2°'^ S. No 115., Mar. 13. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



225 



« Whipultre" ''poplere" (2"'' S. v. 24.) —It is 

 not, I think, difficult to make a better guess at 

 Chaucer's " whipultre " than to derive it from the 

 German tveiden-pnlme, the palm-willow. I believe 

 it to be the wild apple-tree or crab. They both 

 are usually called by one name, but are distinct 

 varieties. It is nearly the only tree Chaucer has 

 omitted that was in his day known in England. 

 It was generally used, as was the wood of the 

 apple-tree, before foreign woods were much im- 

 ported, for furaiture and by wheelwrights and mill- 

 wrights, and would make excellent " whippletrees," 

 which the sallow would not. 



Our ancestors specially protected acorns and 

 the fruit of the crab in forests, forbidding them 

 "to be collected and sold at markets or else- 

 where, to the hurt of the commoners and the 

 king's beasts of the forests." — See Manwood's 

 Forest Laws. The whippletree, the bar by which 

 the horses draw the plough, when a pair of horses 

 abreast only are used, is a word in use in Essex. 

 The whippletree is now generally made of ash. 



It is to me a greater difficulty to decide which 

 of the many varieties of poplar Chaucer knew, and 

 called "poplere." The ash is the only indigenous 

 poplar. The white poplar, I think, was the next 

 introduced, but I have no books at hand to refer 

 to. The variety of the Italian poplar, called the 

 Lombardy, was first planted at St. Osyth Priory 

 in Essex, about the year 1759. I have a tree of 

 this variety planted about twenty years later. It 

 is quite hollow and fast going to decay, although 

 scarcely eighty years old. A. Holt White. 



Bath. 



It is not likely that Chaucer would name dif- 

 ferent varieties of the same species of tree ; nor is 

 an aspen-tree generally considered by the unin- 

 formed to be a poplar : but it may be observed 

 that among nearly all the ordinary forest- trees 

 and shrubs named by the poet, the Horiibean 

 does not appear, although it is sufficiently common 

 not to have been unknown to him. Now in dis- 

 tricts in which this plant is common, the carter- 

 boys are to this day in the habit of making their 

 cart-whips of its shoots, sometimes singly, some- 

 times of two or more twisted together ; and 

 nothing is more usual than for a horseman, in 

 want of a switch, to ride up to a hedge and pull 

 one from the hornbeam. May not therefore the 

 " Whipultre " be the whip-pulHng-tree, or the 

 tree from which whips are pulled, otherwise the 

 hornbeam ? The whipple-tree, for drawing by, is 

 in some parts of Sussex called a whippance. 



H. F. N. 



Wax Seal Impressions (2"^ S, v. 171.) — In 

 answering your correspondent Y. S. M.'s Query 

 " for a composition which would take the im- 

 pression of the seal, and afterwards become so 

 hard as to give other impressions nearly, if not 



quite, as good as the original," you recommend 

 gutta percha, which I think a mistake, as it is 

 too easily softened. I have frequently used bread 

 or gum, both of which have answered my purpose 

 admirably. Take a piece of new bread, knead it 

 thoroughly in your hands until it acquires an ad- 

 hesive paste-like quality, free from all crumbs 

 and lumps. Next, lightly oil the impression from 

 which your seal is produced, either with a camel's 

 hair pencil dipped in sweet oil, or with a little bit 

 of oiled wadding. Press the bread very carefully 

 into every part of the impression, shape the upper 

 part of it Into a pyramidical form, remove it im- 

 mediately, and suffer it to dry gradually. It is 

 not absolutely necessary to oil the impression, 

 though it is better, if possible, to do so. For the 

 gum : Slightly oil the impression, and pour a 

 small quantity of tolerably thick gum-water over 

 it, adding more as it dries. When nearly dry, the 

 coating of gum may be lifted, off with a penknife, 

 and a handle then added. J. E. W. 



PetrarcTCs Translators (2"^ S. v. 148. 175.) — 

 Twelve translations from Petrarch's Sonnets, by 

 A. W. (Wrottesley) were published in The Mar- 

 tyrs, the Dreams, and other Poems, by the Very 

 Rev. Dr. Newman (late Dean of Capetown), and 

 translations from twenty of Petrarch's Sonnets 

 appear jn Mrs. E. J. Wrottesley's Staffordshire 

 Legend. Cuthbert Bede. 



May I refer your correspondent W. (1.) to a 

 Note and Query in " N. & Q." (P* S. xii. 382.) 

 Four of the poems there mentioned are transla- 

 tions from Petrarch. They are intitled " The 

 Traveller," " The Counsellor," " The Monitor," 

 and " Humility exalted." S. W. Rix. 



Beccles. 



" Petrarch's Seven Penitential Psalms para- 

 phrastically translated," by George Chapman, the 

 translator of Homer, London, small 8vo. 1612. 



F. S. A. 



The Waldenses (2°'^ S. iv. 289.) — The Rev, 

 Samuel Denne furnished a paper to the Archce- 

 ologia (vol. ix. p. 292.) in regard to a settlement 

 of Waldenses on Darehth Manor, in Kent. One 

 of the conclusions at which he arrives (p. 297.) is, 

 that, " before the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, the Latins included all the opponents of the 

 Roman See under the general terms of Waldenses 

 and Albigenses." 



If this be correct, it is not difficult to account 

 for the presence of Waldenses at Henley-on- 

 Thames previous to the year 1404-5. 



Robert Townsend. 



Albany, K Y. 



Mitred Allots North of Trent (2°^ S. iv, 170. 

 212.). — I have a " Subscriber's " copy of Dug- 

 dale's Monasticon, in which are inserted (vol. v. 



