Oct. 23. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



393 



recorded the baptism of several children of Thomas 

 Barlow, but no Henry. Those found, however, 

 would agree, as to age, with the supposition that 

 Henry might be their brother. I may say, further, 

 I have had the Will Office at York and Chester 

 searched for the will of Thomas without success. 

 Having, therefore, evidence pointing to both 

 Thomas of Sheffield and Barlow the inventor of 

 the repeater, as my ancestor in the same degree of 

 relationship, I conclude that the two are identical. 

 Some of your correspondents will perhaps be 

 enabled to confirm or dissipate my conclusions. 



One of the proposed objects of your publication 

 being genealogical research, I presume my letter 

 to be within its scope : if, however, I am encroach- 

 ing unduly on your space, you will please use your 

 pruning-knife ad libitum. George Baeeow, 



Green Hill, Oldham. 



" CHOMER AND " GUIDON IN SHAKSPEARE. 



(Vol. vi., p. 312.) 



Your correspondent's conjecture on the passage 

 in the Winter's Tale seems very probable. He 

 speaks, however, only of the neuter sense of the 

 word chomer. There is, however, an active sense, 

 which more fully confirms his reading; cliomer 

 unefete is to have it celebrated by refraining from 

 work. 



The second conjecture on Henry IV., Act HI., 

 seems as indisputable as it is happy. 



About the third I should doubt. Steevens 

 cites a passage from Heywood, in which the word 

 Lethe is used in the same sense, and it appears to 

 have been a common Latinism. 



Another correspondent suggests gxiidon as the 

 right reading in Henry V., Act IV. Sc. 2. John- 

 son first saw what the word "guard" must mean 

 if it were left in the text. It is curious that 

 Malone in his note (though citing from Holing- 

 shed a passage which proves that meaning, when 

 we compare with it the following line, " I will the 

 banner from a trumpet take, and use it for my 

 haste ") still preserves the word guard, and gives 

 it Its usual interpretation. 



A guidon is la petite enseigne des anciens com- 

 pagnies de gendarmes, who were the cavalry of the 

 French army, not, as now, a military police. 



This reading, " Guidon, to the field," was " first 

 thought of" by the late Dr. Thackeray, Provost 

 of King's College, Cambridge, and it was " first 

 published " in the text of Knight's second (or Li- 

 brary) edition of Shahspeare. The Provost men- 

 tioned It to me several years since in conversation, 

 and I spoke of It, or wrote about it, to Mr. C. 

 Knight, while that edition was going through the 

 press. He felt convinced of its truth, and Imme- 

 diately adopted It, mentioning, however, in a note, 

 that it had been communicated to him. There 



were few men better acquainted with the lan- 

 guage of our ancient dramatists than the late 

 Provost of King's College, one of the most accom- 

 plished scholars of his time. 



I have no doubt that some of your correspond- 

 ents, better read than I am In the old French 

 Chronicles and Romances, and in the early English 

 translations of them, could furnish many addi- 

 tional proofs of the truth of Dr. Thackeray's con- 

 jecture. E. C. H. 



EMACIATED MONUMENTAL EFFIGIES. 



(Vol. v., pp. 427. 497. ; Vol. vi., pp. 85. 252. 321.) 



If the readers of " N. & Q." are not tired of the 

 sight of the above title, the following remarks may 

 perhaps be permitted to find a place in its pages. 

 Very little need be said to disprove the notion 

 that such effigies were in any way connected with 

 deaths from fasting. The general tenor of the 

 inscriptions which often accompany these me- 

 morials Is alone sufficient to show that their real 

 intention is truly described by Cotman as being 

 "to remind men that the robes of pride will 

 shortly be exchanged for the winding-sheet, and 

 that beauty and strength are hastening to the 

 period when they will become as the spectre 

 before them." Besides the Inscriptions quoted by 

 former correspondents, as the text from Job xlx. 

 25, 26, &c , and the well-known verses com- 

 mencing " Quis quis eris," &c., I may mention the 

 following at Oddington, Oxon., on a brass of a 

 similar repulsive design to the stone effigy at 

 Tewkesbury : 



" Vermibus hie donor, et sic ostendere conor 

 Quod sicut hie ponor ponitur omnis honor." 



This instance. In which blanks are left in the in- 

 scription for inserting the date of decease, fully 

 bears out the very just observations of C. T. 

 (Vol. v., p. 427.), that these memorials " were 

 [often] erected during the lifetime of the indi- 

 vidual as an act of humiliation, and to remind 

 himself as well as others of mortality and the in- 

 stability of human grandeur." Thus the tomb at 

 Canterbury, with two effigies of Archbishop 

 Chicheley, who died in 1443, was put up during^ 

 his lifetime. Similar Instances of brasses are at 

 Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and at the neigh- 

 bouring church of Cassington, where the following 

 lines are to be seen on the brass of Thomas Neale : 

 " Hos egomet versus posui mihl sanus, ut esset 

 Huic prasuisa mihi mortis hnago mea-." 

 Judging from these examples, we may not un- 

 reasonably infer that the preparation of his monu- 

 ment by Dr. John Donne was not so eccentric or 

 singular an Instance as might at first be supposed. 

 The incident is thus related by Walton : 



" A monument being resolved upon, Dr. Donne sent 

 for a carver to make for him in wood the figure of an 



