298 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[2«"iS. NMl., Oct. 11. '56. 



l^he Deities who presided over the Fingers (2"'^ S. 

 ii. 133. 220.) — You lately noticed the names of 

 the divinities who presided over the days of the 

 week. The following paragraph from Tahle 

 Traits and something on them, refers to a more 

 singular guardianship : 



"I do not know if cooks used different fingers in 

 mingling their sauces, according as they were employed 

 on wedding-banquets, martial feasts, senatorial entertain- 

 ments, or commercial suppers, but certain it is that the 

 fingers Avere sacred to divine deities. The thumb was 

 devoted to Venus, the index-finger to Mars, the longest 

 finger to Saturn, the next to the Sun, and the little finger 

 to Mercury." 



In the book on Divination by Palmistry, which 

 Melampus dedicated to Ptolemy, the author states 

 that a tremulous motion in the thumb designates 

 felicity in conjugal love. In the Epidicus of 

 Plautus, Periphanes asks Philippa to show him 

 her hand. On taking it, the old man exclaims, 

 " Quid est, quod vultus te turhat tuus ? " but vultm 

 is said to be a misprint for digitus. As the affair 

 in course of discussion is one connected with love, 

 and as Philippa recovers her daughter Thalestis, 

 the trembling of the " digitus magnus " is a good 

 sign from Venus ; and the substitution of vultus 

 is evidently wrong, for Periphanes is looking at 

 the hand, not at the face. J. Doran. 



^' Rand'' (2"'^ S. ii. 237.)— In addition to what 

 B. H. C. states respecting this word as a technical 

 term in the trade of the shoemaker, will you allow 

 me to observe, that the rand is a slip of leather or 

 other material so contrived as to unfold or bind 

 round another substance, this binding piece or 

 covering making the rand : and hence in the old 

 style of ladies' shoes, when " high heels," distinc- 

 tively so called, were in vogue, whatever became 

 the outside or cover of the whole of the inner or 

 heightening fabric, whether formed of wood or 

 leather (though generally wood was so employed), 

 bore this name : plain black-grain leather, black 

 Spanish, yellow or red morocco, (our great British 

 statesman, Charles James Fox, having occasionally 

 been seen in these red-heel shoes !) ; prunella, 

 silk or satin, sheepskin stained, or faced with a 

 coating of bees-wax impregnated with some colour- 

 ing pigment, grey, green, yellow, or red ; of these 

 different materials were rands formed, and in this 

 way set off to please all tastes. 



Kor was this all : for in the same old times, the 

 sole-part of boots and shoes were often randed as 

 well as the heels, especially the ladies' shoe, and also 

 for the gent, when about to step forth so staidly 

 in his court costume ; these rands, whether of the 

 heel or the sole, being generally handsomely 

 stitched with a thread of some dashing colour; 

 and is still to be detected in numberless paintings 

 of the kings, queens, and other great folk of the 

 by-gone ages, — the tapestries of Hampton Court, 

 and those of the Gobelina at Paris and elsewhere, 



vouching to the same fiict. And this with the 

 shoemaker was called " stitch-work," a term now 

 wholly obsolete, though occasionally the practice 

 is continued, as at some great gala time, when the 

 high lady and lord are constrained to pay honour 

 to the regal presence in the momentary revived 

 garb of long-evanished fashion. 



So much, then, for this farther bit of rand in- 

 formation in relation to the trade of the shoe- 

 maker, from A Real Snob. 



Bishops of_ Galloway (2°'^ S. ii. 211.) — I have 

 in my possession a work entitled : 



" A Holy Alphabet For Sion's Scholars; Fvll of Spiri- 

 tval instructions, and Heavenly Consolations, to direct 

 and encourage thein in their Progress towards the New 

 Jerusalem : Deliuered, by way of Commentary vpon the 

 whole 119. Psalme. By William t^ovvper. Minister of 

 God's Word, and B. of Galloway. 4". London, 1C13." 



In explanation of the title, the Bishop says, 

 p. 5.: 



" As to the Order of this Psalme, it is divided into two- 

 and-twenty Sections, euery Section hath in it eight 

 verses, and euery Verse beginnes in the Hebrew, with 

 that letter, wherewith the Section is intituled : as all the 

 verses of the first Section begin with Aleph ; the verses 

 of the second with Beth, and so forward, according to the 

 Hebrew Alphabet : for which we may call the Psalme an 

 A, B, C, of Godlinesse." 



Y. B. N. J. 



Saracens (2*^^ S. ii. 229.) — The probability is 

 that as Arabia (the West) derived its name from 

 its position relatively to the Chaldeans, the Sara- 

 cens (^eastern people) derived their name from 

 their position relatively to the Phoenicians and 

 Hebrews. Arab is, however, the name by which 

 they designate themselves, and by which they 

 were known to the ancient Greek historians, the 

 Septuagint translators, and to Strabo. Menan- 

 der, Procopius, Ammianus Marcellinus, Ptolemy, 

 and Pliny use the word Saracens, either wholly 

 or partially, for the Arabians, Ptolemy represent- 

 ing them as an obscure tribe on the borders of 

 Egypt (Gibbon, ix. 50. p. 233.). In Hebrew the 

 word zai-ach, in Syriac zarchoi, and in Arabic 

 sharkon, mean the sun-rising, the East. Sarhoi 

 was the name for the Arabic language in Syriac, 

 in the time of Barhebrajus (Castelli, Lex. a Mi- 

 chael, ii. 627.) ; but this name may have been 

 borrowed from the Greek writers. The Arabians 

 mentioned in the Old Testament appear to be 

 confined to those in the north of Arabia, border- 

 ing on Palestine, Syria, and Chaldasa. It does 

 not appear that the name Saracen was adopted 

 by any of the Arabians. In the time of the 

 Crusades the communication with Constantinople 

 made this name familiar, and being adopted by 

 the Latins and Italians superseded in a great mea- 

 sure the names of Arabians and Moors (=West 

 Arabs), which properly belonged to them as their 

 acknowledged designations. They also call them- 



