346 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 261. 



telling his hearers " that they put on Christ, as a 

 man puts on his hat, to take it off to every one 

 tljey meet." G. N. 



" Goucho" or '■'■ Guacho." — In the olden time 

 {i. e. beginning of this century), when I had some- 

 thing to do with these wild denizens of the Pam- 

 pas, we invariably called them Gouchos. Modern 

 travellers in South America spell the word Guacho. 

 Will any correspondent of " N". & Q." be kind 

 enough to tell us which is the proper word, its 

 meaning, &c. ? for it does not occur in any dic- 

 tionary I have consulted in either shape, viz. 

 Nunez de Taboada, Gattel, Spanish and French ; 

 Neuman and Baretti, by Dr. Seoane ; nor in old 

 Stevens', 1726. A. C. M. 



Exeter. 



Wicldiffe's " Clippeis" and " Tursekerversr — 

 In the Rev. Dr. Miller's admirable work, History 

 Philosophically Illustrated, vol. ii. p. 303. (8vo. 

 edit. London, 1832), it is said that Wickliffe — 



"Inveighed so much against the Pontiff, that he even 

 denominaterl him ' Anti-Christ, the proud worldlj^ priest of 

 Kome, and the most cursed of clippers and pursekervers.^ " 



Whence are the quoted words of Wickliffe 

 taken ? what is the etymology of the words clip- 

 pers and pursekervers ? in what sense were they 

 used by Wickliffe ? and were they used in the 

 same sense by any of his cotemporaries ? Eric. 



Hoclielaga. 



The DeviTs Dozen. — Can any of the readers of 

 " N. & Q," inform me when and where originated 

 the phrase often heard, " the Devil's dozen," 

 meaning thirteen in number ? It has been sup- 

 posed to be explained in the words of St. John's 

 Gospel, vi. 70., — " Jesus answered them. Have 

 not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a 

 devil?" but this solution does not appear satis- 

 factory, nor sufficiently to probe the question. 



G.N. 



Descendants of Archbishop Abbott. — The Times 

 of September 28 contains an advertisement desir- 

 ing information concerning the descendants of 

 Archbishop Abbott, living after 1650. Cannot 

 this be furnished through " N. & Q." ? 



P. J. F. Gantillon. 



Fishing Season in Italy. — Is there, in Naples 

 or any other part of Italy, any religious ceremony 

 connected with the commencement of the fishing 

 season, such as blessing the nets, or the first 

 draught of fishes ? Pescatora. 



Bolinghrohes Advice to Swift. — Bolingbroke 

 writes to Swift as follows : 



" Take caro of your health : I'll give j'ou a receipt for 

 it, a la Montaigne; or, which is better, a la Bruyire. 

 Nourisser biea votre corps ; ne le fatiguer jamais : laisser 



rouiller I'esprit, meuble inutil, votre outil dangereux: 

 laisser souper nos cloches le matin pour eveiller les cha- 

 noines, et pour faire dormir le doyen d'un sommcil doux 

 et profond, qui lui procure de beaux songes ; levez-vous 

 tard," &c. 



It is plain that there are several jeux d'csprit 

 here ; but are there not also several mistakes ? I 

 beg to point out one. Souper is an evident mis- 

 print for soupir, or, still better, for sassoupir. 

 Also, I should be obliged to any correspondent 

 who would kindly point out the passage (if any 

 such there be) as a parody upon which Boling- 

 broke wrote the above prescription. 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 



Birmingham. 



Charles Cotton. — Any farther information re- 

 specting the children of Charles Cotton the poet, 

 beyond what is to be found in the Biographical 

 Dictionaries ; and, particularly, if one of them 

 was named John, would much oblige W. H. C. 



Infidel Court Chaplain, — Who is the chaplain 

 referred to by Swift in the Introduction to his 

 Polite Conversations ? 



" And as to blasphemy or free-thinking, I have known 

 some scrupulous persons of both sexes who, by preju- 

 diced education, are afraid of sprights. I must, however, 

 except the maids of honour, who have been fully con- 

 vinced by a famous court chaplain that there is no 

 such place as hell." * 



William Fkaser, B.C.L. 



Alton, Staffordshire. 



Gibsons Concordance. — If any of your readers 

 can inform the writer where there exists a copy 

 of the following book, it will greatly oblige, as he 

 wants to refer to a copy : 



"A Concordance to the New Testament, [compiled by 

 and] printed by Thomas Gibson, 1535, 12mo." 



Have the goodness to address F. F., 12. Union 

 Street, Bristol. It is not to be found in t!ie Bri- 

 tish Museum, or the Bodleian, or the College, 

 Dublin. 



Bust of Shahspeare. — In the new Number of 

 the Westminster Review (p. 547.) I find the fol- 

 lowing statement, which all will consider " im- 

 portant if true :" 



" Mr. Clift (father-in-law of Professor Owen) had the 

 good fortune to recover, from behind the plaster of the 

 old Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a terra-cotta 

 bust, niched over one of the stage-doors, answering to one 

 of Ben Jonson's over the other door. It was the breakage 

 of Jonson's which caused due care to be taken in looking 



[* Sir Walter Scott has the following note to this pas- 

 sage: 



" Though this reverend gentleman seems to have gone 

 a step farther than Pope's dean, 



' Who never mentions hell to ears polite,* 

 it seems probable that the same original was intended."] 



i 



