440 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. V. 126., Mat 29. '58. 



derstand, the remaining work is comparatively 

 easy. 



It seems to be implied, in the narrative cited 

 above, that his lordship succeeded by " detecting 

 two or three vowels," This would not have helped 

 him much. But by the method I have related he 

 •would get not only three or four vowels, but seven 

 or eight consonants ; in which case the rest of his 

 task would be only a question of time. 



Thomas Boys. 



(2°'> S. V. 258. 341.) 



Is not this the common shrew-mouse, Sorex 

 araneus (anciently Mus araneus), still known only 

 by the name of ranny in Capgrave's native county, 

 Norfolk ? No book on natural history that I 

 have consulted gives the name ranny, yet it occurs 

 in Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary. Of course 

 in the passage cited from Capgrave a "spider" 

 would suit the sense ; as in comparing the Sacra- 

 ment of the Auter to " a tode or a ereyne " the 

 intention was to make use for comparison of some 

 animal commonly regarded with disgust. But the 

 shrew was formerly regarded with more horror 

 than even a toad or spider. Singularly enough, 

 too, the toad and shrew are both placed together 

 in Archbishop Alfric's Vocabulary {vide Messrs. 

 Mayer and Wright's interesting Volume of VocU' 

 hularies, p. 24. col. a.), and with the frog, eft, and 

 hedgehog are classed under the head of insects ! 

 and, the learned editor remarks, " this odd classifi- 

 cation was preserved to rather a late period." 

 In the Pictorial Vocabulary (date fifteenth cen- 

 tury), p. 231., occur "Hie rato, a ratun," "Hie 

 sorex, idem est," " Hie mus, a mowse ;" and then 

 after ten or twelve other animals, " Hie gurrex, a 

 water-mowse ; " "Hie roonideus, a red-mowse." 

 This last was probably our ranny. 



The ancient name for spider was attercop or 

 eddircop. Mr. Wright says that "in an A.-S. MS. 

 in the Cottonian Library, Vitel. C. III., we have 

 drawings of the attercoppa of that period, which 

 by no means agree with the notion of its being a 

 spider." Had the artist confounded araneus, the 

 shrew, and aranea, the spider, together ? 



In the Promptorium Parvulorum occurs " eranye 

 or spyder, or spynnare (a small kind of spider is 

 still called spinner in Norfolk), aranea ;" and in the 

 note the editor says, " the Medulla gives ' musca- 

 raneus, a litelle beste that sleethe the flye, the 

 erayne.' " Here the erayne is clearly the shrew, 

 called Mus araneus by Pliny, and still in France 

 Mus araigne ; in Italy, toporango, i. e. talpa aranea. 

 The Penny Cyclopcedia says, that " the etymon of 

 shrew may be found in schreadan, to cut, or sch7'if, 

 to censure bitterly ; or rather scheorfian, to bite 

 or gnaw (all A.-S.), though Todd prefers deriving 

 it from the German sdhreien, to clamour, or from 



the Saxon schryvan, to beguile. In the word 

 erd-shrew, the prefix Is clearly the Anglo-Saxon 

 eorth, earth, designed to express the animal's ha- 

 bitation." The Staffordshire name for it, nur- 

 srow, is clearly a corruption of erdshrew. Have 

 aranea, the spider, araneus, the ranny, and erma- 

 ceus, the hedgehog, some common etymon, per- 

 haps one referring to their common insectivorous 

 nature ? E. G. R. 



SIB WILLIAM WESTON, KNT. 

 (2"" S. V. 359.) 



The following notes may assist C. J. R. in dis- 

 covering whether Sir Wm. Weston, Knt., Chief 

 Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland (1593-4), 

 was related to Dr. (not Sir) Robert Weston, the 

 Irish Lord Chancellor. 



I find that the latter was the " third son of John 

 Weston, of Litchfield, by Ciceley Neville, and 

 younger brother to Richard Weston, of Roxwell 

 in Essex, a Justice of the Common Pleas (in 

 England), whose grandson Richard (Weston) was 

 afterwards Lord High Treasurer of England, and 

 Earl of Portland." (Fasti Oxon,, Bliss's edition.) 



He was educated at All Souls' College, Oxford, 

 of which he was chosen Fellow in 1536 ; and, ap- 

 plying himself solely to the study of civil law, 

 commenced Batchelor in that faculty, Feb. 17, 

 1537, and LL.D. in 1556. In 1559 he was ap- 

 pointed Dean of the Court of Arches. 



Hugh Curwen, the Archbishop of Dublin and 

 Chancellor under Queens Mary and Elizabeth, 

 being advanced in years, relinquished these pre- 

 ferments in 1567 lor the less laborious See of 

 Oxford, and was succeeded in his bishoprick by 

 Adam Loftus the Primate, who thereupon resigned 

 the deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin, which he had 

 held in commendam with the primacy. 



The deanery was then united to the chancellor- 

 ship ; and Robert Weston, LL.D., Dean of Arches, 

 was appointed to both offices by patent dated 

 June 10, 1567 (which see in Smyth's iaw Officers 

 of Ireland, pp. 23-5.). 



Archdeacon Cottpn, in his valuable Fasti Ec- 

 clesice Hibernice, remarks that, though thus hold- 

 ing ecclesiastical preferment, he was not in Holy 

 Orders. In 1570 he was also made Dean of Wells. 



On May 20, 1573, Lord Chancellor Weston, 

 Dean of St. Patrick's, died ; and he was buried in 

 his own cathedral, under the altar, in the vault 

 where his grand-daughter, the Countess of Cork, 

 was afterwards entombed. His recumbent effigy 

 occupies the upper stage or story of that huge and 

 unsightly pile — the Earl of Cork's monument. 

 The inscriptions, and a detailed description, are 

 given in Mason's History of St. Patrick's (Notes, 

 p. liv., &c.), from which I quote. 



He left an only son John, LL.D. of Oxford in 

 1590, and afterwards treasurer of Christ Church 



