208 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 254, 



under the title of Viola AniiruB, per Modum. Diahgi de 

 Hominis Natura, Sfc. See Bayle's Historical and Cntical 

 Dictionary, aad Rose's Biog. Diet, s. c] 



Mai/hem of a Slave. — In a recent number of 

 the Montgomery Alabama Mail, it is stated that a 

 farmer was convicted of the offence of mayhem on 

 a slave, his property, and sentenced by the court 

 to eleven years imprisonment in the penitentiary, 

 as a punishment for his crime. 



It also adds that the man who abuses his slave 

 in East Alabama can hardly escape a, prosecution. 

 He may knock down a white man with a fair 

 chance to escape, but excessive whipping, or un- 

 authorised battery of a slave, will find a prose- 

 cutor as surely as the crime is known. Although 

 the meaning of mayhem is well known, and suffi- 

 ciently explained in the above sentence, yet I do 

 not find it recorded as an English word in any of 

 the dictionaries which I have consulted. W. W. 



Malta. 



[Phillips, in his New World of Words, spells it Maihem 

 or Mahim ; and Blount ( Glossographia), " Mahim or Maim, 

 from Lat. mancus, signifying corporal hurt, whereby a 

 man looseth the use of any member, that is, or might be 

 any defence to him in battle. The canonists call it membri 

 mutilationem, as the eye, the hand, the foot, the scalp of 

 the head, the fore-tooth, or, as some say, any finger of the 

 hand. Glanville, lib. xiv. cap. 7."] 



Blow Wells, near Tetney. — Can any of your 

 readers inform me as to the blow wells near 

 Tetney ? Some wells are to be found at Thoresby, 

 not far from Tetney. Meta. 



[In the parishes of Tetney, Fulstow, Clee, and that 

 vicinity, are many of those extraordinary fountains called 

 Blow Wells, or deep circular pits, the water of which rises 

 even with the surface of the ground, but never overflowing, 

 though embanked round for security of cattle. They are 

 vulgarly supposed unfathomable ; but Mr. Young {Agri- 

 cultural Survey, p. 15.) says, " Sir Joseph Banks found 

 the bottom without difficulty at thirty feet."] 



Quotations used in the Homilies. — From which 

 version oredition of the Bible are the quotations used 

 in the Homilies taken ? R. Jekmyn Coopee. 



[No standard text was fixed when the two books of 

 Homilies were issued, although three versions of the 

 Bible had been published by royal authority: Cover- 

 dale's, Tyndale's, and Cranmer's {The Great Bible). The 

 preachers of that day, in quoting the sacred Scriptures, 

 followed the Latin Vulgate, translating it at the time for 

 their hearers; but at the printing of the Homilies the 

 Latin text was omitted.] 



Grants of Arms temp. Hen. VIII. — Can any 

 herald inform H. L. how many descents it was 

 necessary to prove in the early Visitations (temp. 

 Henry VIII. for instance) before a grant of arms 

 was to be obtained, and whether it was necessary 

 to be in possession of, and to have held lands ? 



H. L. 



[There was not any occasion to prove a pedigree in 

 early times as a preliminary proceeding upon obtaining a 

 grant of arms, any more than at the present day ; nor was 

 the acquisition of landed property necessary.] 



EcpItrsJ. 



SALUTATION CUSTOMS. 



(Vol. X., p. 126.) 



The following is from my note-book, but, alas! 

 at an earlier date than that at which I began to mark 

 authorities. I have the impression, therefore, 

 that it is all to be found in some not-rare book ; 

 but if it should prove of service to Cin, well and 

 good. According to Chalondylus, 



" Whenever an invited guest entered the house of his 

 friend, he invariably saluted his wife and daughters, as a 

 common act of courtesy." 



Chaucer often alludes to it. Thus, the Frere 

 in the Sompnour's Tale, upon the entrance of 

 the mistress of the house into the room where her 

 husband and he were together : 



" ariseth up ful curtidy. 

 And hire embraceth in his armes narwe, 

 And kisseth hire swete, and chirketh as a sparwe 

 With his lippes." 



Robert de Brunne says the custom formed part 

 of the ceremony of drinking healths : 



" That sais wasseille drinkis of the cup, 

 Kiss and his felow he gives it up." 



On this subject, Collet's Relics of Literature 

 contains the following passage : 



"Dr. Pierius Winsemius, historiographer to their High 

 Mightinesses the States of Friesland, in his Chronijck van 

 Frieslandt, 1622, tells us that the pleasant practice of 

 kissing was utterly ' unpractised and unknown ' in Eng- 

 land, till the fair Princess Rouix (Rowena), the daughter 

 of King Hengist of Friezland, ' pressed the beaker with 

 her lipkens, and saluted the amorous Vortigern with a 

 husjen (little kiss).' " 



John Bunyan condemns the practice in his 

 Grace Abounding. 



" The common salutation of women I abhor : it is odious 

 to me in whomsoever 1 see it. When I have seen good 

 men salute those women that they have visited, or that 

 have visited them, I have made my objections against it ; 

 and when thev have answered that it was but a piece of 

 civility, 1 have told them that it was not a comely sight. 

 Some, indeed, have urged the holy kiss ; but then I have 

 asked them why they made balks ? why they did salute 

 the most handsome, and let the ill-favoured ones go ? " 



Before Bunyan, we find in Whytford's Type of 

 Perfection, 1532, the following passage : 



« It becometh not, therefore, the personnes religious to 

 folow the manere of secular persones, that in theyr con- 

 gresses or commune metynges, or departyngs, done use 

 to kysse, take hands, or such other touchings that good 

 religious persones shulde utterly avoyde." 



The custom is thought to have gone out about the 

 time of the Restoration. Peter Heylin says it had 

 for some time before been unfashionable in France. 

 Its abandonment in England might have formed 

 part of that French code of politeness which 

 Charles II. introduced on his return. Traces of 

 it are to be found in the Spectator. Thus, Rustic 



