2°« S. VIII. Dec. 31. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



541 



Anglicus in II. F.'s MS. was probably not the 

 worst reply, Bernard Andre mentions one by 

 Cornelius Vitellius, beginning 



"Siccine piirpureos incessis carmine rej^es? 

 Legati officio siccine functus abis.'" 



and others by John de GIglis and Petrus Carme- 

 lianus of Brescia, the king's secretary. Andre 

 himself, as he rather amusingly tells us, composed 

 nearly 200 lines in answer, consisting of about 

 fifty hexameters, two sets of elegiac verses, and a 

 hendecasyllabic poem, of each of which he qiiotes 

 the commencement, and of the latter the conclu- 

 sion, "propter memoriam, sen majus jactantiam." 



James Gairdnee. 

 Passports (2"'^ S. viii. 117.) — Some notices re- 

 lative to the origin, form, and purpose of passports 

 have appeared in " N. & Q." I transmit the fol- 

 lowing quotation from the recelit most interesting 

 volume of the Camden Society, Original Papers 

 illustratice of the Life and W?-itings of Milton, 

 edited by W. Douglas Hamilton of H. M. State 

 Paper Office : — 



" The third in the form of Letters Patent granted to 

 the German divine Peter George Romswinckel, is a good 

 example of the early passports, -whicli were not, lilse their 

 modern substitutes, mere permissions to enter the terri- 

 tories of friendly states, but letters of recommendation 

 authorising the bearer to travel without molestation 

 through the dominions of the government by which they 

 were granted, and to quit its ports in safety ; for at that 

 time no one could leave the shores, even of England, 

 without permission. 



" The value of the passport had reference rather to the 

 departure of the traveller from his own country than to 

 his landing abroad, although, as it generally' expressed 

 his position in society and the object of his journej', it 

 was often found of service at foreign courts, and some- 

 times, as in this instance, recommended the bearer to the 

 good oflfices of friendly powers." 



If I may hazard a conjecture for the considera- 

 tion of others, I should submit that a passport, or 

 permission to leave the shores of England, was re- 

 quisite from a very early period, and that the ne- 

 cessity of this encouraged a kind of contraband 

 trade for the conveyance to the courts of France 

 of those who were unable or unwilling to obtain 

 the necessary pass. There would be also, I think, 

 a difference between a passport and a permission 

 to travel. S. H. 



^^ Damask" (2°^ S. viii. 430.) — Damasking was 

 properly the art of engraving or channelling steel, 

 and inlaying the cavities thus opened witli gold or 

 silver, after the fashion of Damascus. To damask 

 was also to work silk, linen, &c. with flowers or 

 figures ; but it was, thirdly, to mark paper after a 



similar fashion. " To damask to draio 



dravghts on paper." (Bailey, 1736.) It would 

 seem that something of this last kind was intended 

 by the Act which required that the sheets of every 

 pirated book should be forfeited to the lawful 

 proprietors of the work ; and that the proprietors 



should '■'■damask " the said sheets, " and make waste 

 paper of them." The proprietors, though they 

 received the forfeited sheets, were not to have the 

 benefit of them as so much letterpress, but were 

 to efface or cancel them. Probably in this case 

 the particular mode of damasking employed, 

 was by making of the sheets what we now call 

 marbled paper ; an article which in former times, 

 I believe, publishers and bookbinders often manu- 

 factured for themselves. But there is also a kind 

 of paper, called damask paper, occasionally used 

 for the lining of books. 



" To damask potable liquors " was, by a farther 

 extension of meaning, "to warm them a little, to 

 make them mantle." (Bailey.) Thomas Boys. 



I would suggest that this word, as used in the 

 enactment quoted by Inquirer, may not refer at 

 all to the word derived from Damascus, but may 

 be derived from the French word demasquer, and 

 mean " to disfigure and spoil the books," and so 

 change their appearance as to prepare ihem for 

 waste paper. F. C. IT. 



Four Kings (2"* S. viii. 417.) — There is an 

 earlier instance of the entertainment of four kings 

 by a private individual. Under the date of 1363, 

 Stow relates that Sir Henry Pican, a merchant- 

 vintner of Gascony, who had been mayor, made a 

 magnificent entertainment at his house (since 

 called the " Vintry") for no less than four kings 

 at once, viz. of England, Edward IV. ; Scotland, 

 David Bruce ; France, John ; and Cyprus, Peter : 

 besides the kings' sons and most of the nobility of 

 England, who were also present : — 



" This deserves our particular notice, for as we do not 

 read of so many foreign princes to have been in England 

 at one time, so certainly never before had any private 

 citizen the honour to entertain so many." — ^Tyrrell's Hist, 

 of Enqland, v. G54. 



W. D. C. 



Clarendon House, Piccadilly (2"^ S.^ viii. 400.)— 

 I think J. G. N. must have been mistaken when 

 he said that the pilasters on either side the 

 " Three Kings' Inn" gateway have been removed, 

 as the right hand one is still standing in its usual 

 place ; and the left band one has been removed, 

 but a few weeks ago, to a little farther down the 

 yard, where (I am informed) it still lies. 



Chelsega. 



Publication of Banns (2''^ S. viii. 227.)— In the 

 church of Roydon, near Diss, the banns of mar- 

 riage are published after the Nicene Creed. 



Remigius. 



Brasses at West Harling (2"^ S. viii. 417. 461.) 

 — I think that F. C. H. wrote somewhat hastily 

 when he stated that the expression "et pro quibus 

 tenentur" is frequently met with on sepulchral 

 brasses. I have read through some hundreds of 

 inscriptions on these memorials, and can recollect 

 but one other instance besides that at West Har- 



