2°<» S. VIII. Nov. 12. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



407 



sinful. The letter ends thus : — " Liberavi ani- 

 mam meam : liberet et vestram Deus a labiis ini- 

 quis et h lingua dolosa."— Ep. ccclxxi. 



Thomas Boys. 



Duchess of Marlborough (2"'^ S. viii. p. 330.) — 

 Mr. Weir's Account of Lincolnshire, vol. i. (all 

 that was published, and to which I referred re- 

 specting the Duchess of Marlborough,) was pub- 

 lished in 1828 ; and Allen's History of Lincolnshire 

 (vol. ii.) was published in 1834 — siar years after- 

 wards. Consequently, although the editor of " N. 

 & Q." says that " Mr. Weir's authority is no doubt 

 Allen's History" I must beg leave to have con- 

 siderable doubts M^on the subject ; Allen makes 

 references, in fact, in his first volume, which was 

 publiished in 1830, to Weir's Lincolnshire, proving 

 that Mr. Weir was Allen's authority, and not the 

 reverse. Allen was not very particular in giving 

 his authorities, or delicate in his unacknowledged 

 appropriation of the labours of other people : since 

 many pages of his book were taken without any 

 notice whatever from my Collections for the His- 

 tory of Boston, published in 1820. 



PisHET Thompson. 



Stoke Newington, 



Thomas Maude (2°* S. viii. 291.)— Mr. Thomas 

 Maude was a friend of Grose, the author of The 

 History of Antiquities, and is alluded to by Grose 

 in the history. He was a friend also of Paley, 

 who frequently visited him at Bolton Hall. It 

 has been said that Mr. Maude and his patron and 

 friend the Duke of Bolton are described in one 

 of Smollett's novels. Can any correspondent of 

 " N. & Q." supply any information on this latter 

 point ? M. 4. 



The Wren Song (2"^ S. viii. 253.) — A story is 

 current in Ireland, that a wren hopping on a 

 drum at an outpost of King William III.'s army 

 aroused a drowsy sentinel, and so saved a sur- 

 prise by King James; hence the dislike of the 

 peasantry to the cause (the innocent wren), a 

 feeling carried down to the present day, and 

 evinced in wren processions, &c. 



F. R. S., Bibl. Aul. Regis. 



Dublin. 



Jacob Chaloner (2°^ S. viii. 323.) is probably 

 identical with James Chaloner, sometime of Brase- 

 nose College, Oxford, and afterwards of Magdalen 

 College, Cambridge, in which University he gra- 

 duated B. A. 1619-20, M. A. 1623. He was one 

 of the judges of King Charles I., a noted anti- 

 quary, and author of A Short Treatise of the Isle 

 of Man. He committed suicide in 1660. See 

 Wood's Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 502, 503. 



C. H. & Thompson Coopek. 



Cambridge. 



Vulgates of 1482—4 (2"'i S. viii. 257.) — Your 

 correspondent H. B. will find the edition of the 



Vulgate to which he alludes as being so rare that 

 he can find no copy mentioned in any catalogue, 

 described in Pettigrew's Bibliotheca Sussexiana, 

 vol. i. part ii. pp. 337, 338. A previous edition 

 by the same printer, Magnus de Herbort of Sel- 

 genstadt, Venet. 1483, is particularly described, 

 pp. 335 — 337 in folio, 2 vols. These editions are 

 formed upon the Fontibus ex Graecis, &c. An 

 edition in folio and an edition in 4to. were in the 

 Library of H. R. H. the Duke of Sussex. O. C. 



Carriage Boot (2°* S. viii. 238. 317.) — I sug- 

 gest two etymological solutions. The first is, that 

 the word comes from the Fr. boite, a box ; which 

 a carriage-boot effectually is; and in both lan- 

 guages the words admit of a variety of significa- 

 tions. What tends remarkably to confirm this 

 view is the fact that, in the present parlance, the 

 coachman's seat is "on the box;" that is, on or 

 over the front boot, boite, or box. 



The second is, that boot means boat, possibly 

 from some resemblance in form when first intro- 

 duced ; or from being attached to the sides of the 

 carriage like boats to a ship, " having then a boot 

 on each side," according to the quotation adduced 

 by the Rev. Francis Trench. In fact, our present 

 word boot was in the fifteenth century pronounced 

 and written bote ; and boat was then pronounced 

 and written boot. This is evident from the Promp- 

 torium Parvulorum, from which I extract the fol- 

 lowing : — 



" Boot, Navicula, scapha, simba {sic). 



Bote, for a mannys legge, Bota, ocrea." 



We see here that the English for navicula was 



"boot." Of course, the spelling at that period 



was not in a fixed state ; but in this instance the 



above quotation is quite sufiicient to indicate the 



difference of the pronunciation of the two words. 



" Navicula " was not confined to a vessel intended 



to float on the water. It signified, for instance, 



the vessel which contained the incense used in the 



church (Ducange) ; and even to this day the same 



vessel is in English called a " boat." One or other 



of these solutions is, I think, the right one. "Utrum 



horum mavis accipe." John Williams. 



Arno's Court, Bristol. 



Hammer Cloth (2°'^ S. fiii. 381.) — There can, 

 I think, be little doubt as to hammock-cloth being 

 the etymologically correct word. 



The seat to which this is the covering, consists 

 of straps or webbing stretched between two 

 crutches, as a sailor's hammock is suspended ; and 

 for a like reason, viz. to ease the motion. In my 

 own early days few driving-seats were on springs, 

 and this hammock or cradle was a great relief 

 from the jar — particularly on the bad pavement 

 then common. Coachmen used, for the same 

 reason, to have a strip of cork nailed on their 

 footboard. 



Hammers, wrenches, spare bolts, &c., were car- 



