174 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 1. 1855. 



wonderful genius, to his unparalleled success. 

 The man, therefore, who arrested his career of 

 conquest, and delivered the world from his ruth- 

 less sway, might well be described as " conquering 

 Fate," tbat is, what was imposed on the world as 

 "Fate." 



Not is the expression, to "conquer Fate," with- 

 out some precedent in our elder poets. , Howard, 

 in the Indian Queen, has made a similar applica- 

 tion of it, where he says : 



" Let thy great deeds force Fate to change her mind ; 

 He that courts Fortune boldly, makes her kind." 



The worst that can be said is that we have here 

 a poetic license ; but one which, so far from being, 

 as your correspondent represents it, " mere 

 sound," is to my mind one of the happiest thoughts 

 in Mr. D'Israeli's beautiful sonnet. 



Hjeney H. Beeen. 

 St. Lucia. 



Curiosities of Letter-writing (Vol. xi, p. 45.). — 

 The following gems of epistolary art are tran- 

 scribed from " the original documents " in my pos- 

 session. No. I. was written by a parish patient 

 to an union surgeon ; like No. II., it is inde- 

 pendent of the trammels of punctuation : 



"sarah smith as send these few liones tom^jonesto 

 ask you if you wood plase to step up as sone as you can 

 mack it convennt for margret is il in the bouls and i will 

 geet a note from the releveng ofecer " 



The incident that gave rise to No. II. was an 

 edict issued by a lady-patroness of a girls' Sunday 

 School, that the hair of the scholars was to be 

 cropped to a regulation length. A great rebellion 

 ensued ; the girls were anxious to appear with "the 

 glory of a woman," and refused to submit to the 

 scissors. One of the ringleaders, and ringletters, 

 had just gone into " service," and was attached to 

 the domestic establishment of the lady-patroness 

 in question ; this girl wrote oiF a complaint to her 

 mother, who, modelling her style on the most ap- 

 proved judicial authorities, replied as follows : 



" dear Maryann I am sorry to hear your mistress as to 

 complain of your Hair being kep durty for this is quite 

 diflfrent from when you were at home that j-ou know I 

 hope j'ou will keep it clean as far as you have time and 

 if you have not time aloud you ask for it but as for the 

 cuting of your Hair I shall leave that entireley to the 

 almighty God as gives every one thair Hair for an 

 Ornemnt and covering I think if kep in proper order 

 belongs to thairselves Farewell at Preasant " 



Could the judicial bench surpass this ? 



CUTHBERT BeDB, B.A. 



''Gold-headed Cane" (Vol. xii., p. 113.).— 

 The Gold-headed Cane, published by Murray in 

 1827, to which W. J. refers an inquirer for en- 

 gravings of the House of Linacre, and the Old 

 College of Physicians, was not written by Sir 

 Henry Halford, but by the late accomplished 

 Dr. MacMichael. It is a pleasing biographical 

 No. 305.] 



sketch of the celebrated physicians, RatclifFe, 

 Mead, Askew, Pitcalrne, and Baillle, drawn up as 

 the autobiography of a gold-headed cane, which 

 after having been carried by the five successively, 

 was presented by the widow of the last to the 

 College of Physicians, where it is deposited in their 

 library. The arms of the five professionally illus- 

 trious possessors of the cane are engraved upon 

 the head. I was not aware that the little vol. had 

 been reprinted. In my copy, dated 1827, the two 

 engravings referred to are at pp. 101. and 106. 



'IciTj06T5//S. 



Full Fig. (Vol. xii., p. 65.). — I am afraid your 

 correspondent J. G. T., who seeks an explanation 

 of this term, must be an old bachelor, or long ago 

 he must have observed his " better half" periodi- 

 cally poring over some ladies' magazine, and de- 

 vouring the fashions set forth In all their gorgeous 

 array on the curious, smiling, distressingly pink- 

 faced and kiss-me-quick representations of the 

 fair sex therein depicted ; at which bewitching 

 figures, if he had had the curiosity and courage 

 to take a nearer glance, he would most probably 

 have found that the full-blown countenance pro- 

 truding from an apparatus like a foreshortened 

 strawberry-pottle bedecked with ribbons and 

 flowers, in present specimens, or enshrined In a 

 straw coalscuttle In times gone by, was labelled 

 "No. 1., Head Dress," or "Bonnet a la Some- 

 body or Something." Continuing his examination 

 he would have found " No. 2., Demi-fig.(ure) " to 

 be the " portrait of a lady " with her neck twisted 

 In some impossible manner, so as to exhibit the 

 beauties of the back part of the before- figured 

 pottle, and the front of some " love of a mantle ; " 

 and that, after passing through a few more stages, 

 " No. 10., Full Jig.(ure) " would display to his 

 admiring gaze a perfect realisation of the term as 

 he uses it, in the beflounced, bemantled, and be- 

 bonneted beauty in all the colours of the rainbow 

 spread out before him, — full fig. to all Intents and 



purposes. 



R. W. Hackwood. 



In reply to J. G. T. as to this slang expression, 

 I venture to suggest that it may allude to the 

 primitive dress of our first parents, and their con- 

 cealment of themselves because they were naked : 

 fg standing for " fig-leaf;" and " full fig'' mean- 

 ing, such a dress as enables you to exhibit your- 

 self without shame. 



The Italians have an expression, " in fiocchi," 

 corresponding exactly with " in full fig." The 

 substantive /occi signifies "a tassel;" " un abito 

 coi fiocchi " is " a coat with tassels or tags on It : " 

 and hence, to be in fiocchi means " to be in full 

 dress." Qi&nfig be a corruption of this ? 



Stylttes. 



Vesica Piscis (Vol. xii., pp. 29. 93.). — I have 

 seen, in an old manuscript Horarium, a diagram 



