Sept. 16. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



235 



in the change of his name, as much as in the 

 change of his will. 



The name is originally given by the parents, 

 not by the clergyman who baptizes, or by the 

 registrar who registers. It is improper, therefore, 

 for the clergyman to say that the name given at 

 baptism is the legal name of the party, who has 

 either from mistake been miscalled, or who from 

 choice changes his name, and is known generally 

 by such changed name. Kobert S. Salmon. 



Newcastle - on-Ty ne. 



It, Its (Vol. viii., pp. 12. 254.). — B. H. C. and 

 Mr. Singer have noted examples of the use of 

 the unchanged it for the possessive case, a form 

 peculiar to the period of transition from the old 

 English his or her, to the modern neuter pos- 

 sessive its. A great number of similar examples 

 may be found in Samson Lennard's translation of 

 Charron (^Of Wisdome, Three Bookes : London, 

 for Edward Blount and William Aspley, the se- 

 cond edition, printed about 1613) : 



"To the end the soule might better and more freely 

 execute it owne affaires." — P. 54. 



" The world is a schoole of inquisition ; agitation and 

 hunting is it proper dish : to take or to faile of the prey, 

 is another thing." — P. 59. 



" [The Spirit of Man] being so industrious, so free and 

 universal!, making it motions so irregularly, vsing it 

 libertie so boldly in all things, not tving it selfe to any 

 thing," &c. — P. 63. 



" The Spirit hath it maladies." — P. 65. 



Occasionally the translator retains the older form, 

 and in some instances seems to have been in doubt 

 which of the two to adopt : 



" If every facultie had his chamber or ventricle apart." 

 — P. 48. 



"There is not anything wherewith it [the human 

 spirit] plaieth not his part." — P. 58. 



" [Of Truth] It lodgeth within the bosom of God, that 

 is her chamber, her retiring place." — P. 61. 



I have referred to this edition of Lennard's 

 translation, asof aZ>OM^ 1613. The engraved title- 

 page (retained in subsequent editions) is without 

 date ; but the dedication to Samson Lennard, Esq., 

 alludes to the death of Prince Henry (ob. Novem- 

 ber, 1612) as having occurred shortly before the 

 completion of this "new impression." Watt 

 (Bibl. Brit., vol. i. 1824) does not mention this 

 or the earlier edition of 1610. Vertaur. 



Hartford, Connecticut. 



Nose of Wax (Vol. vii., pp. 158. 439.).— Nares 

 supposed this proverbial phrase to have been 

 " originally borrowed from the Roman Catholic 

 writers." Perhaps so ; but how came they by it? 

 When and by whom was the term, or its Latin 

 equivalent, " nasus cereus," first applied, in the 

 sense ascribed to it by Nares? Or, as in the pas- 

 sage from Jewell (cited by Richardson sv. Nose), 

 "to that which may be fashioned, and plied al 

 manner of waies, and serue al mennes turnes ? " 



The first recorded ancestor of the family of 

 wax noses was the student Telephron, whose won- 

 derful adventure is related by Apuleius (Meta- 

 morph., lib. ii. p. 41. ; Valpy, vol. i. p. 179.). Te- 

 lephron, a braggart and a simpleton, finds himself 

 out of money, and is ready to undertake any en- 

 terprise which may promise to fill his pockets. 

 Notwithstanding he boasts himself " a man of iron 

 nerve, proof against sleep, and, beyond a doubt, 

 more sharp-sighted than Lynceus himself, or 

 Argus," he falls asleep by the side of a dead body 

 he had been hired to watch, and permits the sor- 

 ceresses who are hovering about the chamber to 

 take strange liberties with his nose and ears. The 

 hags " entered through a chink, and cut oflT his 

 nose first and then his ears," without his being 

 aware of the loss : 



" Utque fallaciae reliqua convenirent, ceram in modum 

 prosectarum formatam aurium ei applicant examussim, 

 nasoque ipsius similem comparent. . . . Injecta manu 

 nasum prehendo, sequitur : aures pertracto, deruunt." 



On this passage Beroaldus comments thus : 



"[Sequitur:] quia cereus erat nasus, facilisque ob hoc 

 sequela : cerae enim lenta sequaxque materia." 



Have we not here the origin of the proverbial 

 phrase ? Vertaur. 



Hartford, Connecticut. 



" Old Dominion'" (Vol. ix., p. 468.). — T think 

 that Penn is in error in supposing that the ex- 

 pression "the Old Dominion" had any connexion 

 with the fact of Virginia's acknowledging Charles IL 

 before his restoration in England. It is much 

 more commonly styled " The Ancient Dominion," 

 and this title most probably arose from the cir- 

 cumstance that Virginia was the original name for 

 all the British settlements in North America. 

 The other colonies were carved out of her original 

 territory, and in reference to them she was the 

 " ancient dominion." 



I have in my possession a folio volume of the 

 Laws of Virginia, published at Williamsburg in 

 1733. On the title-page is a shield argent bearing 

 a cross gules. In each of the four divisions of the 

 shield is a coat of arms surmounted by a crown. 

 The first are those of England and Scotland quar- 

 tered, the second those of France, the third the 

 arms of Ireland, and the fourth is a composition 

 so full that it cannot be readily deciphered in the 

 woodcut. I presume it stands for the arms of 

 Virginia. Beneath is the motto "En, dat Vir- 

 ginia quartam : — Lo, Virginia gives the fmirth 

 (crown)." This, which was the motto of Vir- 

 ginia until the Revolution, has reference, beyond 

 all question, lo the acknowledgment of Chnrh's II. 

 as her sovereign. Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



'■'■Felix quern faciunt dlicna pericula cautum'''' 

 (Vol. iii., pp. 431. 482. &c,). — In looking through 



