74 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 143. 



The explanation which I offer satisfies every one 

 of the various peculiarities observed and recorded 

 with regard to this phenomenon ; and moreover it 

 is the only one which will satisfy them all. I shall 

 be thankful to any of your readers who may be 

 able either to confirm it, or to show its fallacy, if 

 such exists. H. C. K. 



Rectory, Hereford. 



" THE GOOD OLD CAUSE." 



It would greatly interest me to ascertain the 

 precise birthplace and early history of that noble 

 watchword, "The good old Cause" — in what 

 speech, or in what book that expression, so full of 

 deep and lofty meaning, and so dear to the lips 

 of Puritan England, made its first appearance. 

 Preachers and pamphleteers are full of " the 

 Cause ;" the fighting saints had ever " the Cause" 

 upon their lips ; it entered into their battle-cry: 

 "God and the Cause!" were the words that led 

 them to victory at Marston Moor and Naseby. 

 I would fain know the Englishman who so 

 deepened, beautified, and heightened the expres- 

 sion by these two epithets, who elevated " the 

 Cause " into " The good old Cause." The honour, 

 I think, scarcely belongs to Milton. A tolerably 

 intimate and constantly sustained acquaintance 

 with his prose works has not revealed to me the 

 existence of the expression there. I do not re- 

 collect it in the letters or speeches of Cromwell. 

 Algernon Sidney, at the end of that noble dying 

 prayer of his, where he makes such tender mention 

 of the Cause, associated therewith one only of the 

 two attendant epithets : " Grant that I may die 

 glorifying Thee for all Thy mercies, and that at the 

 last Thou hast permitted me to be singled out as a 

 witness of Thy truth, and even by the confession of 

 my opposers, for that Old Cause in which I was 

 from my youth engaged, and for wliich Thou hast 

 often and wonderfully declared Thyself" We 

 may not then congratulate the full expression upon 

 so noble a birthplace as the Sidneian prayer. 

 Perhaps some among the learned contributors to 

 " N. & Q." may assist my search for the speech or 

 book honoured by the first appearance of that noble 

 watchword " The good old Cause." 



Thomas H. Gill. 



[We have before us a quarto pamphlet, published 

 February 16, 1658-9, entitled, The Good Old Cause 

 dress'd hi its Primitive Lustre, and set forth to the View 

 of all Men ; being a Short and Sober Narrative of the 

 Great Revolutions of Affairs in these Later Times, by 

 R. Fitz-Brian, an affectionate Lover of his Country. 

 " The good old cause," commended by the writer, is 

 that of tlie " Commonwealth of England, purged from 

 those dregs and defilements which in time it had con- 

 tracted." The celebrated John Dunton als!) published, 

 in 1692, The Good Old Cause; or, the Divine Captain 



Characterized, in a Sermon (not preached, nor needful to 

 be preached, in any place so properly as in a Camp), by 

 Edmund Hickeiingill, Rector of the Rectory of All- 

 Saints in Colchester The "good old cause" of this 

 divine is that of monarchy, and " the guard of his Ma- 

 jesty's Sdcred |)erson, tiie darling of Heaven as well as 

 of mankind," is set in battle array against " Gebal, and 

 Ammun, and Amalek, with the Philistines also."] 



Miliar ^wtxiH, 



WincJifield, Hants. — Can any of your correspon- 

 dents give me any information respecting this 

 parish ? are there any notes respecting it preserved 

 among the MSS. of the British Museum ? How- 

 can I a certain when the manor passed out of the 

 hands of the abbey of Chertsey (Surrey) ? In 

 the list of possessi(ms at the dissolution given in 

 Dugdale, it is not menticmeil. Was the manor 

 possessed at one time by the Kidd welly family of 

 Hartley, Hants ? The White Rose. 



Winton. 



" Balnea, vina, Ve7ius." — Who is the author of 

 the following epigram ? — 



" Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra : 

 Quid faciunt vitam? balnea, vina, Venus." 



R. F. L. 



" Kicking up Mag's or Meg's Diversion." — 

 What, is the meaning of this saying? It may have 

 some connexion with " A roaring Meg." H. Pt. 



Shan-dra-dam. — 



" Now, landlord, out with the Shan-dra-dam," — 

 The Moor and the Loch, p. 17. 



What is the correct spelling of this word, and 

 whence its etymology ? W. R. D. S. 



Kentish Fire. 

 oriuinate ? 



When did the " Kentish Fire " 

 A.A.D. 



Incantations at Cross Roads. — Plato, in the Laws, 

 while speaking of "incantations" and " poisonings," 

 says : 



" It is neither easy to know how thoy exist in na- 

 ture, nor, if any one did know, to persu;ide others. 

 But upon the minds of men, who look with suspicion 

 on each other in things of this kind, it is not worth 

 while to make an attack, if perchance they see repre- 

 sentations moulded in wax, either in the house door, 

 or where three cross roads meet, or on the tombs of their 

 parents ; and to exhort those who have no clear notions 

 ahont them, to hold all things of that kind cheap." — 

 Burges' Trans., book xi. c. 12. 



In the apocryphal "First Gospel of the Infancy 



of Jesus," it is said : 



" There was a woman possessed with a devil • . . she 

 went out into desert places, and sometimes standing 



