496 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 212. 



caused by the bursting of his own pistol, owing to 

 its having been incautiously overcharged ? T. J. 

 Worcester, 



[See the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1815, p. 395., 

 for " A true and faithfull Narrative of the Death of 

 Master Hambden, who was mortally wounded at Chall- 

 grove Fight, A.D. 1643, and on the ISth of June." PVora 

 this narrative we learn, that whilst Hampden was fight- 

 ing against Prince Rupert at Chalgrove Field, he was 

 struck with two carbine-balls in the shoulder, which 

 broke the bone, and terminated fatally.] 



Eeplie^. 



'* "PINECE WITH A STINK." 



(Vol. viii., pp. 270. 350.) 



I would not have meddled with this subject if 

 E. G., getting on a wrong scent, had not arrived 

 at the very extraordinary conclusion that Bram- 

 hall meant a " pinnace," and an " offensive com- 

 position well known to sailors ! " 



The earliest notice that I have met with of the 

 pinece in an English work, is in the second part 

 of the Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piemont, trans- 

 lated by W. Warde, Lond. 1568. There I find 

 the following secrets— worth knowing, too, if 

 efiective : 



" Against stinking vermin called Punesies, — If you 

 rub your bedsteede with squilla stamped with vinaigre, 

 or with the leaves of cedar tree sodden in oil, you shall 

 never feel punese. Also if you set under the bed a 

 payle full of water the puneses will not trouble you at 

 all." 



Butler, in the first canto of the third part of 

 Hudibras, also mentions it thus : 



" And stole his talismanic louse — 

 His flea, his morpion, and punaise." 



If the Querist refers to his French dictionary 

 he will soon discover the meaning 'of morpion 

 and punaise — the latter without doubt the 

 pinece of Bishop Bramhall. Cotgrave, in his 

 French- English Dictionary, London, 1650, defines 

 punaise to be " the noysome and stinking vermin 

 called the bed punie." 



It may be bad taste to dwell any longer on this 

 subject ; but as it illustrates a curious fact in 

 natural history, and as it has been well said, that 

 whatever the Almighty has thought proper to 

 create is not beneath the study of mankind, I 

 shall crave a word or two more. 



The pinece is not originally a native of this 

 country; and that is the reason why, so many 

 years after its first appearance in England, it was 

 known only by a corruption of its French name 

 punaise, or its German appellation ivandlaus (wall- 

 louse). Penny, a celebrated physician and natu- 

 ralist in the reign of Henry VII., discovered it 

 at Morllake in rather a curious manner. MoufFet, 



in his Theatrum Insectorum (Lond. 1634), thus 

 relates the story : 



" Anno 1503, dum haec Pennio scriptitaret, Mortla- 

 cum Tamesin adjacentem viculum, magna festinatione 

 accersebatur ad duas nobiles, magno metu ex cimicura 

 vestigiis percussas, et quid nescio contagionis valde 

 Veritas. Tandem recognita, ac bestiolis captis, risu 

 timorem omnem excussat." 



Mouffet also tells us that in his time the insect 

 was little known in England, though very common 

 on the Continent, a circumstance which he ascribes 

 to the superior cleanliness of the English : 



" Mundltiem frequentemque lectulorum ct culci- 

 trarem lotionem, cum Galli, Germani, et Itali minus 

 curant, pariunt magis banc pestem, Angli autem mun- 

 ditei et cultus studioslssimi rarius iis laborant." 



Ray, In his Historia Insectorum, published in 

 1710, merely terms it the punice or wall-louse ; 

 indeed, I am not aware that the modern name of 

 the insect appears in print previous to 1730, when 

 one Southal published A Treatise of Buggs. 

 Southal appears to have been an illiterate person ; 

 and he erroneously ascribes the introduction of 

 the insect into this country to the large quantities 

 of foreign fir used to rebuild London after the 

 Great Fire. 



The word hug, signifying a frightful object or 

 spectre, derived from the Celtic and the root of 

 bogie, bug-aboo, bug-bear — is well known in our 

 earlier literature. Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, 

 Beaumont and Fletcher, Holinshed and many 

 others, use it ; and in Matthew's Bible, the fifth 

 verse of the ninety-first psalm is rendered : 



" Thou shalt not nede to be afraid of any bugs by 

 night." 



Thus we see that a real " terror of the night " 

 In course of time, assumed, by common consent, 

 the title of the Imaginary evil spirit of our an- 

 cestors. 



One word more. I can see no difficulty In 

 tracing the derivation of the word humbug, with- 

 out going to Hamburg, Hume of the Bog, or any 

 such distant sources. In Grose's Dictionary of the 

 Vtdgar Tongue, I find the word /mm signifying 

 to deceive. Peter Pindar, too, writes : 



" Full many a trope from bayonet and drum 

 He threaten'd ; but behold ! 'twas all a hum." 



Now, the rustic who frightens his neighbour 

 with a turnip lanthorn and a white sheet, or the 

 spirit-rapping medium, who, for a consideration, 

 treats his verdant client with a communication 

 from the unseen world, most decidedly humbugs 

 him ; that is, hums or deceives him with an ima- 

 ginary spirit, or bug. W. Pinkebtok. 



Ham. 



I take it that the editor of Archbishop Brara- 

 hall's V/orhs was judicious in not altering the 



