2'"i S. V. 124., May 15. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



403 



" ne discosto " good Italian, and the true source of 

 Chaucer's " nedes cost." 



This is not said from any wish to disparage the 

 solution of " nedes cost " now offered by your cor- 

 respondent ; a solution well worthy of considera- 

 tion. Time, which works wonders, may reconcile 

 me to it in preference to my own. Your corre- 

 spondent takes " nedes cost " as equivalent to 

 " nedwayis ; " and one can readily perceive that 

 there are still many adverbs in our language 

 which accord with the views propounded by him. 

 But then they terminate in -ways and -wise. I 

 know of none such terminating in -cost. We are 

 greatly indebted to him for an interesting example 

 of the word " nedyscost " occurring in a MS. 

 Will he pardon me if I say it is an example which, 

 I humbly conceive, makes rather for my view of 

 the difficulty in Chaucer, than for his ? " The first 

 Apcy must nedyscost be wretten on to hym ; " i. e. 

 must be written on nee procul, close, ne discosto, 

 so that all may be got into one line ; " that ys to 

 sey, v. sythys vii. lettyrs in a line." 



One would wish to know — if such a question 

 may be asked — on what authority your corre- 

 spondent, in citing the lines in Chaucer {Cant. 

 Tales), runs two words into one, and for " nedes 

 cost" or "nedis cost" gives us " nedescost." Of 

 course this is not a petitio principii. Yet is it the 

 very point which your correspondent wishes to 

 establish ; — that the two words, " nedes cost," are 

 one, "an English adverb." Then why does he 

 begin by assuming it ? All the editions that I 

 have consulted (Caxton's, Godfray's, Speght's, Ur- 

 ry's, Tyrwhitt's, Chalmers's, Anderson's, Wright's, 

 Bell's) give either " nedes cost," or " needes 

 cost," or " nedis cost," — two words, not one (Cant. 

 Tales, 1. 1479.). " Tyrwhitt," says your corre- 

 spondent, assuming that which is to be proved 

 (that Chaucer's two words, " nedes cost," are one), 

 " does not mention the word in his Glossary, and 

 Halliwell explains it ' a phrase equivalent to posi- 

 tively.' " Now the fact is that Halliwell (under 

 cost) gives us two words, " nedes cost ; " and it is 

 these two words, not any single word, that " Halli- 

 well explains." Of course he would not think of 

 explaining one word as a "phrase." And Tyr- 

 whitt also, in his list of Words and Phrases not 

 understood, having previously in his Notes given 

 " nedes cost " as two words, gives " cost " as a 

 word by itself. 



Perhaps, then, your correspondent will oblige 

 us by stating on what authority, in opening the 

 question, he has cited Chaucer's two words, • 

 " nedes cost," as one. It will also help to throw 

 light on the subject, if he will be pleased to tell us 

 in what sense, maintaining that " nedyscost " can 

 only mean necessarily, of necessity, and apparently 

 adopting Halliwell's definition, " equivalent to 

 positively,''' he characterises the words in question 

 as " negative adverbs." And if, for the line, " Or 



nedis coste, this thing mote have an end," he pre- 

 fers " Or nedes this thing," &c., it would be satis- 

 factory if he would further state how the line, 

 thus abbreviated, is to be scanned. 



Thomas Boys. 



When we have needs must familiar to us as a 

 household word, why should we look beyond our 

 own language for an explanation of nedes cost, or, 

 as Caxton has it, nedis cost? Richardson says, 

 needs is need is. Why not need is caused, he must 

 hide himself? Cause had a very different mean- 

 ing once from that which it has at present. See 

 cause and ca.se in Richardson. Tyrwhitt does not 

 notice nediscost, because he has not the word in 

 his text, but he has " nedes, nede, adv., necessarily. 

 It is usually joined with must.' — 1171. 11,475. 

 17,157." A. Holt White. 



JJtplic^ t0 Minat €imviti. 



Bartolomo Bergami (2""^ S. iii. 358.) — Barto- 

 lomo Bergami died on March 23, 1841, of a fall 

 from his horse almost immediately after the acci- 

 dent. He was then living at his villa of Fos- 

 sombrone, near the town of San Marino. His 

 daughter, "la petite Victorine," so often mentioned 

 in the trial of Queen Caroline, whose extreme 

 fondness, indeed, for the child induced her to take 

 the father into her service, was married to a 

 count. E. C. B. 



The Tollemaches (2"'^ S. v. 365.)— In thank- 

 ing Mr. D. Cooper for giving the names of those 

 who accompanied William III. from Holland, 

 I would ask if he be not mistaken in includ- 

 ing the Tollemaches. In my preface to Orosius, 

 I describe the Lauderdale MS. which belongs to 

 John Tollemache, Esq., M.P., Helmingham Hall, 

 Suffolk, and speak of this family as being amongst 

 the first Engle, or Angles, that settled among the 

 SiitSfolk in East Anglia. I need not give my au- 

 thorities, but merely refer to a couplet inscribed 

 on their manor house at Bentley, near Ipswich. 



" Before the Normans into England came, 

 Bentley was my seat, and Tollemache my name." 



I should like to know if this inscription still re- 

 mains, and the orthography of the words and the 

 form of the letters. 



My friend, Dr. Halbertsma, from Deventer in 

 Holland, was with us when the name was men- 

 tioned. He said at once, " The name is Anglo- 

 Saxon, and ought to be written tal-maca= tal, a 

 counting or reckoning, and maca, a consort, com- 

 panion, fellow, as a fellow of a college, a manager 

 of the accounts of the realm. Hence tallies of the 

 Exchequer." I asked if it might not rather be 

 from toll, a toll, tribute, tax, and maca, a regulator 

 of the taxes of the realm f I am anxious to know 



