2ud s. No 48., Nov. 29. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



427 



instant immediately conveyed himself underneath the 

 machine, and with a loud voice cried out Sweep, Sweep; 

 the Gentlewoman being affrighted leap'd back, the boy 

 struggling to get out threw Madam in the Dirt, and with 

 much ado at last the Devil got away, and left the lady 

 in no small confusion." 



S. N. M. 



Wagers. — It has been remarked, that " a col- 

 lection of foolish wagers would make a voluminous 

 and not uninteresting work." I beg to propose 

 this topic to your contributors. 



To make a beginning. I have heard that a gen- 

 tleman laid a wager that he would stand for a 

 whole day on London Bridge, with a tray full of 

 sovereigns fresh from the Mint, and would offer 

 them to the passengers at " pence a-piece," with- 

 out being able to sell any. He won the wager. 

 I cannot give name or date. Perhaps some one 

 else will kindly supply them. 



In olden times, a favourite form of wager was 

 " a rump and dozen." In the case of Hussey v. 

 Cricket, 3 Campbell's Nisi Prius Cases, 168., an 

 action was brought upon a wager of a rump and 

 dozen, whether the defendant was older than the 

 plaintiff. The question argued before the Court 

 of Common Pleas was, whether the action was 

 maintainable ? Sir James Mansfield, C. J., said : 



" I am inclined to think I ought not to have tried this 

 cause. I do not judicially know the meaning of a rump 

 and dozen. While we were occupied with these idle dis- 

 putes, parties having large debts due to them, and ques- 

 tions of great magnitude to trj', were grievously' delayed. 

 However, the cause being here, we miist now dispose of it. 



" Heath, J. ' I am rather sorry this action has been 

 brought, but I do not doubt that it is maintainable. 

 Wagers are generally legal, and there is nothing to take 

 this wager out of the common rule. We know very well, 

 privately, that a rump and dozen is what the witnesses 

 stated, viz. a good dinner and wine, in which I can dis- 

 cover no illegality.' " 



F. 



Mr. HalliweWs Mistake concerning Peacham. — 

 In Mr. Halliwell's Letters of the Kings of Eng- 

 land (vol. ii. p. 126.^ is a singular letter (printed 

 for the fii'st time) from James I. to the Earl of 

 Somerset. The royal writer, chiding his highly 

 favoured minion for his great " tongue-license," 

 adds : 



" For, although I confess the greatness of that trust 

 and privacy betwixt us will very well allow unto you an 

 infinitely great liberty and freedom of speech unto me, 

 yea, even to rebuke me more sharply and bitterly than 

 ever my master durst do; yet, to invent a new act of 

 railing at me — nay, to borrow the tongue of the devil — 

 in comparison whereof all PeachanCs book is but a gentle 

 admonition, that cannot come within the compass of any 

 liberty of friendship." 



In a note to Peacham, the editor adds : 



" An eminent popular writer of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, who flourished up to the time of the civil wars." 



Mr. Halliweli, has here confounded Henry 

 Peachman, the author of the Compleat Gentleman, 



with Edmund Peacham, an old Somersetshire mi- 

 nister, who was " arraigned and found guilty of 

 high treason, at Taunton Assizes, for divers things 

 contained in a book of his against the king's per- 

 son, and the privy counsellors." Edmund Pea- 

 cham's case was one of the worst of James's reign. 

 The poor old man suffered the torture, and was 

 condemned to death, but died in prison. His 

 book was a just denouncement of the king's fond- 

 ness for dogs, dances, banquets, and costly dresses, 

 and the frauds and oppressions practised by his 

 government and officers. Edward F. Rimbault. 



Cabinet Councils. — Is not the following note by 

 Whately of a most happy accident, worthy of 

 preservation in " N. & Q. ? " 



" It is remarkable how a change of very great im- 

 portance in our sj-stem of government was brought about 

 by pure accident. The custom of the King's being pre- 

 sent in a cabinet council of his ministers, which was the 

 obvious, and had always been the usual state of things, 

 was put an end to when the Hanoverian princes came to 

 the throne, from their ignorance of the English language. 

 The advantages thence resulting of ministers laying be- 

 fore the sovereign the result of their full and free deliber- 

 ations — an advantage not at all originally contemplated 

 — caused the custom to be continued, and so established 

 that it is most unlikely it should ever be changed." 



Threlkeld. 



Extracts from " The Booh of Discipline of the 

 Kirk of Tranentr — 



" 1671, 3 Januarie. The Minister reported that ane 

 English-man, named Kulie, did discharge a pistoU at 

 Olivestob upon the Lord's Day last ; for which, when he 

 rebuked him, he seemed exceedinglie sorrowfull, and pro- 

 mised that for the future that he should never do the 

 like in anie place of Scotland ; and his excuse for doeing 

 thereof was, that it was the ordinar custom in England, 

 and that he knew not our kirk discipline to be so strict." 



1678, Tuesda}', 6 August. The said day the Session 

 ordained the following acts to be intimate upon Sunday 

 nixt, viz. The acts anent slandering and scolding, against 

 drinking in ale houses after nj-ne acloak at night, and 

 drinking in ale houses upon the Lord's Daj' after sermons, 

 anent persons going unnecessarie to the fields, or flocking 

 together at doors, and childrens playing upon the Sab- 

 bath, and that no persons give up their names to be 

 proclaimed in order to marriage till they consign Two 

 dollars, that there shall be no pyping nor vioUing at 

 their brydalls after four aclock at night in the winter, 

 and six aclock in summer." 



A. G. 



Edinburgh. 



French for Language. — 



" Bot adew to the Devyll 

 I can no moe French." 

 In Mr. Collier's argument respecting the origin 

 of the English Miracle Plays, he says : 



« My friend Mr. Amyot remarked upon the line ' I can 

 no more French,' that it might have been proverbial in 

 English, as ' au bout de son Latin ' was in French. Ire- 

 member no other instance of its use in English if it were 

 so," &c. 



Haying recently had an opportunity of publicly 



