3« 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 141. 



was ? Can she be the same wlio is mentioned by 

 Beziers (Sommaire Histolre de la Ville de Bayeux, 

 ed. kCaen, 1773, p. 218.) as Isabelle de Dovre? 



J. Sansom. 



Etymology and Meaning of the Word '■'Snike ? " — 

 " After Clirist's doctrine prevail'd, and Satan's king- 

 dom began to snike, and Papjanism and Idolatry were 

 growing into contempt." — P. 17. of ^ Sermon preached 

 ty Rev. Charles Hawt/s, Vicir of Chebsey, near Stafford, 

 before John, Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, 

 April 26, 1705. 



F.R.R. 



" Sacrum pingue dabo" SfC. — Can any of your 

 contributors inform me who is the author of that 

 remarkably clever line : 



*' Sacrum pingne dabo non macrum sacrificabo." 

 Thus written it is an hexameter, and refers to 

 Abel's sacrifice. But read backwards, tlius : 



" Sacrificabo macrum non dabo pingue sacrum," 

 it is a pentameter, and refers to that of Cain. ii*. 

 Edinburgh. 



Can a Man baptize Himself? — The question 

 ■which has been mooted in " N". & Q ," as to 

 whether a clersryraan can marry himself? and 

 which I am inclined t<) answer in the affirmative, 

 recalls one of a more doubtful nature, which sug- 

 gested itself to me under certain circumstances, 

 viz., whether or not a person avouching that he 

 ha<l solemnly baptized himself with water, " in the 

 name," &c., would not be in the same position, 

 relatively to the church, as if he had been bap- 

 tized by another layman ? Of course I merely 

 put the case hypothetically, and not to defend it. 

 And, query, what is the authority or propriety of 

 a practice common at the administration of the 

 sacrament of the Lord's Supper in our churches, 

 that when a minister and his curate are both 

 present at the communion table, the former not 

 only receives the bread and the wine from his own 

 hand, but addresses himself, altering the words 

 from "keep thy body," &c., to "keep my bo<ly," 

 &c., his brother clergyman standing or kneeling 

 close beside him meanwhile ? W. 



Seal of Mary Queen of Scots. — I have recently 

 obtained possession of a white crystal seal, said to 

 be the stone of a signet rinor belonging to Mnry 

 Queen of Scots ; it was sold at the death of the 

 late Earl of Buchan, in whose family it is said to 

 have been since the deatli of Queen Mary : and is 

 curious as quartering the arms of England with 

 those of France, Ireland, and Scotlaml, showing 

 that the unPjrtunate queen laid claim to this 

 country, in spite of her disclaiming it. E. A. S. 



Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. — What authen- 

 tic prints and portraits give the best idea of Mary's 

 great beauty? The small portrait at Holyrood, 

 and one in Dlbdiu's Bibliomania (whence did he 



get it?), are more beautiful than most I have seen. 

 That of Amias Orwood, at Abhotsford, is very 

 painful, and, making allowance for the circum- 

 stances under which it was taken, age, and many 

 troublous years of captivity, it retains no traces of 

 that once fascinating beauty. Sir Walter Scott 

 says : 



" I observe that both these great connoisseurs (appa- 

 rently Horace Walpole and C. K. S:iarpe) were very 

 nearly, if not quite agreed, that there are no absolutely 

 undoubted originsls of Queen Mary. But how, then^ 

 should we be so very distinctly informed as to her 

 features ! What has become of all the originals which 

 sugn;ested these innumeralile co])ies? Surely Mary 

 must have been as unforttuiate in this as in other parti- 

 culars of her life." — Life, chap. Ixv. 



What became of the " curious and original por- 

 trait on panel" of Mary, in the Strawberry Hill 

 collection ? 



Let me ask also who composed the air to which 

 " Mary Queen of Scots' Lament " is generally 

 sung ? 1 may remark here that what Mr. Coxe 

 has translated as the " Lament " is her " Praver." 



Mariconda. 



Death, a Bill of Exchange. — Our expression, 

 "to pay the debt of nature," in the sense of " to 

 die," has been fancifully improved upon by the 

 French in the following adage: — 



" La mort est une lettre de change quel'on signe en 

 naissant, et qu'ou ne laisse jamais protester le jour de 

 recheance." 



I have senrched for this among the Moralistes 

 Frani^ais (Pascal, Larochefoucauld, &c.), where it 

 was most likely to be met with, but in vain. Who 

 is the author ? Henry H. Breen. 



St. Lucia. 



The Flemish Clothiers in Wales. — 



" The Sfltaj Comuni, a small German colony esta- 

 blished, beyond the reach of historical documents, in 

 the North of Italy, the Greeks of Piana del (Jreci, near 

 Palermo, the Flemish clothiers in Wales, settled there for 

 many centuries, all retain dialects, more or less impure, 

 of their mother tongue, and afford some of the many 

 proofs which might be brought, how difficult it is to 

 root out any language." — Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures^ 

 p. 201. 



Can any of your Welsh readers inform me in 

 what part of Wales the Flemish clothiers esta- 

 blished themselves, and when ? Ami do their de- 

 scendants still inhabit that locality ? Ilthey do, is 

 their language or dialect distinct frcmi the Welsh, 

 or is it mixed with it, and yet distinguishable ? 



F. M. 



Six Thomand Fear*. — The idea that 6000 

 years are to form the world's duration, appenrs to 

 be very widely spread. In addition to " Elijah's 

 (?) prophecy" (Vol. v., p. 441.), the Etrurian ac- 

 count of the Creation, recorded by Suidas, con- 



