498 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2«'a S. V. 129., June 19. '58. 



There are also six trumpeters, a Lyon-Clerk, and 

 Keeper of the Recoi'ds ; a Lyon-Clerk Depute, and 

 Deputy Keeper of the Records ; a Procurator- 

 fiscal, a Macer, and a Herald Paiater ; altogether 

 amounting in number to twenty-three, of whom 

 none appear " known to fame," or of any literary 

 celebrity whatever. The Lyon-Office is open 

 daily for two hours only (" from 12 to 2 p^m., every 

 lawful day, except Saturdays and public holi- 

 days"), and is situated in the General Register 

 House, Edinburgh ; and the solicitors practising 

 there (what can they have to do ?) are the same 

 as those in the Court of Session. 



From the above it will be seen that Heraldry is 

 not in a very flourishing institution in our northern 

 kingdom at present. I am not certain whether 

 the olllce of Lord-Lyon is now hereditary iir the 

 Kinnoul Aimily, and if so, whether Lord Dupplin 

 is likely to shed "lustre upon this institution;" 

 but as the present Lyon-King has been secluded 

 from the world for several years past, I shall not 

 allude further to the subject, but conclude this 

 lengthy Note. A. S. A. 



PHOENICIAN COIN. 



(2"J S. V. 392.) 



The opinion of antiquity generally concurs in 

 rendering kesita by lamb, and occasionally by 

 sheep, although the term hesita only occurs thrice 

 in the Old Testament (Gen, xxxiii. 19., Josh, 

 xxiv. 32., Job xlii. 11.), the proper term for a 

 lamb elsewhere repeatedly used being lieves, 

 sometimes kesev, and occasionally se, although 

 the last properly means a sheep ; rachel is also 

 used for a sheep. Aben Ezra renders kesita, 

 njDp ntJ'SS, kevse kitane, a ewe lambkin. Some 

 modern commentators, however, have thought the 

 kesita to be a coin ; others that it was a weight 

 only. From Acts vii. 16. it is clear that it was 

 silver.* Eichhorn says, " still the Phoenicians had 

 probably already in Jacob's time rude coins," re- 

 ferring to Gen. xxxiii. 19. as his authority. Rabbi 

 Akiva says, " 100 kesita are equal to 5 shekels, 

 the shekel being 20 gerah," and the gerah is 

 equal to one barleycorn (Jahn, § 116.), and 18 

 gerah are equal to one drachm (Eisenschmid, 

 p. 23.). Cardinal Wiseman is therefore probably 

 right in his conjecture, founded on the Phoenician 

 coin ; whilst Col. Leake and Mr. Rawlinson are 

 probably wrong in theirs, if they dispute this 

 point, but noil constat. 



There is, however, an error in the note of Car- 

 dinal Wiseman (^Science and Religion, ii. 117.) on 

 a point " which more strictly forms his own par- 

 ticular pursuit" (ii. 167.), where he speaks of 



* St. Paul, it must be remembered, was probably pre- 

 sent when Stephen used these words, and it is not im- 

 probable that he recorded or revised them. (Hug, § 73.) 



" the strange translation of the two Targums of 

 Onkelos and Jerusalem, which both render riND 

 T['^>]>^'^" (meah kesita) "a hundred kesitas by HND 



pvJID" (meah jnargalian) " a hundred pearls." 

 jSTow, although I have not had an opportunity of 

 examining that " wretched botch" (elendes flick- 

 Averk), as Eichhorn characterises it (i. 425. 

 § 235.), the Jerusalem Targum, I find, how- 

 ever, that neither Onkelos nor Jonathan in their 

 Targums have any such ^^ pearls ;" their words 

 being jp>in nxp, meah churphan, " a hundred 



lambs." * Indeed the word p''^jnD, margnlian, is 



not Hebrew or Chaldee, but means a shell in 



& - o , o^ 



Arabic, Jj.^>~ ^, pearls being \-^^-o (Koran, Iv, 



22.), the Hebrew for pearls is 2''?^^?, peniniin, 

 and th> Syriac ]A . i a'^O; margonyotho. 



T. J. BUCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



Andrews' (a.) and smith's (s ) latin dic- 

 tionaries. 



(2"'i S. v. 461.) 



Your correspondent F. J, L. has ventured to 

 express opinions on subjects of which he appears 

 to have but slender knowledge, and to criticise 

 works which he has evidently studied very im- 

 perfectly ; and I think that it is only fair that 

 some notice should be taken of his strictures, lest 

 the public, with its usual proneness to take for 

 granted the truth of whatever is boldly asserted, 

 should be misled as to the merits of the works in 

 question. 



F, J, L. begins by admitting that "both of these 

 are first-rate Lexicons," and proceeds to say that 

 S, is, " on the whole, preferable for English 

 readers to A," Does he mean, by the limitation 

 " for English readers," to imply that A. is prefer- 

 able to S. for American readers ? If so, on what 

 ground ? Is it because, to use his own words, in 

 A. " the English is disfigured by numerous Ame- 

 ricanisms?" 



F. J. L. next brings a charge against Dr. S. of 

 " ungenerously attempting to destroy the cha- 

 racter of a work on which it is plain, if he had 

 not acknowledged it, he has mainly depended;" 

 and it appears that this ungenerous attempt is 

 made by " substantiating" the very charges which 



* So translated in Walton's Polyglott : this word is not 

 in Buxtorff or Simon and Eichhorn, and is not the proper 

 Chaldee term for either sheep or lamb. It appears to be 

 an Arabic word from charafa, commercium exercuit 

 (Freitag, 107.), and perhaps is equivalent to "current 

 with the merchant " (Gen. xxiii. 16.). 



