224 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 22. 1855. 



the Privy Council, Sir Harris Nicolas farther 

 remarks : 



" This memorandum affords, however, nearly as strong 

 a presumption that a Clerk of the Council was then appointed 

 Jbr the first time, as that tiie proceedings of the Council 

 had not before been recorded; whereas it is certain that 

 precisely the same duties were performed by the Clerks of 

 the Council in the reigns of Henry the Fourth, Fifth, and 

 Sixth ; and that the office existed in the time of Edward 

 the Fourth and Henrj' the Seventh, if not also immediately 

 before this ordinance was made." 



From Harl. MS. 1081, fol.49. B, it would ap- 

 pear that Paget's immediate predecessor was 

 Robert Sampson of Bynfield, in com. Berks, who 

 is there described as " Clarke of the Counsell to 

 King Hen. VII. and King Hen. VIH." He was 

 a bi'other of Henry VIII.'s lawyer, Richard Samp- 

 son ; and probably the same person as the " Robert 

 Saunson, clerk, promoter of causes," who is men- 

 tioned in " Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the 

 Seventh, 1494, Oct. 15." {Excerpta Historica, 

 p. 99., London, Bentley, 1831.) Anon. 



Curious old Epitaph in Arreton Church, Isle of 

 Wight, copied verbatim, and sent by 



William T. Morbis. 



5. Mount Street, Grosvenor Square. 



" Loe here under this stone incoutchd 

 Is Willian Serle by name 

 Who for his deedes of charetie 

 Deserveth worthey fame 

 A man within this parrish borne 

 And in the Howse called ' Stone ' 

 A glasse for to behowld a work 

 Hath left to ever^^ one 

 For that unto the people pooi'e 

 Of Arreton he gave 

 An hundred pounds of redie coyne 

 He willd that they should have 

 To be yinployd in fittest sorte 

 As man could best invent 

 For 3-earely relief to the poore 

 That was his good intent 

 Thus did this man a Batcheler 

 Of yeares full fiftey nyne 

 And doeinge good to many a one 

 Soe did he spend his fyme 

 Untill the daye he did decease 

 The first of Februarey 

 And in the yeare of one thousand 

 Five hundred neyntie five." 



Mail in the Phrase " Black Mail." — Fr. Maille, 

 " espece de monnoye," Did. Roy., 1684 : 



" Quant au mot de Qtiadrin on sait bien que e'estoit la 

 quatrieme partie d'un gros : mais ici il se prend pour une 

 maille, ou quelque autre piece de petite valeur." — Calvin 

 sur L'Harm. Evang., p. 113., ed. 1563. 



The word seems to come originally from the same 

 root as the mail applied to armour ; small money 

 being called mail from its resemblance to the 

 minute steel plates which made up this kind of 

 armour. In this sen-se the word mail is a cor- 

 ruption of made or masde, which was used to 

 denote the meshes of a net, probably from macula. 

 No. 308.] 



The American mill is from another source, mille, 

 and is the thousandth part of a dollar. B. H. C. 



Jordan. — A name applied to the valley as well 

 as the river. Its derivation from Jor+Dan, as 

 the River of Dan, although popular, has not satis- 

 fied Dr. Kifto, who considers the derivation to be 

 from /rat?=Descent, leaving the | as parairogic or 

 unexplained in his Natural History of Palestine 

 (note i.). The Doctor used the unpointed He- 

 brew ; but had he referred to the points, he would 

 have observed that the daleth was dageshed or 

 doubled, and was equivalent etymologically to 

 Irad+Dan, meaning the Declivity or Descent of 

 Dan. Dan was a place on the extreme north of 

 Palestine, as Beersheba on the south. Hence the 

 proverbial expression " from Dan to Beersheba." 

 The Jordan has its source close to Dan, as marked 

 in the maps. Dan is an old Chaldee word, the 

 demonstrative pronoun he, she, it meaning some- 

 thing near at hand. 



Nahar is the proper word for river in Arabic, 

 Syriac, Chaldee, and Hebrew, and arises from the 

 root, which signifies shining, as characteristic of 

 rivers. In Egyptian, prefixing the plural article 

 PI, lapo becomes Nuapcaoou {Niyaroou)*. Moses, 

 whose own name is Egyptian, probably introduced 

 from that language the word "IN^ i.yor') into the 

 Hebrew tongue. T. J. Bcckton. 



Lichfield. 



^\xtxit&. 



THE JUDGMENT, ETC. 



" The Judgment of whole Kingdoms and Nations con- 

 cerning the Eights, Powers, and Prerogative of Kings, 

 and the Rights, Privileges, and Properties of the People. 

 1710." 



May I inquire through the columns of " N. & 

 Q." whether this bold and well-known book has 

 yet been definitively assigned to Povey, Dunton, 

 Somers, or Defoe, on whose several belialfs claims 

 have been put forward ? Taking an interest in 

 the question, I have been looking up the evidence ; 

 but all that I can trace is the letter of Castorius 

 in the Gent. Mag., vol. liii. p. 941., ascribing it to 

 Povey, and Arcanus' article in Cens. Lit., vol. vi., 

 giving it to Dunton. I am not aware that the 

 claims for Somers or Defoe rest upon stronger 

 grounds than that the book advocates their known 

 principles of opposition to the doctrine of passive 

 obedience, and upon this ground only did, I pre- 

 sume, certain reformers of a later day put Lord 

 Somers' name upon the title-page of the reprint 

 of 1771, while all who are conversant with his 

 works, and those of Defoe, agree that in the style 



* For the Coptic character I use the Greek, as more in- 

 telligible : the former is borrowed from the latter. 



