2»<iS. V. 117., Mah. 27. '58.1 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



259 



\ 



gin Mary, In Honorem sancttB MaricB Virgints." These 

 Avere used till the first year of James I., who caused two 

 to be new cast; one for the King, and the other for the 

 Queen, with different inscriptions described by Camden. 

 A writer in the Archceologia, v. 299., says : " It is a very 

 common idea (though at present [1779] not strictly 

 true,) that our Kings offer, on New Year's Day, a Bj'zant, 

 or wedge of gold. Whatever may have been the ancient 

 custom, the present royal offering, whenever the King 

 communicates at the chapel, consists of five guineas. 

 There is no offering on New Year's Day; but that made 

 by tiie Lord Chamberlain, for the King^ on Twelfth Day, 

 is a box containing three purses, wherein are separately 

 contained leaf gold, frankincense, and myrrh, in imita- 

 tion of the offering by the Magi."] 



Broivn Bess. — When was the musket first so 

 called ? As the musket was always kept bright 

 until a recent period, was it called Bess before ? 



A. Holt White. 



\_Brown. Bess, in its primary meaning, is equivalent to 

 brown barrel. Bus, in Dutch, is the barrel of a gun ; in 

 Low Germ, bilsse, in Swed. bt/ssa Hence our English 

 ^ess, as applied to a gun -barrel. (Conf. in Med. Latin, 

 bus-bas, fragor scloporum et certaminis.) The Dutch bus 

 appears often in composition. Hand-bus, & ^\sio\ ; lite- 

 rally, a hand- barrel. Bus-schieter, a gunner; literally, a 

 barrel-shooter. We have the Dutch bus (a barrel) in 

 three English names of fire-arms: viz. arqueftt/se, obus, 

 blunder&Mss. At the first of these three, arquebuse, we 

 must look a little more closely, would we trace the term 

 Brown Bess to its primaeval source. The most formidable 

 of cross-bows, before fire-arms came into general use, was 

 one which shot a ball, or pellet, from a barrel. Specimens 

 may j'et be seen. Now this was the original arquebuse 

 (i. e. arc -bus, or arc -et-bus, bow and barrel). In process of 

 time, as gunpowder came into use, the arc disappeared, 

 and the buss, or barrel, remained. Hence arquebuse, 

 though it properly implies a bow fitted with a tube or 

 barrel, came into use as the old appellation of a soldier's 

 firelock. And hence the name of Bess (bus, biisse, or 

 byssa), which the musket has borne more recently. Bess, 

 or bus, is the last syllable of the old arquebuse or harque- 

 bus, cut off for separate use, just as in the more recent in- 

 stance of bus from omnibus. The barrels of firelocks were 

 sometimes browned. Sometimes, however, they were re- 

 quired to be kept bright. Could we ascertain who first 

 in mercy ordained the browning of the barrel, we might 

 have some prospect of ascertaining the first introduction 

 of the term " Brown Bess." Doubtless it was some hero 

 of the fight, not of the field-day. For a further illustra- 

 tion of the term Brown Bess it may be proper to remark, 

 that in Northumberland, according to Halliwell, a gun is 

 known by the not very elegant title of black bitch. Now, 

 like bus in Dutch, biichse is in German a gun-barrel. 

 (" Biichse, 2. ein eisernes Rohr zum schiessen : " an iron 

 tube for shooting.) May we not infer, therefore, that black 

 bitch was originally " black biichse," i. e. black barrel, in 

 conformity with broivn barrel, or Brown Bess? "For- 

 merly," says Zedler, "and before the invention of gun- 

 powder, arquebuse signified a bow with a barrel (Bogen- 

 Buchse), which is the literal meaning of the word."] 



Thais. — Jn the Art Treasures Catalogue of the 

 recent exhibition at Manchester, No. 118. (among 

 the modern masters), was an allegorical painting 

 by Sir J. Reynolds of " Thais setting fire to Per- 

 sepolis." Thais is called Miss Emily Bertie, and 

 the owner of the picture is J. ToUemache, Esq. 

 Will you be good enough to inform me whether 



there is any story connected with this picture, 

 and where it is to be found ? D. S. 



Cheltenham. 



[A story prejudicial to the character of Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds, with reference to this picture, was circulated in 

 a publication called the Earwig. It is indignantly denied 

 by Northcote {Memoirs of Reynolds, 4to., 1813, p. 280.), 

 who asserts from his own knowledge, that Sir Joshua 

 never painted any person of the name of Emily Bertie, 

 and that the whole story is an entire fabrication. He 

 saj'S, " The portrait in the character of Thais was painted 

 in 1776, the head only, on a whole-length canvas, from 

 a beautiful young girl of the name of Emily Coventry, 

 who accompanied a gentleman to the East Indies, where 

 she died in early life. The picture was not finished until 

 1781, and then sold to Mr. G , for one hundred gui- 

 neas." Madame D'Arblay {Memoirs, ii. 14.) tells us that 

 Mr. G was the Hon. C. Greville. Malone also in- 

 forms us the price was one hundred guineas; but that 

 the name of the young lady was Emily Pott. See Rey- 

 nolds and his Works, bv Wm. Cotton & John Burnet, 

 p. 155.] 



Meaning of ^' Hullshop." — Sir John Boroughs, 

 keeper of the records in the Tower of London, in 

 his book on The Soveraignty of the British Seas, 

 written in the year 1633, speaking of the Hol- 

 landers fishing upon our coasts and carrying the 

 fish into other countries, and bringing from those 

 countries goods in return, says at p. 128.: "From 

 Brabant they returne for the most part ready 

 money, with some Tapestries and Hullshop." 

 What kind of commodity was " Hullshop ? " 



Edw. J. Wilson. 



[Several derivations might be suggested; but the most 

 probable meaning of hullshop is, an assortment of goods. 

 VVhat particular assortment shall be presently suggested. 

 In the Scottish language an assortment is "hale-ware" : 

 from hale, whole, and ware, goods or merchandise. " Hale- 

 ware," however, has many congeners. There is "haill- 

 rack," the sum total of a person's property ; and there is 

 also " hail-coup," of which hullshop appears to be a varia- 

 tion ; for hull answers to haill, and shop to coup. 1. Hull 

 answers to haill (whole). "Whole" was sometimes in 

 Old English, "hoi" {Cant. Tales, 7615); "holly" was 

 "hul" {Var. Dial, Halliwell); and "whole" may still 

 be heard, in the pronunciation of our northern friends, 

 " whul," or rather, with the never-dying digamma, 

 " Fhul." Hence it is that hullshop derives its first syl- 

 lable in our levigated pronunciation, hidl. 2. But we have 

 said its second syllable, shop, answers to coup. The old 

 Scottish couper, a dealer (from cauponari), and the old 

 English cojoeman, were what we now call a chapman ; and, 

 as Jamieson remarks, the Scottish pronunciation of cluip 

 is now chop (whence " to chop and change "). But fur- 

 ther : chap (pronounced chop) is in Scotland, says Jamie- 

 son, a shop. Thus the affinity of the two expressions 

 becomes manifest: haill-coup, whole-chop, hullshop. But 

 as we would imderstand by hullshop, an assortment of 

 wares, a word must be said respecting the original mean- 

 ing of shop. Shop, in old English, was not merely a 

 place of sale, but a place of manufacture, a workshop, 

 atelier. Conf. shope (made), shoupe (shaped), shuppare 

 (a maker). Hullshop, as it stands in connexion with 

 " tapestry," must probably be taken in a limited sense ; 

 i. e. for an assortment of such articles as would be re- 

 quired when the tapestry finished its travels and had to 

 be fitted or put up ; for instance, the edgings, and fringes 



