594 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 190. 



declaring their resolution for the king (William III.) 

 and their own preservation. Tyrconnel at the news of 

 this was said to have burnt his loig, as an indication of 

 his displeasure with the townsmen's proceedings " — Life of 

 James II., p. 290. 



E. H. A. 



The Maids and the Widows. — The following 

 petition, signed by sixteen maids of Charleston, 

 South Carolina, was presented to the governor of 

 that province on March 1, 1733-4, "the day of 

 the feast :" 



" To His Excellency Governor Johnson. 



« The humble Petition of all the Maids whose names 

 are underwritten : 



" Whereas we the humble petitioners are at present 

 in a very melancholy disposition of mind, considering 

 how all the bachelors are blindly captivated by widows, 

 and our more youthful charms thereby neglected : the 

 consequence of this our request is, that your Excel- 

 lency will for the future order that no widow shall 

 presume to marry any young man till the maids are 

 provided for; or else to pay each of them a fine for 

 satisfaction, for invading our liberties ; and likewise a 

 fine to be laid on all such bachelors as shall be mar- 

 ried to widows. The great disadvantage it is to us 

 maids, is, that the widows, by their forward carriages, 

 do snap up the young men ; and have the vanity to 

 think their merits beyond ours, which is a great im- 

 position upon us who ought to have the preference. 



" This is humbly recommended to your Excellency's 

 consideration, and hope you will prevent any farther 

 insults. 



" And we poor Maids as in duty bound will ever 

 pray. 



"P. S 1, being the oldest Maid, and therefore 



most concerned, do think it proper to be the messenger 

 to your Excellency in behalf of my fellow subscribers." 



Uneda. 



Alison's " Europe" — In a note to Sir A. Alison's 

 Europe, yo\.\-s.. p. 397., 12mo., enforcing the opi- 

 nion that the prime movers in all revolutions are 

 not men of high moral or intellectual qualities, he 

 quotes, as from " Sallust de Bello Cat." 



" In turbis atque seditionibus pessimo cuique plurima 

 vis ; pax et quies bonis artibus aluntur." 



No such words, however, are to be found in 

 Sallust : but the correct expression is in Tacitus 

 {Hist., iv. 1.) : 



" Quippe in turbas et di»cordias pessimo cuique plu- 

 rima vis; pax et quies bonis artibus indigent." 



Sir A. Alison quotes, in the same note, as from 

 Thucydides (1. iii. c. 39.), the following : 



" In the contests of the Greek commonwealth, those 

 who were esteemed the most depraved, and had the 

 least foresiglit, invariably prevailed; for being con- 

 scious of this weakness, and dreading to be overreached 

 by those of greater penetration, they went to work 

 hastily with the sword and poniard, and thereby got 



the better of their antagonists, who were occupied with 

 more refined schemes," 



This paragraph is certainly not in the place 

 mentioned ; nor can I find it after a diligent search 

 through Thucydides. Will Sir A. Alison, or any 

 of his Oxford friends, be good enough to point out 

 the author, and indicate where such a passage is^ 

 really to be found ? T. J. Buckton. 



Birmingham, 



"i?w dat, qui cito dat" (Vol. vi., p. 376.). — ^^ Sat 

 cito, si sat bene." — The first of these proverbs re- 

 minded me of the second, which was a favourite 

 maxim of Lord Chancellor Eldon. (See The Life 

 of Lord Chancellor Eldon, vol. i. p. 48.) I notice 

 it for the purpose of showing that Lord Eldon 

 followed (perhaps unconsciously) the example of 

 Augustus, and that the motto is as old as the time 

 of the first Roman emperor, if it is not of more- 

 remote origin. The following is an extract from 

 the Life of Augustus, Sueton., chap. xxv. : 



" Nil autem minus in imperfecto duce, quam festi- 

 nationem temeritatemque, convenire arbitrabatur. Cre-" 

 bro itaque ilia jactabat, STreGSe Ppadfoos. Et : 



' dcrcpaX^s jap 4<tt' aixeivuu ^ ^paavs crTpar-riXdTris.' 

 Et, ' Sat celeriter fieri, quicquid fiat satis bene.' " 



Perhaps T. H. can give us the origin of these 

 Greek and Latin maxims, as he has of " Bis dat,- 

 qui cito dat " (Vol, i., p. 330). F. W. J.. 



€LuexitS. 



HOCSE-MARKS. 



Are there traces in England of what the 

 people of Germany, on the shores of the Baltic, 

 call Hausmdrke, and what in Denmark and Nor- 

 way is called bolmcerke, homcerhe ? These are cer- 

 tain figures, generally composed of straight lines,. : 

 and imitating the shape of the cross or the runes,, 

 especially the so-called compound runes. They 

 are meant to mark all sorts of property and chat- 

 tels, dead and alive, movable and immovable,, 

 and are drawn out, or burnt into, quite inartisti- 

 cally, without any attempt of colouring or sculp- 

 turing. So, for instance, every freeholder in 

 Praust, a German village near Dantzic, has his own 

 mark on all his property, by which he recognises- 

 it. They are met with on buildings, generally 

 over the door, or on the gable-end, more frequently 

 on tombstones, or on epitaphs in churches, on pew* 

 and old screens, and implements, cattle, and on all 

 sorts of documents, where the common people now 

 use three crosses. 



The custom is first mentioned in the old Swedish 

 law of the thirteenth century (Uplandslagh, Corp.. 

 Jur. Sveo-Goth., iii. p. 254.), and occurs almost at 

 the same period in the seals of the citizens of the 

 Hanse-town Lubeck. It has been in common use . 



