352 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 180. 



tempt at colonisation by the Scotch about 150 

 years ago, the subjoined extract, giving an ac- 

 count of that harbour, by (apparently) one of 

 the Scotch colonists, may be interesting to your 

 readers. It is taken from a paper printed in Mis- 

 cellanea Curiosa, vol. iii. p. 413., 2nd edit, entitled 

 " Part of a Journal kept from Scotland to New 

 Caledonia in Darien, Avith a short Account of that 

 Country, communicated [to the Royal Society] by 

 Dr. Wallace, F.R.S." : 



" The 4th [November] we came into the great har- 

 bour of Caledonia. It is a most excellent one ; for it 

 is about a league in length from N.W. to S.E. It is 

 about half a mile broad at the mouth, and in some 

 places a mile and more farther in. It is large enough 

 to contain 500 sail of ships. The greatest part of it is 

 landlocked, so that it is safe, and caimot be touched 

 by any wind that can blow the harbour ; and the sea 

 makes the land that lies between them a peninsula. 

 There is a point of the peninsula at the mouth of the 

 harbour that may be fortified against a navy. This 

 point secures the harbour, so that no ship can enter 

 but must be within reach of their guns. It likewise 

 defends half of the peninsula ; for no guns from the 

 other side of the harbour can touch it, and no ship 

 carrying guns dare enter for the breastwork at the 

 point. The other side of the peninsula is either a 

 precipice, or defended against ships by shoals and 

 breaches, so that there remains only the narrow neck 

 that is naturally fortified ; and if thirty leagues of a 

 Avilderness will not do that, it may be artificially forti- 

 fied in twenty ways. In short, it may be made im- 

 pregnable ; and there are bounds enough within it, if 

 it were all cultivated, to afford 10,000 hogsheads of 

 sugar every year. The soil is rich, the air good and 

 temperate ; the water is sweet, and every thing contri- 

 butes to make it healthful and convenient." 



C. T. W. 



NOTES OK SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS. 



MecTial is from the mint of Thomas Hey wood ; 

 but, like many other words of the same stamp, it 

 continued a private token of the party who issued 

 it, and never, as far as I am aware, became current 

 coin. Four times, at least, it occurs in his works ; 

 and always in that sense only which its etymon 

 indicates, to wit, " adulterous." In his " Challenge 

 for Beauty :" 



" . . . . her own tongue 



Hath publish 'd her a mechall prostitute." 

 Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. vi. p. 421. 



In his " Rape of Lucrece :" 



". , . that done, straight murder 

 One of thy basest grooms, and lay you both 

 Grasp'd arm in arm in thy adulterate bed. 

 Men call in witness of that mechall sin." 



Old English Drama, vol. i. p. 71. 



—where the editor's note is — "probably derived 



from the French word mechant, wicked." In his 

 "English Traveller:" 



" . . . Yet whore you may ; 



And that's no breach of any vow to heaven : 

 Pollute the nuptial bed with tnichall sin." 



Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. i. p. 161. 



This misprint the editor corrects to mickle : pro- 

 fessing, however, as he well might, distrust of his 

 amendment. Nares discards Dilke's guess, and 

 says, " If a right reading, it must be derived froiu 

 mich, truant, adulterous." Whereby to correct 

 one error he commits another, assigning to mich 

 a sense that it never bears. If haply any doubt 

 should remain as to what the true reading in the 

 above passage is, a reference to Heywood's Vari- 

 07ts History concerninge Women will at once assoil 

 it. In that part of his fourth book which treats 

 of adulteresses (p. 195.), reciting the very story 

 on which his play was founded, and calling it " a 

 moderne historic lately happening, and in mine 

 owne knowledge," he continues his narrative thus : 



*' With this purpose, stealing softly vp the stayres, 

 and listening at the doore, before hee would presume 

 to knocke, hee might lieare a soft whispering, which 

 sometimes growing lowder, hee might plainely distin- 

 guish two voyces (hers, and that gentleman's his sup- 

 posed friend, whom the maide had before nominated), 

 where hee might euidently vnderstand more than pro- 

 testations passe betwixt them, namely, the mechall sinne 

 itselfe." 



Mr. Halllwell, in his compilation of Archaic and 

 Provincial Words, gives Mechall, wicked, adul- 

 terous, with a note of admiration at Dilke's con- 

 jecture ; and a reference to Nares, in v. MichalL 

 Mr. H. neither adduces any authority for his fir&fc 

 sense, " wicked," nor can adduce one. 



To lowt, to mock or contemn. A verb of very 

 common occurrence, but, as might be expected, 

 quite unknown to the commentators on Shak- 

 speare, though Its meaning was guessed from the 

 context. As it would be tedious and unnecessary 

 to write all the instances that occur, let the fol- 

 lowing suffice : 



" To the holy bloud of Hayles, 

 With your fyngers and nayles, 



All that ye may scratche and wynne ; 

 Yet it woulde not be seen, 

 Except you were shryven, 



And clene from all deadly synne. 

 There, were we flocked, 

 Lowted and mocked ; 



For, now, it is knownen to be 

 But the bloud of a ducke, 

 That long did sucke 



The thrifte, from every degre." 

 " The Fantassie of Idolatrie," Foxe's Acts and 

 Monuments, vol. v. p. 406. (Cattley's edition.) 



" Pride Is it, to vaunt princely robes, not princely 

 virtues. Pride is it to lotcte men of lower sort, or pore 



