78 



KOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2^'i S. VIII. July 23. 'of 



the dates of such documents as are on water- 

 marked paper, but are dateless. The honour, 

 ascribed to the Holbein family, seems to deserve 

 clipping in so far that its members have only 

 been the inventors of maldvg ivatermarks in paper. 

 Did I guess aright ? J. H. van Lennep. 



Zeyst, July 14 1859. 



John Allivgton (2"'' S. viii. 46.) — John Ailing- 

 ton was of Queen's College, Cambridge, B.A. 

 1625-6, M.A. 1629, rector of Uppingham, and 

 vicar of Leamington, a good preacher, and author 

 of several works. We know not the date of his 

 death, but hope through the medium of your co- 

 lumns to obtain it. C. H. & Thompson Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



Tooth and Egg Metal, Tutenag (2'"^ S. vii. 478. 

 519. ; viii. 38.) — The transmutation oHutenag into 

 tooth-and-egg, as recently sot forth in the pages of 

 " N. & Q.," is a very amusing instance of what 

 our vernacular can effect ; but what is the word 

 tutenag itself? Some say it is Portuguese, some 

 Chinese, some Indian. 



If your correspondent, who tells us that tutenag 

 is " Indian, as its derivation shows," will only 

 trace this derivation to our satisfaction, and tell 

 us to what Indian language he refers it, we then 

 can convince ourselves, and of course there will 

 be no room for farther controversy upon the sub- 

 ject ; but whether this can be done remains to be 

 seen. As to the Chinese origin of the word tu- 

 tenag, this is so far from according with the 

 views of Dr. Morrison, that in his English- Chinese 

 Dictionary that learned lexicographer gives us 

 tutenag as an English word, for which the Chinese 

 is pih-yiien. 



My reasons for preferring, in the present state 

 of the question, a Porfo^yese .derivation for tute- 

 nag, are briefly these. What we now call Ger- 

 man silver, which is one of the many alloys that 

 have been termed tutenag, does not appear to 

 •have been made in Europe till about the com- 

 mencement of the present century ; and some 

 of us may well remember its inti:oduction into 

 this country under the name of albata. But 

 various alloys, resembling in their appearance 

 German silver, and known by the name of white 

 copper (Weiss-Kupfer} were made in Germany 

 long before. The Portuguese, meeting with a 

 similar article in their early commerce with India 

 and China, would at once be struck with the re- 

 semblance ; and, speaking in their own language, 

 would naturally call it prata I'eutonicu (German 

 .silver). Teutonica thus becomes the trade name 

 of the eastern article ; and in due time comes 

 back to Europe, transmuted into tutenag. 



Tutenag is also called tiitenago (Encyc, and 

 Beckmann) and tutenaga (Moraes). These last 

 two forms represent the Portuguese masculine 

 and feminine : — metal Teiitonico, m., (German 



metal) ; prata Teutonica, f., (German silver). 

 Teutonico, Teutonica; hence Tutenago, Tute- 

 naga — Tutenag. 



The Chinese pih yuen, already mentioned, has 

 experienced in its passage to Europe the still 

 more extraordinary transmutation into pachjyn 

 and pakfong ! Thomas Boys. 



Orchestra at Handel's Commemoration : the 

 Bassoon (2"'' S. vii. 370.) — It seems surprising, 

 in looking over the list of instruments, to fiiul 

 such a predominance of bassoons — 2.5 to 21 vio- 

 loncelli — while at the Philharmonic at the pre- 

 sent time we have but 2 bassoons to 8 celii ; or 

 four times the number. At the Sociele des Con- 

 certs at Paris there are 4 bassoons to 8 celli, 

 and the quality of the bass is much improved, and 

 the reeds of the oboe and clarinet better balanced. 



Still stranger is the list of the orchestra given 

 by Mr. HcsK (p. 290.), where they are 7 bas- 

 soons to only 2 " violinchelloes." It would be 

 very interesting to the musical antiquary if the 

 readers of " IST. & Q." would, from time to time, 

 contribute lists of the orchestras on different great 

 occasions ; the comparison would, I believe, turn 

 out to be very curious. A. A. 



Poets' Corner. 



" Night: a Poein' (2"^ S. viii. 11.) — A. D. is 

 doubtless correct as to the matter of fact ; but I 

 suspect the poem, the authorship of which was in- 

 quired after by a previous correspondent, was one 

 bearing the same title, and published anonymously 

 by the' late Ebenezer Elliott, and will be found 

 among his collected Works. '■'Night," said the 

 Monthly Reviewer, " is in the very worst style of 

 ultra-German bombast and horror." A dictum, 

 which, like some of the earlier criticisms on 

 Wordsworth — if read by the light of subsequent 

 productions — few, if any, of the admirers of the 

 " Corn Law Rhymer," will consent to indorse. 



J. H. 



Nostradamus : " Cinq Mars" (2""* S. viii. 50.) 

 — In the Middle Ages the French word marc^ was 

 not unfrequently written mar. The word signi- 

 fied, too, not only a certain amount of money, but 

 a weight, of eight ounces: consequently Cinq 

 Mars (five marks) will be equivalent to Quaranta 

 onces (forty ounces). Hekbt T. Riley. 



In answer to the question of F. Z., the pun, 



Quarante onces, consists in the fact that the old 



French " marc d'argent" being equivalent to eight 



ounces, '■'■cinq mar(c)s" was or were equal to 



forty ounces. Gustave Masson. 



Harrow. 



PegTankard (2"'^ S. vii. 434.)— This peg tankard 

 evidently belonged to a Pomeroy, but, as to date, 

 who can assign one without ocular inspection ? 



V. R. 



