238 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 175. 



Londini, Georgii Bishop, Joannes Norton, p. 320., 

 under county Svthrey, and against the marginal 

 " Croidon," it is thus stated : 



" As for that sudden swelling water or bourne, which 

 the common people reports to breake foorth heere out 

 of the ground, presaging, I wote not how, either dearth 

 of come or the pestilence, may seeme not worthy once 

 the naming, and yet the euentes sometime ensuing hath 

 procured it credit." 



I have heard it stated, without reference to the 

 above, that the aforesaid stream had risen during 

 the last few months, and, if such be the case, the 

 fever that has been so prevalent in the town seems 

 to bear out the above statement. 



Can any of your correspondents inform me 

 whether the above fact is mentioned in any other 

 account of the place, and if so, where ? R. W. H. 



[It appears that our early ballad writers do not give 

 a very favourable account of the locality of Croydon. 

 Listen to Patrick Hannay, Gent., in 1662 : — 



" It seems of starved Sterilitie the seat. 

 Where barren downs do it environ round ; 

 Whose parched tops in summer are not wet, 

 And only are with snow in winter crown'd, 

 Only with bareness they do still abound; 

 Or if on some of them we roughness find, 

 It's tawny heath, badge of the barren rinde. 

 " In midst of these stands Croydon cloath'd in black, 

 In a low bottom sink of all these hills; 

 And is receipt of all the dirty wracke, 

 Which from their tops still in abundance trills, 

 The unpav'd lanes with muddy mire it fills 

 If one shower fall ; or, if that blessing stay, 

 You may well smell, but never see your way."] 



" Gesmas et Desmas." — What is the meaning 

 of two terms, Gesmas and Desmas, in the following 

 couplet, which I transcribe from MS. entries in 

 an old and rare volume lately bought, of date 

 1564, and the handwriting would seem coeval with 

 the printing of the book ? The lines evidently 

 relate to the crucifixion of our Lord between the 

 thieves; but I have never seen any appellations 

 given to these last, and cannot fix a meaning for 

 the terms with any certainty : they may have re- 

 ference to the penitence of one, and the hardened 

 state of the other still " tied and bound in the 

 chain of his sins," but I know not to what lan- 

 guage to refer them : 



*' Disparibus meritis pendit tria Corpora lignis 

 Gesmas et Desmas, medius Divina Potestas." 



A. B. R. 



[Our correspondent is right in supposing that Ges- 

 mas and Desmas are the names traditionally assigned 

 to the two malefactors, and which occur in the Old 

 Mysteries, &c. Desmas is that of the Penitent Thief, 

 These names are, we believe, mentioned in the Pseudo- 

 Gospel of Nicodemus ; and some particulars of the 

 legend, we believe, but we cannot just now ascertain, 

 are preserved in Molan. De Pictur. Sacris, 1. iv. c, 9.] 



Satirical Medal — 1. I shall be glad to obtain 

 some information respecting a curious medal in 

 my possession, bearing — 



Obv. "Ecciesia perversa tenet faclem diaboli, 

 666." A face in profile, crowned with the tiara : 

 turned round, the same face becomes that of the 

 devil. 



_Rev. " Sapientes stulti aliquando." A head 

 with a cardinal's cap, which reversed becomes a 

 face surmounted with a fool's cap and bells. 



_ The medal is of silver, nearly the size of a crown 

 piece ; and from the form of the letters is, I sup- 

 pose, about two hundred years old. 



John I. Dkedge. 



[This curious medal, which is figured in Rigollot's 

 Monnaies des Fans (PI. iv. fig. 10.), and the reverse of 

 which has been engraved by Tilliot {Fete des Foux) as 

 the seal of the Mere Folk of Dijon, is a satirical medal 

 issued by the Protestants. Their opponents retorted, 

 or provoked its issue, by one which Rigollot has also 

 figured (fig. 11.): which has on one side the head of 

 Calvin, crowned with the tiara, &c. (which, when 

 turned, becomes that of the Devil), and the words "Joan. 

 Calvinus Heresiarch. pessimus ;" and on the reverse a 

 Cardinal's head, which is turned into a fool's head, with 

 the motto " Et Stulti, aliquando sapite." — Psalm xciii.J 



THE GOOKINS OF IRELAND. 



(Vol. i., pp. 385. 473. 492.; Vol. ii., p. 44. ; Vol. iv., 

 p. 103.) 



Upon an examination of the ancient records 

 which are preserved in the Exchequer Record 

 Office, at the Four Courts, Dublin, it will be found 

 that in the year 1632 Sir Vincent Gookin acquired, 

 by purchase from David Earl of Barrymore, the 

 lands of Cargane in the county of Cork; and from 

 Mr. William Fitz John O'Hea, in the year 1633, 

 the lands of Ballymacwilliam and Cruary, in the 

 same county ; and that he died on the 7th of Feb. 

 1637*; — that Captain Robert Gookin, in recom- 

 pence for his services as a soldier and adventurer, 

 obtained an assignment from the Protector of an 

 estate in the same county, consisting of upwards 

 of five thousand acres, which he afterwards sur- 

 rendered to Charles II.; and that thereupon the 

 king granted it to Roger Earl of Orrery ; — that 

 Vincent Gookin died on the 29th of March, 1692, 

 and that his son Robert, and Dorothy Clayton, 

 were his executors; — that in the year 1681 the 

 collectors of quit rent made a demand upon 

 Thomas Gookin, one of Sir Vincent's sons, for the 



* Amongst the Inquisitions of the county of Cork 

 which are preserved in the Rolls Office of Chancery, 

 there is one which relates to Vincent Gookin, and was 

 taken at Mallow, on the 14th of August, 1638, and is 

 probably an inquisition post mortem. 



