Aug. 11. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



105 



folk, are still found public-houses known by the 

 sign of " The Fighting Cocks ; " and the expres- 

 sion "they are living like fighting-cocks," is not 

 unfrequently applied to those who are supposed 

 to keep a more liberal establishment than their 

 neighbours. In Shakspeare's time the words " By 

 Cock and Pye " appear to have been used as a 

 popular adjuration*, as we find them used in that 

 sense in his writings. G. Blencowe. 



Manningtree. 



mis Family, Sec. — Will any of your readers 

 kindly oblige me by giving the arms of Ells, co. 

 Bucks, and of Smith, co. Oxon ? I have consulted 

 several local works unsuccessfully, or should not 

 trouble you to insert this. F. Gr. L. 



Sunningwell Rectory, Abingdon. 



Culver, Cidyer, or Colier Rents, ^c. — I fre- 

 quently meet with the phrase, " this property 

 pays a culver rent" (generally a small amount, 

 and seldom exceeding a few shillings) to some 

 individual or society. The peculiar designation 

 of the rent is variously spelt : culver, culyer, colier, 

 colyer, &c. I cannot find a satisfactory explana- 

 tion of this word. By some I am told that it 

 means an annual payment to keep pigeons, or have 

 a dove-cot, and was originally paid to the lord of 

 the manor ; by others, that it was a drainage tax 

 for the use t)f a culvert, or sewer. I have received 

 other explanations, but none of them satisfactory. 

 Perhaps this application to the readers of " N. & 

 =Q." may procure me the needed information. 



PiSHEY Thompson. 



Stoke Newington. 



Christopher Urswick and Christopher Bainhridge. 

 — In the interesting work lately published, entitled 

 Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII., being a 

 selection from Sebastian Giustinian's Despatches 

 to the Signory of Venice, Mr. Rawdon Brown, 

 the translator, in two places (vol. i. pp. 71. and 

 192.), mentions Christopher Urswick and Chris- 

 topher Bainbridge, Archbishop of York, as one 

 and the same person. I am aware that they have 

 been confounded by some authors ; but I thought 

 their identity had been satisfactorily disproved. 

 Its reassertion in so recent a publication may 

 excuse my inquiry whether it is 'warranted by 

 any late discovery. 



Cardinal Wolsey succeeded Bainbridge as Arch- 

 bishop of York at his death in 1514, and Chris- 

 topher Urswick (if Anthony Wood is correct) 

 lived till 1521, when he was buried at Hackney. 

 (Athen. Oxon., ed. 1815, vol. i. p. 703.) Anthony 

 is, however, wrong when he states that he was 

 Recorder of London. He has mistaken him for 

 Thomas Urswick, who was Recorder from 1454 to 

 1471, when he was made Lord Chief Baron of the 



[* See Nares's Glossary, articles Cock and Pye.] 

 No. 302.] 



Exchequer, over which Court he presided till his 

 death in 1479. Edward Foss. 



Paravincin, and Dialogue quoted by him. — 



" Francis Paravincin, in his Book upon the Soul, quotes 

 largelj"- from a work intituled A Dialogue, in which it is 

 proved on the authority of the Holy Fathers, that Sin is not 

 now, and gives examples how murder, robbery, concu- 

 piscence, and the like, may be indulged in bj' mixing a 

 little good with the motives, and conscience be saved 

 thereb}', though it he less than that latent spark which 

 our lawyers hold to be enough to revive expiring 

 estates." — An Appeal to Parliament on the Intrusions^ of 

 the Jesuits, by J. Hammond, London, 1717." 



Can any of your readers give me the exact 

 title of the dialogue above mentioned ? That is 

 all which I actually want, but shall be glad to 

 know that of Paravincin's work, and the meaninor 

 of the " latent spark." W. S. P! 



Glee v. Madrigal. — What is the difference be- 

 tween glees and madrigals ; between ballads and 

 songs? John Scbibe. 



^mor <lkuttizi tut'ft ^niiotxi. 



Sophist. — One of the leading features of Grotd 

 is his pleadings for the sophists ; and his plea is, 

 that sophist originally meant nothing blame- 

 worthy, it merely signified a professor or teacher. 

 What is his authority for this ? and how could so 

 innocuous a word receive so damaging a signi- 

 fication, except from the misconduct of those who 

 assumed it ? William Blood. 



Wicklow. 



[That unfortunate man of letters, Floyer Sydenham, in 

 a note on Plato's Dialogue, " The Greater Hippias," has 

 given a satisfactory reply to this Query. " The Grecian 

 wisdom, or philosophy," he says, " in most ancient times, 

 of which any records are left us, included phvsicks, 

 ethicks, and politicks, until the time of Thales the Ionian, 

 who giving himself up wholly to the studv of nature, of 

 her principles and elements, with the causes of the several 

 phenomena, became famous above all the ancient sages 

 for natural knowledge ; and led the way to a succession 

 of philosophers, from their founder and first master called 

 Ionic. Addicted thus to the contemplation of things 

 remote from the affairs of men, these all lived abstracted 

 as much as possible from human society, revealing the 

 secrets of nature only to a few select disciples, who 

 sought them out in their retreat, and had a genius for 

 the same abstruse inquiries, together with a taste for the 

 same retired kind of life. As the fame of their wisdom 

 spread, the curiosity of that whole inquisitive nation, the 

 Grecians, was at length excited. This gave occasion to 

 the rise of a new profession or sect, very different from 

 that of those speculative sages. A set of men smitten, 

 not with the love of wisdom, but of fame and glory, men 

 of great natural abilities, notable industry and boldness, 

 appeared in Greece ; and assuming the name of Sophists, 

 a name hitherto liighly honourable, and given only to 

 those, by whom mankind in general were supposed to be 

 made wiser, to their ancient poets, legislators, and the 

 gods themselves, undertook to teach, by a few lessons and 

 in a short time, all the parts of philosophy to any person, 



