392 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n'i S. v. 124., May 15. '68. 



have also heard it called " Palm." This use of 

 the tree would make its being planted in church- 

 yards, so as to be at hand, and grown in conse- 

 crated ground, a natural circumstance. F. R. D. 



DIFFICULTIES OF CHA.UCER. — NO. XI. 



Oat-toothed. — 



" Gat-toihed I was, and that became me wele; 

 I had the print o^ Sainte Venus sele." 



Cant. Tales. 6184-5. 



In Todd's ed. of Johnson's Dictionary, it is very 

 clearly shown that gat-tothed means goat-toothed. 

 Ooat in old English is often gat. 



It were needless, therefore, now to dwell upon 

 the expression gat-tothed, although it stands in 

 Tyrwhitt's Catalogue of " Words and Phrases not 

 understood," were it not for the purpose of re- 

 marking how Todd's interpretation brings out the 

 meaning of the whole couplet above cited. 



The goat vr as an animal sacred to Vemis. Sa- 

 crifices of goats were among the offerings at her 

 shrine, and she was represented at Elis sitting on 

 a goat. This circumstaiice connects the latter 

 line of the couplet with the former. " 1 was im- 

 pressed with the seal of Venus." What the im- 

 pression ? "I was goat-toothed." 



Here, however, the question may be asked, " If 

 we are really to suppose that the Wife of Bath was 

 goat-toothed, how are we to explain the latter 

 portion of the line, ' Goat-toothed I was, a7id that 

 became me well ? ' Did she, then, think it becoming 

 to be goat-toothed?" 



But, by "that became me well," understand 

 not, in the iliodern sense of the word becoming, 

 " that was favourable to my good looks ; " but 

 rather, in the older signification, " that ivas in cha- 

 racter," gat-tothed I was, and that was suitable 

 and appropriate ; for it was fitting that, as a true 

 and humble votary of the Paphian queen, I should 

 bear her mark, and be " goat-toothed." 



In connexion with gat-tothed, we may also ex- 

 plain the more modern expression, buck-toothed. 

 " Buck " was employed in old English to express 

 a " he-goat." "Buckis of geet," Wicliff ; " buck- 

 goates," Chapman (Richardson in verbo). A he- 

 goat is in Fr. bouc, in Ger. boch, in Ital. becco, in 

 Low Lat. buccus. It is highly probable, there- 

 fore, that the familiar expression " ^weft-toothed," 

 though not now so understood, is in reality the 

 modern representative of "g-aif-tothed," i. e. ^'■goat- 

 toothed" Thomas Boys. 



Minax fiatei, 



Phoenician Coin. — Cardinal Wiseman, in the 

 ninth of his lectures on Science and Revealed Re- 

 ligion, vol. ii. p. 106., proposes to reconcile an 

 apparent contradiction between the narratives in 



Genesis xxxiii. 19. and in Acts vii. 16., by re- 

 ferring to the reading in the margin, " lambs," 

 and then " conjecturing that the ancient Phoe- 

 nician coin bore upon it the figure of a lamb, 

 for which it was an equivalent, and that from this 

 emblem it also bore its name." If this conjecture 

 be grounded on fact, then a Phoenician coinage 

 bearing the figure of a lamb (a ship would have 

 been more likely) must have been invented be- 

 fore, and must have been in use about 1740 B.C., 

 when Jacob bought the parcel of land of the chil- 

 dren of Hamor for an hundred pieces of money. 

 In note B in the Appendix to his translation of 

 Herodotus, Mr. Rawlinson discusses the origin of 

 coining. Having come to the conclusion " that 

 coining is not a Phoenician invention," he exa- 

 mines the respective claims of Lydia and Greece 

 to the invention, and decides (against the opinion 

 of Col. Leake) in favour of Lydia. Rawlinson 

 gives as the date of the commencement of the 

 historic period of Lydia, 724 b. c. Col. Leake 

 ascribes the invention to Pheidoh, King of Argos, 

 750 B.C. Mr. Rawlinson writes, — 



" Previous to the captivity, it would appear that the 

 commercial dealings of the Hebrews were entirely trans- 

 acted after the model of that primitive purchase recorded 

 in Genesis, when Abraham bought the field of Macpelah 

 of Ephron the Hittite, and weighed to him the silver 

 which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, 

 four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the 

 merchant." 



And see Jeremiah, xxxii. 9. If the conjecture of 

 Cardinal Wiseman is founded on fact, the Phoeni- 

 cians must have had a coinage, which bore the 

 impression of a lamb, in common use at least 1740 

 years b.c. Mr. Rawlinson and Col. Leake show 

 this to be impossible, or very highly improbable. 

 We must therefore conclude that the conjecture 

 referred to is not maintainable. The conjecture 

 carries back the invention of coining to above 

 1000 years before the time at which it appears 

 cdining was actually invented. J. W. F. 



Ancient Enigma. — In an old MS. medical re- 

 ceipt book in my possession occurs the following 

 on one of the fly-leaves. The handwriting is 

 clearly of the time of Henry VIII. : — 



« The be«ety of the nyght ys shee, 

 And mother of all hwmors that be, 

 And lykwyse lady of the seys 

 That tyme doth mesure dyversweys *, 

 The sonn shee follows every wher, 

 And shee ys changen of the ayer. 

 This ladys name fayne woold I know 

 That dwells so high, and rules so low." 



The solution I take to be " the moon," but it is 

 not announced in the MS. T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



Telegraph between Great Britain and Ireland. — 

 When we think of what has been effected, the 



* Altered in a somewhat later hand to as she fieys. 



