406 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Nov. 24. 1855. 



" Lay of Gascoi/ne." — It is stated at p. 203. of 

 tlie recently issued Ti^ansactionx of the Leicester 

 Lit. and Philos. Society for 1855, that a squib 

 •with the above title, and written as a parody on 

 Macaulay's Lays., by the late J. W. Smith, " a 

 name dear to all lawyers," appeared " in a not 

 much read periodical." What is the periodical 

 alluded to ? P. J. F. Gantillon. 



Clint. — In the parish of Diss, Norfolk, certain 

 copyhold property is described as being so far 

 distant from " the Clint." I believe that the 

 term also occurs as a local name in the neighbour- 

 ing parish of Frenze. Near Pulham also is a 

 place called CHntergate. I should be much 

 obliged if your Diss correspondent would favour 

 me with a description of " the Clint " there. In 

 a small pocket Danish Dictionary I find " Klint, a 

 promontory, brow of hill, cape ; " and the Penny 

 Cyclop., art. Denmark, vol. viii. p. 398., says : 



" The eastern coasts of Jutland are abrupt and pre- 

 cipitious, formed of chalk, or limestone, and called Klinte 

 by the natives. The Moens Klint, on the eastern side of 

 the island of Moens, which stretches above ten miles into 

 the sea, is remarkable for its fossils and numerous water- 

 falls." 



It would be interesting to ascertain from a 

 Danish correspondent whether their klinte at all 

 agree in character with our Norfolk clints, or 

 with clent in Staffordshire. Halliwell's Diet. 

 gives " Clints, crevices among bare limestone 

 rocks. North;" a.nd. '■'■ Klyntes, chasms, crevices. 

 West." E. G. R. 



Curious Custom at the Purchasing of Land. — 

 The author of the History of Germany on the Plan 

 of Mrs. Marhhanis Histories, after mentioning 

 (p. 28., ed. 1853) that, among the Kipuarian 

 Franks, the purchaser of land or houses, on paying 

 the price before six or twelve witnesses, according 

 to the value of the property, administered a cuff 

 to each of the same number of boys that had been 

 present, and pulled his ears, by way of impressing 

 the transaction on his memory, adds in a note 

 that persons " now or till lately alive in Berk- 

 shire," had told him * that they well remembered 

 the ear-pullings inflicted on them by their fathers 

 when they made a purchase of land. Is this 

 custom now kept up in Berkshire or elsewhere ? 

 P. J. F. Gantillon. 



Standing Committee of the Commons on Religion. 

 — When did the standing committee of the House 

 of Commons on religion cease to be in being. It 

 originated, I imagine, in the time of Charles II., 

 and ceased in the reign of Anne ; but I should be 

 glad to know something more definite respecting 



* Or her, for I am unacquainted with the sex of | 

 T. H. D., by whom the advertisement at the beginning of 1 

 the volume is signed. 



No. 317.] ' 



it. What called the standing committee on reli- 

 gion into existence, and what did it ever do ? 



William Fraser, B.C.Iy. 



Alton, Staffordshire. 



Parson's Blue. — What was the colour called 

 "parson's blue," mentioned in No. 65. of The 

 Connoisseur ? and how late was it worn by the 

 clergy ? William Frasf.e, B.C.L, 



Alton, Staffordshire. 



Balliards or Billiards. — Mr. Thackeray, in the 

 History of Henry Esmond, calls — 



" A billiard, a ne^v game from London ; a French game, 

 that the French King played well." 



Can this be any other than the game to which 

 Cleopatra invites Charmian ; which Claris, in Ben 

 Jonson's Underivoods, " describing her man," pro- 

 poses as the model of smoothness for his cheek ; 

 and which Spenser, who writes the word halliards, 

 enumerates (in Mother Hubbard's Tales, v. 803.) 

 among the games with which the ape " could en- 

 tertaine his fit companions"? 



Mr. Thackeray is praised, and justly, for having 

 adopted and preserved a style so suited to the age 

 in which his autobiograplier is represented to 

 have lived : but little forms of expression, and 

 fresh usages of words, now prevalent, will intrude 

 themselves unobserved by the most vigilant and 

 cautious. 



I question whether any writer of the Augustan 

 age would have written as follows : 



" Whilst his house was thus being battered down." — 

 Vol. i. p. 29. 



" T'is entirely of the earth, that passion, and expires 

 in the cold blue air, beyond our sphere," — lb. pp. 191-2. 



" He found of necessity much to read and think of 

 outside that fond circle." — lb. p. 155, 



Q. 



Bloomsburj'. 



Marion de Lorme. — Reading the lately pub- 

 lished Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, by Lady 

 Holland (vol. i. p. 384.), I met with a very in- 

 teresting letter from Marion de Lorme, in which 

 she states she was doing the honours to the En- 

 glish Marquis of Worcester in Paris, and describes 

 a visit to the Bicetre, where that great civil en- 

 gineer Salomon de Cans was confined as a lunatic, 

 for having been the first person to discover the 

 power of steam ; and imagining that with it he 

 could navigate ships, move carriages, &c. And 

 although he alleged all this with the greatest plausi- 

 bility. Cardinal Richelieu would not even listen to 

 him. 



Marion de Lorme was at that time the mistress 

 of the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, the favourite of 

 Louis XIII. ; but the Marquis incurring the dis- 

 pleasure of Richelieu, that sanguinary minister, 

 who never spai'ed a rival or an opponent, he was 

 brought to the block in 1642 ; this was shortly 



