434 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 158. 



Uncertain Etymologies. — Does there exist a list 

 of all the modern English -words whose etymology 

 is in an unsatisfactory state ? If not, would not 

 "N. & Q." open its pages for the formation of 

 such a catalogue, as preparatory to their system- 

 atic investigation ? A. A. D. 



IleylirHs Extracts from Registers of Convocation 

 — Miles Smith's MSS. — What became of Heylin's 

 Extracts from the Registers of Convocation which 

 •were in Bishop Atterbury's possession ? Also, 

 ■what became of the MSS. of Miles Smith, which 

 were in the possession of Dr. Tanner, Bishop of 

 Asaph, when Wilkins compiled his Concilia ? 



J. Y. 



Hoxton. 



Solomon de Caus and the Marquess of Worcester. 

 — In one of Miss L. S. Costello's works (I believe, 

 A Summer among the Bocages and the Vines), she 

 quotes a letter said to have been written by Ninon 

 de L'Enclos, giving an account of a visit that she 

 paid to Solomon de Caus in his madhouse in 1641, 

 accompanied by the Marquess of Worcester. 

 Where did Miss C. find this letter, and on what 

 authority does it rest ? Its date of 1641 is evi- 

 dently wrong, for there was no Marquess of Wor- 

 cester then : and granting that the lady might be 

 mistaken in the title, the author of the Century of 

 Inventions was not even Earl of Worcester, as his 

 father, the first Marquess, survived till 1647. At 

 the date of the letter the son was known as Lord 

 Herbert of liagland, and after his father's eleva- 

 tion in the peerage as Earl of Glamorgan. The 

 letter looks very like the forgery of some French- 

 man, who wished to prove his countryman's prior 

 invention of the steam engine, and that the Mar- 

 quess was indebted to De Caus for the conception ; 

 but he would scarcely have so boldly claimed it as 

 his own in that case, Avhen there was a living wit- 

 ness to contradict him. J. S. Warden. 



Gathers Reply to Nicolai. — Mr. Haywood, in 

 notes to his translation of Faust, p. 253., says of 

 iNicolai : 



" He had given offence to Gothe by repeated attacks 

 xn. the various critical journals in which he was from 

 time to time engaged, and also by publishing a parody 

 on The Sorrows of Werther, entitled The Joys of Werther, 

 in which Werther is made to shoot himself with a 

 pistol loaded with chicken's blood, and recovers and 

 lives happily. Gothe judiciously carried on the joke 

 by writing a continuation, in which Werther, though 

 alive, is represented as blinded by the blood, and be- 

 wailing his ill fortune in not being able to see the 

 beauties, of Charlotte. Gothe says that his reply, 

 though only circulated in manuscript, deprived Nicolai 

 of all literary consideration." 



What has become of this Reply? We know 

 the reverence of the Germans for Gothe, and their 



eagerness to print even his most trifling letters. 

 Nicolai was the friend and fellow-labourer of 

 Lessing, and a work which, " though only circu- 

 lated in MS., deprived him of all literary consi- 

 deration," must have been rather widely circulated. 

 It is very unlikely that all the MSS. should be 

 destroyed. M. M. E. 



Satirical Prints — Pope — The World's End. — 

 I shall be much obliged to any of your readers 

 who will inform me from what woi'ks the two 

 following prints are taken. One represents Pope 

 in an unhappy condition, held up by the waist by 

 one gentleman, while another stands by enjoying 

 the scene. Both these gentlemen wear ribbons, 

 but not stars. Pope exclaims, " Damn me if I 

 don't put you all in the Dunciad." 



The other print is dedicated to Robert (Drum- 

 mond) Lord Archbishop of York, by Christopher 

 Brown, and must of course have been published 

 between 1761 and 1776. It is allegorical, and 

 represents vessels " going to the world's end ; "^ 

 and various persons on land, amongst whom are 

 Death and Time, " going to a world without end." 



From which of Christopher Brown's works is 

 this taken ? The practice, too common, of tearing 

 prints out of books has probably made my searches 

 for it unsuccessful. Gbiffin. 



" World without end." — Can any of your corre- 

 spondents give me the probable explanation and 

 reasons why this rendering of the phrase " in 

 stECula sseculorum " was adopted ? I have found 

 the English phrase in Marshall's Primer, published 

 in 1535, where it occurs at the end of the Preface, 

 &G., in a manner that seems to indicate that it was 

 then an ordinary phrase : but the " Gloria Patri " 

 is without it. We see it also in the old version of 

 Ps. xc. 2., which was first published about the same 

 time. I would also ask whether the same expres- 

 sion is to be found in other languages ? F. A. 



Eaton Family. — 1. The name, parentage, and 

 issue, with any other particulars of the father of 

 the late Rev. John Eaton : in 1755, Rector of 

 Steeple Aston, Oxon ; supposed to have been born 

 about 1700 at Malpas, Cheshire. 



2. The present heir-at-law or next-of-kin to the 

 late Rev. Dr. Eaton, Rector of Fairsted, Essex ; 

 afterwards of Amersham, Bucks, and Deptford, 

 Kent; ob. 1806? Sceutatok. 



Congleton. 



A Burns Relic. — I have in my possession a silver 

 crown of the reign of Charles I., and date 1643. 

 It is kept in a circular silver box, of which the top 

 and bottom are formed of the obverse and reverse 

 of a silver ten-shilling piece (which has been cut 

 in two to form the box) of the same reign, but a 

 year earlier. Inside the box is engraved, " From 

 G.M-'Iver to Rt. Burns. For Auld lang syne, 1791." 

 Can any of the readers of " N. & Q." favour me 



