Jan. 22. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



f# 



be " nn mot populaire et bas, dont les personnes 

 bien clevees evitent de se servir." From blague 

 comes the verb hlaguer, which the same authority 

 says means " dire des blagues ; mentir pour le 

 plaisir de mentir." And from hlaguer comes the 

 substantive blagiieur, which is, I apprehend, the 

 original of our English word blackguard. It is 

 described by Bescherelles as a " diseur de sor- 

 nettes et de faussetees; hableur, fanfaron. Un 

 blagueur est un menteur, mais un menteur qui a 

 moins pour but de tromper que de se faire valoir." 

 The English term has, it Avill be observed, a 

 somewhat Avider and more offensive import than 

 the French: and the latter being rarely to be 

 found amongst educated persons, or in dictionaries, 

 it may have escaped the etymologists who were in 

 search of a congener for its English derivative. Its 

 pedigree is, however, to be sought in philological 

 rather than archaeological records. Within the 

 last two centuries, a number of words of honest 

 origin have passed Into an opprobrious sense ; for 

 example, the oppressed tenants of Ireland are 

 spoken of by Spenser and Sir John Davies as 

 " villains." In our version of the Scriptures, 

 " cunning " implies merely skill in music and in 

 art. Shakspeare employs the word " vagabond " 

 as often to express pity as reproach ; and I think 

 It will be found, that as a knave, prior to the reign of 

 Elizabeth, meant merely a serving man, so a black- 

 guard was the name for a pot-boj or scullion in 

 the reign of Queen Anne. The transition Into its 

 more modern meaning took place at a later period, 

 on the importation of a foreign word, to which, 

 being already Interchangeable in sound, it speedily 

 became assimilated in sense. 



J. Emerson Tennent. 



PREDICTIONS OP THE FIRE AND PI.AGUE OF 

 LONDON, NO. I. 



" It was a trim worke indeede, and a gay world no 

 doubt for some idle cloister-man, mad merry friers, and 

 lusty abbey-lubbers ; when themselves were well whit- 

 tled, and their paunches pretily stuffed, to fall a pro- 

 phesieingof the woefull dearths, famines, plagues, wars, 

 &c. of tlie dangerous days imminent." — Harvey's 

 Discoursive Probleme, Lond. 1588. 



Among the sly hits at our nation, which abound 

 in the lively pages of the Sieur d'Argenton, Is one 

 to the effect that an Englishman always has an 

 old prophecy in his possession. The worthy Sieur 

 Is describing the meeting of Louis X. and our 

 Henry 11. near PIcquini, where the Chancellor of 

 England commenced his harangue by alluding to 

 an ancient prophecy which predicted that the 

 Plain of PIcquini should be the scene of a memor- 

 able and lasting peace between the two nations. 

 " The Bishop," says Commlnes, " commencja par 

 vne prophetic, dont," adds he, en parenthese^ "les 



Anglois ne sont jamais despourveus."* Even at 

 this early period, we had thus acquired a reputa- 

 tion for prophecies, and it must be confessed that 

 our chronicles abound In passages which illustrate 

 the justice of the Sieuv's sarcasm. From the 

 days of York and Lancaster, when, according to 

 Lord Northampton "bookes.of beasts and babyes 

 were exceeding ryfe, and current in every quarter 

 and corner of the realme,"t up to the time of 

 Napoleon's projected Invasion, when the presses of 

 the Seven Dials were unusually prolific in visions 

 and predictions, pandering to the popular fears of 

 the country — our national character for vaticin- 

 ation has been amply sustained by a goodly array 

 of prophets, real or pretended, whose lucubra- 

 tions have not even yet entirely lost their Influence 

 upon the popular mind. To this day, the ravings 

 of Nixon are " household words " in Cheshire ; 

 and I am told that a bundle of " Dame Shipton's 

 Sayings" still forms a very saleable addition to the 

 pack of a Yorkshire pedlar. Recent discoveries 

 In biological science have given to the subject of 

 popular prophecies a philosophical Importance be- 

 yond the mere curiosity or strangeness of the de- 

 tails. Whether or not the human mind, under 

 certain conditions, becomes endowed with the 

 prescient faculty. Is a question I do not wish 1o 

 discuss in your , pages : I merely wish to direct 

 attention to a neglected and not uninteresting 

 chapter in the curiosities of literature. 



In delving among what may be termed the 

 popular religious literature of the latter years of 

 the Commonwealth, and early part of the reign of 

 Charles, we become aware of the existence of a kind 

 of nightmare which the public of that age were 

 evidently labouring under — a strong and vivid im- 

 pression that some terrible calamity was impend- 

 ing over the metropolis. Puritanic tolerance was 

 sorely tried by the licence of the new Court ; and 

 the pulpits were soon filled with enthusiasts of all 

 sects, who railed in no measured terms against the 

 monster city — the city Babylon — the bloody city ! 

 as they loved to term her : proclaiming with all 

 the fervour of fanaticism that the measure of her 

 iniquities was wellnigh full, and the day of her 

 extinction at hand. The press echoed the cry ; 

 and for some years before and after the Restora- 

 tion, it teemed with "warnings" and "visions," in 

 which the approaching destruction is often plainly 

 predicted. One of the earliest of these prefigur- 

 ations occurs in that Leviathan of Sermons, God's 

 Plea for Nineveh, or London's Precedent for Mercy, 

 by Thomas Reeve: London, 1657. Speaking of- 

 London, he says : 



" It was Troy-novant, it is Troy le grand, and it 

 will be Troy Textinct." — P. 217. 



* Memoires, p. 155. : Paris, 1649. 

 f Defensative againsf the Poyson of supposed Pro- 

 phecies, p. 116. 



