24 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 272. 



BARE TRACTS. 



The following notes on a small parcel of scarce 

 and curious tracts lately come into my possession, 

 are at the service of any reader taking delight in 

 such matters. They may serve as the commence- 

 ment of what is much needed — a descriptive cata- 

 logue of the rarer tracts of the period. 



1. " The Infancie of the Soule : or the Soule of an 

 Infant. Gathered from the boosome of Trueth, Begunne 

 in Loue, and finished in the desire to profit others. By 

 William Hill. Imprinted at London, by W. W., for 

 C. Knight, and are to be solde at his shop in Paulas 

 Churchyard at the Signe of the Holy Lambe. 1605. 4to." 

 No pagination. 



Upon a fly-leaf is written, in the hand of the 

 period : 



"Nouembery«29, 1620. 

 " In the Riuer Seuern was the greatest flood that euer 

 was sinse the flood of Noah ; there was drowned at Hom- 

 tones Loade [Hampton's Lode] 68 persons as they whare 

 going to Bewdly Faire." 



2. " Vox Coeli, or Newes from Heaven, or a Consulta- 

 tion there held by the high and mighty Princes, King 

 Hen. 8., King Edw. 6., Prince Henry, Queene Mary, 

 Queene Elizabeth, and Queene Anne; wherein Spaines 

 ambition and treacheries to most Kingdomes and free 

 estates of Evrope, are vnmasked, and truly represented, 

 but more particularly towards England, and now more 

 especially vnder the pretended match of Prince Charles, 

 with the Infanta Dona Maria. Written by S. R. N. J. 

 Printed in Elisium. 1624." 4to. 60 pp. 



All the members of which Consultation, except 

 Queene Mary, prognosticate ruin to England, and 

 misery to " Baby Charlie" if the alliance is formed. 



3. "His Majesties Declaration, concerning His Pro- 

 ceedings with His Subjects of Scotland, since the Pacifi- 

 cation in the Camp neere Berwick. London, 1640." 4to. 

 63 pp. 



Finely engraved portrait (half-length) of Charles 

 as frontispiece. 



4. " The Replication of Master Glyn, in the name of 

 all the Commons of England, to the generall answer of 

 Thomas Earle of Strafford, April 13, 1641. London, Printed 

 1641." 4to. 19 pp. 



5. " The last Declarations of the Committee of Estates 

 now assembled in Scotland. Edinburgh, Printed by 

 Evan Tyler, and reprinted at London, 18 Octob. 1648." 

 4to. 24 pp. 



6. " A Revelation ofMr.Brigtman's Revelation. Printed 

 in the yeere of fulfilling it, 1641." 4to. 37 pp. 



R. C. Warde. 

 Kidderminster. 



ENGLISH LAWYERS AND ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 



Sir F. Thesiger asserted the other day, in the 

 Court of Queen's Bench, that the word swindle 

 was not to be found in any English dictionary 

 good or bad. 



Lawyers are famous for bold assertions, and it 

 is their good luck to escape unharmed, however 



erroneous those assertions may prove. They all 

 go to the account of zeal for their clients. 



Sir Frederick is most singularly unfortunate in 

 this particular instance. Lord Campbell inter- 

 rupts him, and tells him it is in Richardson's ; 

 and adds, " It is not in Johnson's." And this is 

 true ; but it is in Todd, who quotes from James's 

 Military Dictionary. And for swindler he also 

 refers to Ash's Supplement to his Dictionary, pub- 

 lished in 1775 : Swindle, Swindler, Swindling, are 

 all in Smart's Walker, remodelled. 



Mason, in his Supplement to Johnson, published 

 more than fifty years ago, says that swindler is a 

 " modern colloquial word." And farther, the 

 learned knight might have found it in a dictionary 

 by a member of his own profession, as a word re- 

 cognised by the law of the land ; in that by Mr. 

 Tomlins, who treats us with the exquisitely re- 

 fined legal distinction between the word spoken, 

 and the word written, as actionable or not action- 

 able. 



Richardson says, the time and manner of intro- 

 duction require to be ascertained. His own ex- 

 ample " of the scandalous appellation sivindler " is 

 from the Essays of the Rev. Vicesimus Knox, 

 which were published at least eighty years ago. 

 That author deserves now to be remembered, as 

 one of the earliest advocates for the improvement 

 of academic education. The probability is, that 

 there is not now in use a single English dictionary 

 that does not contain these words. 



I remember hearing the late Lord Erskine, 

 when in his zenith at the bar, denounce the word 

 derange as not English. It was not in Johnson : 

 nor was it, though now in all our dictionaries. 

 (See Todd's Johnson, and Richardson.) In England 

 men were not formerly deranged. The clown, in 

 Hamlet, tells us they were mad. Q. 



Bloomsbary. 



" Traverse." — The omission of a comma in 

 Dr. Johnson's copy of Milton, apparently gave 

 this word the place among prepositions which he 

 and most subsequent lexicographers have conceded 

 to it. Johnson's folio has — 



"Traverse, adverb (d travers, French), crosswise; 

 athwart." 



and, 



" Traverse, prep, through, crosswise." 

 the latter with a quotation from Paradise Lost 

 (i. 569.), pointed thus : 



« He through the armed files 

 Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse 

 The whole battalion views their order due." 



Ash, referring to Milton as authority, borrows 

 Johnson's definition, but inserts a comma between 



