Not. 10. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



36^ 



He certainly spread an infection there. A swimming of 

 my head. Seem to hear the noise of tumults, riots, 

 seditions. Fresli noises of high church ; the doctor ; 

 •what would the multitude have? Why are tliey in- 

 censed? Who of our order have offended? Impeach, 

 silence, hang, behead! That the name of a man should 

 turn one's head to a giddiness! Say a short mental 

 prayer. Cool by degrees. Jane petitions not to hear the 

 sermon, but make her beds. There is no dealing witli 

 youthful inclinations. They are unsteadj' in every path. 

 They leave the direct way. Walk in by places and 

 corners. Give her leave to depart. Resolve within my- 

 self to deny Robin to go, if he should ask. Robin asks. 

 Reprove him thus. ' I have watched your mutual tempt- 

 ations, and the snares j'ou laid for each other. You, 

 Robin, I say, and the damsel Jane. Forbear your ini- 

 quity ; struggle with sin ; make not excuses to follow the 

 handmaid. Thou shalt stay here, and hear and edify ! ' 

 Prepare to preach. Hem thrice. Spread mj' hands ; 

 lift up my eyes; attempt to raise myself. Sink back- 

 wards. Faint suddenly." 



I do not know if it is Dr. Arbuthnot who 

 philosophises on the consciousness of identity of 

 Sir John Cutler's worsted stockin<^s, transmuted 

 by repeated mendings with silk thread into silk 

 stockings, but altogether in wit and learning he 

 stands on an equal footing with Swift and Pope. 

 A work of another nature, Tables of Ancient 

 CoinSi Weights, and Measures, noted among books 

 read in Gibbon's Journal, is valued for its inform- 

 ation and learning. A new edition of his Miscel- 

 laneous Works appeal's to me, as much as to P. A., 

 a desideratum in English literature. W. H. F. 



Kirkwall. 



AGE OF CARDINAL BEAUFOST. 



(Vol. xii., pp. 227. 274.) 



I venture to submit that the cardinal was born 

 nine or ten years before 1376. In Cassan's Lives 

 of the Bishops of Winchester, vol. i. p. 251., it 

 appears that Henry Beaufort was made prebend of 

 Thame, in Lincoln Cathedral, in January, 1389-90. 

 If your account of his birth be correct, he would 

 then have been scarcely thirteen ; and to hold 

 such a preferment at so tender an age seems incon- 

 sistent with the regulations of the Church. 



It is generally admitted that he died in 1447, 

 and, if born in 1376, would, at the time of his 

 death, have been seventy-one years old. In 

 Knight's England, vol. ii. p. 82., it is alleged, that 

 when the cardinal was near eighty, he was em- 

 ployed in negociating the marriage of King Henry 

 VI. with Margaret of Anjou, which, according to 

 Cotton's Abridgement of the Records, occurred in 

 1445. I request to be correctly informed as to 

 the cardinal's birth, for it may hereafter be useful 

 in commenting on his augmentation of the Hospital 

 of St. Cross, as well as for other historical purposes. 



Henry Edwards. 



[The illegitimacy of Henry Beaufort will account for the 

 uncertainty with respect to the date of his birth. There 



No. 315.] 



is no positive record of the event. But we must refer 

 again to Foss's Judges of England, vol. iv. p. 286. in jus- 

 tification of the date we have given, which we think, in 

 all probability, is nearly the right one. He says : 



" When the statute was passed in January, 1397, legiti- 

 mating the children of John of Gaunt, by his mistress 

 Catherine Swinford, whom he had married in the pre- 

 ceding year, Henry Beaufort, the second son, was probably 

 just of age ; as he is called Clericus on the Roll, and his 

 next brother, Thomas, is styled Domicellns." 



His holding a prebend at thirteen does not assist the 

 question, as it is notorious that these and higher ecclesi- 

 astical preferments were given at all ages in those times 

 as a provision, especially to scions of royalty. Take the 

 case of Geoffrey Plantagenet, for instance, who was bom 

 either in 1153-4, or, according to the same author (vol. i. 

 p. 293.), in 1158-9. He was even elected bishop of Lin- 

 coln in 1173, when, by the oldest date, he would not be 

 more than twenty, and, by latest, only fourteen ; and his 

 seal represents him as a boy. He also, previously to his 

 election as bishop, held an archdeaconry in the same 

 cathedral : and was not even in priest's orders when he 

 resigned the bishoprick in 1181. Whether Henry Beau- 

 fort was born in 1376, or nine or ten j'ears before, when 

 he attained the chancellorship, in 1403, he was, as we 

 said, under fifty.] 



OLD NICK. 



(Vol. xii., pp. 228. 275.) 



I somewhat affect a modicum of earnestness in 

 discussion, but have a particular dislike to imputa- 

 tions and personalities, which are unseemly ; passing 

 over, therefore, without remark, such portions of 

 F.'s rejoinder as are directed, not against the sub- 

 stance of my Reply to his Note, but against me, 

 I would merely say to him, in reference to the 

 observations I ventured to make upon his etymo- 

 logical " study " of Old Nick, that — 



" If unawares I dealt too smart a stroke, 

 I meant but to correct, and not provoke." 



The Greek derivation of the term Devil, sug- 

 gested by Junius and Skinner, I would, without 

 intending any offence, remind your correspondent, 

 met with the reprobation of grammarians so early 

 as the former part of the seventeenth century. In 

 the index of Butler's English Grammar, published 

 in 1633, the author, speaking of the orthography 

 of the word, says it should be spelt "devil, or 

 rather deevil, not divel, as some, far fetching it 

 from SittiSoAoj, would have it." 



With regard to the assertion made by me on 

 the authority of the notorious facts of the case, 

 and which I now reiterate, that, in the composi- 

 tion of our " vulgar tongue," its chief elements 

 are derived from the language of our Anglo- 

 Saxon and Anglo-Danish ancestors, who, them- 

 selves migrated to our shores from those of 

 Scandinavia, and, I suppose, brought their parts 

 of speech and traditions with them. F. says, 

 " May not a derivation be fairly called by com- 

 parison (?) far-fetched, which is borrowed from a 



