206 



KOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2tid s. No 89., Sept. 12. '57. 



Again, the word is so used in the following 

 epitaph ai)pointed by tlie will of" Charles Lord 

 Montjoy to be inscribed upon his tomb in case he 

 should happen to be slain in the wars of France, 

 36 Henry VII I. , 1544 : 



" EriTAriiiuM. 

 " Willingly have I souglit, 

 And willing I have found 

 The fatal end that wrought 

 Me hither, as duty-bound. 



"Discharg'd I am of that I ought [owed] 

 To my country by honest wonde, 

 My soul departed, Christ hath bought ; 

 The end of Man is ground. 



Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta, p, 721. 



But there is scarcely a passage to be found in 

 which the word occurs with a signification so in- 

 tensive as in our version of Luke xxiv. 26 : 

 " Ought not Christ to have suffered these things? " 

 &C. Ovxi Tavra eSei iraditv rhv Xpurrhv, k.t.K. " Was 

 He not under obligation, or engagement, thus to 

 suffer ? " 



With these instances before us it cannot be de- 

 nied that the two uses of the word owe and its 

 derivatives were coeval and concurrent ; but I 

 confess myself not satisfied with the explanation 

 of the way in which the second, which has latterly 

 monopolised the word, came to be employed, viz. 

 " to have and to keep wrongfully (de-hahere, de- 

 here') what belongs to another " (Dr. Richardson). 

 If any of your correspondents will illustrate the 

 train of thought by which this secondary meaning 

 (for secondary it is) attached itself to the word I 

 shall feel obliged. At all events it affords but an- 

 other example of the one-sided friction to which 

 words are subjected, in the fact that to owe now 

 conveys only the idea of the wrongfully having 

 what is another's, and in the adoption of to own 

 for rightful property. Let me add a pithy ex- 

 pression of the Lowland Scotch, somewhere in 

 Hob Roy, for a man who paid always twenty shil- 

 lings in the pound : " He paid what he ought 

 [owed] and what he bought." Y. B. N. J. 



Miwax <huexiti. 



Hans Holbein. — Has any modern author, Eng- 

 lish or foreign, investigated in a critical spirit the 

 biography of Hans Holbein ? And which is the 

 best Life of him ? He is currently stated to have 

 passed his latter years in England, and to have 

 died of the plague in London in the year 1554. 

 Is this statement established on satisfactory evi- 

 dence ? Dr. Rimbault (1" S. v. 104.) inquired 

 where his body was interred, but I do not find 

 any reply. His name does not occur in the 

 Privy-purse Expenses of Henry VIII. from 

 Nov. 1529 to Dec. 1532, edited by Sir Harris 

 Nicolas ; nor in the accounts of the Treasurer of 

 the Chamber 1528—1531, and 1547-8, recently 



published by Mr. Payne Collier in The Trevelyan 

 Papers, printed for the Camden Society, although 

 those documents mention six painters in the i-oyal 

 pay, — Luke Hornebaut, Gerard Hornebaut, Vin- 

 cent Volpe, Alice Carmilion, Barthalomew Penne, 

 and Anthony Toto. I have lately perused other 

 documents of the same period and similar charac- 

 ter, without encountering the name of Holbein. 

 This circumstance leads me to suspect the ordi- 

 nary accounts of his latter years. He was still in 

 the prime of life ; and if not incapacitated by 

 disease, surely his great works alone, if critically 

 investigated, might materially assist in tracing his 

 path. JouN GoDGH Nichols. 



'■'•The Student.'^ — I should feel much obliged 

 for any particulars relative to that " miscellany of 

 great merit," The Student, or the Oxford and 

 Cambridge Monthly Miscellany. It appears to 

 have been issued only during two years, 1750-1. 

 Boswell states that its principal writers were Mr. 

 Bonnell Thornton and Mr. (3oleman. Dr. John- 

 son contributed to it " The Life of Dr. Francis 

 Cheynel," which is subscribed with the initials 



S. J N. The opening number has some lines 



by Pope. Other authors (as Christopher Smart 

 and Somerville) give their names ; but I wish to 

 know if there is any clue to the rest of the con- 

 tributors. Was Fielding a contributor ? The 

 g^rticles signed T. W. are, I presume, by Thomas 

 Warton. Cuthbert Bede, B.A. 



Marshall, Bishop of Exeter. — Information is 

 required respecting the family of Henry Marshall, 

 who was consecrated Bishop of Exeter in 1194, 

 and who died in October, 1206. B. T. S. 



Diameter of the Horizon. — What is the dis- 

 tance, on a level or at sea, under ordinary condi- 

 tions, in this latitude, when the atmosphere is clear, 

 of the radius from the spectator to the horizon, 

 supposing the eye to be at five feet above the 

 level of the sea or land ? Also, what is the greatest 

 distance of the visible horizon from the spectator, 

 seen from the greatest height (not from a balloon), 

 and under the most favourable conditions ? J. P. 



Birmingham. 



Red Tape. — Whence the origin of this term 

 to signify the routine of the executive govern- 

 ment ? J. P. 



j Equivocation. — Is there any collection of bona 



j fide instances, in English or French, of designed or 



undesigned equivocation and ambiguity ? J. P. 



* The Horse-shoe to protect from Witchcraft. — 

 What is the origin of its use ? It has occurred to 

 me that it was periiaps the metal meniscus over 

 the heads of the Virgin and of Saints usual in the 

 oldest pictures. May not such paintings on the 

 doors of buildings have become in process of time 



