528 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'>'» S, VIII. Dec. 31. '59. 



This word occurs, too, in Ralf Roister Do'mter, 

 Act I. So, 2. ; and in an ancient interlude of the 

 repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567. As to the 

 derivation it is merely an English word with a 

 Latinised termination, witness the second of Hey - 

 wood's epigrams on the word. 



" Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow, see 

 Mortimer's sow speaketh as good latyn as hee." 



Why will not people take the trouble of con- 

 sulting contemporary literature before adding to 

 the already sufficiently copious store of literary 

 guesses, which have nothing but their novelty and 

 ingenuity to recommend them ? Libya. 



i^a;? (2"« S. viii. 285.)— In old English, the 

 letter / occasionally takes the place of v. Thus 

 vats, wine-vats, were in Shakspeare's time fats, 

 wine-fats. I would accordingly suggest that fap 

 is equivalent to vap. Vappa signifies in Latin, 

 not only poor wine, but a weak character, a silly 

 fellow, especially a spendthrift, one who, when he 

 has got money, cannot keep it. So Horace, — 



" Non ego avarum 

 Cuna veto te fieri, vappam jubeo : " — 



where vappa is evidently opposed to avarus. 

 This meaning will well accord with the passage 

 cited by your correspondent from the Merry 

 Wives of Windsor. " The gentleman had drunk 

 himself out of his five sentences. . . . And being 

 vap, was, as they say, cashiered." Both vap (or 

 fap), and cashiered, may here be viewed as cant 

 terms, employed by Bardolph professionally. The 

 gentleman had drunk himself into such a state 

 that he became very lavish, and in consequence 

 was stripped of his property : a delicate way of 

 saying that, having become inebriated, he could 

 not take care of his cash, and so was lightened 

 of it. 



Med.L. tappa (vendere vinum ad tappam), Ang. 

 tap; so cappa, cap; sappa (of a besieged place), 

 sap; L. mappa, Med. L. mappa mundi, map. In 

 like manner vappa, vap; whence yo/;. 



In the more general sense of vappa, cf. waped, 

 stupified ; " I'm wap'd to dead a'most." Moor's 

 Suffolk Woi'ds and Phrases, 1823. Thomas Boys. 



Shakspeare and English Lexicography (2"^ S. viii. 

 284.) — As a storehouse of that species of criti- 

 cism indicated by Mommsen as likely to be pro- 

 ductive of the most satisfactory results in restoring 

 the true text of Shakspeare and elucidating his 

 meaning, permit me to invite attention to a Ger- 

 man periodical, begun in 1846, and devoted to 

 modern languages and literature — the Archiv 

 fur das Studinm der neueren Spraclien und Litera- 

 turen, now extending to twenty-five volumes 8vo. 

 In this work will be found a vast body of criti- 

 cism by learned and industrious German profes- 



sors and others, many of whom have resided in 

 England, and made the English language and~ its 

 literature an object of the most careful study ; 

 Shakspeare above all absorbing an attention which 

 shows how deep a hold he has on the German heart 

 and affections. Mr. Coi.ekidge and his generous 

 brother-band of helpers, in compiling a great new 

 English dictionary, will also find in the Archiv 

 valuable materials towards assisting them in Eng- 

 lish lexicography, evincing a wide acquaintance 

 with English literature, and chiefly devoted to an 

 explanation of the more difficult and obscure 

 words and phrases, including Americanisms. 



John Macrat. 

 Oxford. 



Gallimawfry (2'"' S. viii. 285.) — In the passage 

 in the Merry Wives of Windsor, quoted by your 

 correspondent, — 



" He loves thy gallimawfry ; Ford, perpend ! " — 



is not the common reading thy obviously a mis- 

 take for a ? Thus : — 



" He loves a gallimawfry ; Ford, perpend ! " 



That is. Sir John is not particular, but loves a 

 medley, all fish that come to his net, young or 

 old, married or unmarried. The ordinary reading 

 is nonsense. Eirionnach. 



A galimafree is a ragout made up of the rem- 

 nants and scraps of the larder. " A hotchpot 

 {hochepot) Galimafre," says Bescherelle, was a 

 sobriquet given to a mountebank on the treteaux 

 of the Boulevard du Temple, who by his drolleries 

 endeavoured to attract the crowd to the Tlieatre 

 des Funambules, and whose name has since be- 

 come a proverb, and denotes a buffoon and a 

 charlatan. Cf. Bescherelle, under " Galimatias." 



It. S. Charnock. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF RECORDS PURING THE RE- 

 VOI.UTION, AS AFFECTING THE TITLES OF THE 

 FRENCH NOBLESSE. 



The recent inquiry by the French government 

 into the alleged assumption of titles of nobility by 

 individuals who have no just claim to them, and 

 the strict regulations thereupon established by a • 

 kind of College of Arms, are a striking proof of 

 the disorganised state of society in France, and 

 of the confusion created in it by the abolition at the 

 great Revolution of titles of hereditary rank, and 

 the destruction of documentary proofs of nobility. 

 What a state of misery would be unfolded, if the 

 descendants of the ancient nobility were to com- 

 municate to the world the sad story of the vi- 

 cissitudes of their illustrious houses, and of the 

 spoliations endured by them from the Revolution 

 until the period of the restoration of the Bour- 

 bons. Indeed this in part has been done in many 

 volumes of Memoires. In the biography of the 



