leprie, and 

 running ulcers of the head, and all other manginesse, 

 pound with oyle and salt, and laid thereon," Dodoen, 

 I New Herbal, by H. Lyte, 1619, p. 458. May we not in- 

 I fer, then, that the " poor pil-garlick," forsaken by all men, 

 j and left in the lurch, was originally the hapless leper, 

 i who peeled his own garlick, to be " pound with oyle and 

 salt " as a poultice for his own cuticle, and who was thus 

 doubly cut off from the society of other humans, first by 

 his malady, and secondly by his remedy? In Latin the 

 word itself, allium, garlick, is supposed to be derived 

 from the Gr. a\ia, to keep one's distance ; and as far back 

 as the time of Moses the leper was required to "dwell 

 alone." Lev. xiii. 46. ' 



Qu. Might we not derive L. scortum ("cujus etym. 

 multum vexatur ") from the Gr. a-KopSov, short for a-KopoSov, 

 garlick ? Cf. the Fr. putain from It. putire.'] 



Mr. John Coleman. — What circumstance is re- 

 ferred to in the following ? — 



" Married, in London [April 28, 1791], Mr, John Cole- 

 man, of Berkeley Square, to Miss Porter of St, James's 

 Street; and thus Mr. Coleman is rewarded for having 

 brought the monster to punishment by the lady wiiose 

 cause he so gallantly espoused." 



Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



[During the months of May and June, 1790, the streets 

 of the metropolis were infested by a villain of the name of 

 Renwick Williams, commonly called The Monster, whose 

 practice it was to follow some well-dressed lady, and 

 after using gross language, to give her a cut with a sharp 

 instrument he held concealed in his hand, either through, 

 her stays or through her petticoats. Eventually he was 

 captured by Mr. Coleman, whose friend Miss Porter had 

 been assaulted by Williams. The Monster was convicted 

 for an assault and battery, and sentenced to six years' 

 imprisonment. — Annual liegister, xxxii. 207. 223. 226. 

 264,] 



" Itacism." — I shall feel obliged if any of your 

 readers will kindly inform me the derivation of 



