ss 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 272. 



an ex-Fellow of Oriel College, and a first-class- 

 man in Literis Huraanioribus of Michaelmas Term, 

 1833. I am still unacquainted with the name of 

 the author of the Rime of the New-made Bac- 

 calere. G. L. S. 



Song of the Cuckoo (Vol. x., p. 524.). — Uneda 

 refers to an old rustic and nursery rhyme, of 

 which there are several slightly varying editions. 

 That of my early recollections ran thus : 



" The cuckoo is a merry bird, 



She sings as she flies : 

 She brings us good tidings. 



She tells us no lies. 

 She sucks little birds' eggs 



To make her voice clear ; 

 And when she sings ' cuckoo ' 



The summer is near." 



May I be allowed to refer Uneda to a paper of 

 mine on the subject, published in Bohn's recent 

 edition (edited by Mrs. Howitt) of Aikius' Calendar 

 of Nature. Caroline Cathebike Lucas. 



Swansea. 



« Nag" and " Knagg" (Vol. x., pp. 29. 172.).— 

 Are there not good and sufficient reasons for be- 

 lieving these to be the same word, differently 

 written, and to be different forms of gnaw for 

 knaw ; in Ang.-Sax. Gnceg-an, in Ger. Nagen ? 

 Todd tells us, that "^naw" is "sometimes written 

 for g-naw." The interchange of k and g is com- 

 mon ; so is the change of the guttural g into u or w. 

 Todd gives no examples of " Anaw." Richardson 

 has three : from Chaucer, Sir Thomas More, and 

 North's Translations of Plutarch. 



To keep gnawing or knagging at a bone ; to fret 

 or eat into by continued biting, by repeated trials, 

 is a literal explanation from which all our conse- 

 quent metaphorical usages seem easily to derive. 



Q. 



Bloomsbury. 



Sir Henry Johnes (Vol. x., p. 445.). — J. P. O.'s 

 Query is truly " the voice of one crying in the 

 wilderness," for, like many another traveller on the 

 same road, he has lost his way in the thicket of a 

 Welsh genealogy. I will endeavour, under cor- 

 rection^ to restore him to the right track. Both 

 Burke and Courthope, in their Extinct Baronetages, 

 proceed upon the assumption that there was but 

 one Sir Henry Johnes, Bart., of Albemarlis ; that 

 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Salis- 

 bury, Knt., and widow of John Salisbury, Esq., of 

 Riig, and that by her he left no issue, whereby the 

 baronetcy became extinct. Now, it is perfectly 

 clear to my mind that this is an error, for there 

 were, beyond doubt, at least two Sir Henries, 

 Baronets, of Albemarlis ; consequently the first 

 Sir Henry must have left male issue, by one or 

 other of his wives, Miss Salisbury or Elizabeth 

 Herbert, for it appears to be quite certain he was 



tioice married. Elizabeth Johnes, who was married 

 to Sir Francis Cornwallis, Knight, was one of two 

 daughters of the second Sir Henry Johnes, Bart., 

 by Margaret, his wife, daughter and coheiress of Sir 

 Henry VVilliams, Bart., of Gwernevet, as is expressly 

 stated in Burke's General Armoury. Magdalen 

 and Priscilla, who, as J. P. O. states, were married 

 to the brothers Stepney, were daughters, as I con- 

 ceive, of the^?-s^ Sir Henry Johnes, by Miss Her- 

 bert; whereas Magdalen, who became the wife of 

 ^iv Anthony (not Sir Price) Rudd, of Aberglassny, 

 was in all probability a niece of these ladies, a 

 sister of Lady Cornwallis, and, by the same token, 

 daughter and coheiress of the second Sir Henry 

 Johnes, Bart., of Albemarlis. I cannot discover 

 when either of the baronets Johnes died ; indeed, 

 neither Burke nor Courthope state when the 

 baronetcy became extinct. If J. P. O. knows 

 where the family generally were buried, a reference 

 to the monumental inscriptions or parochial regis- 

 ters would set the matter at rest. 



As I stated at the onset, I have advanced these 

 remarks entirely under correction, and it is there- 

 fore quite possible that I may be wrong upon some 

 points ; yet, in the main, I trust and believe my 

 reasoning will prove correct. As Sir Fi-ancis 

 Cornwallis was styled of Albemarlis, at least as 

 early as 1710, I conclude the baronetcy became 

 extinct sometime previous to that date. 



T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



Battledoor (Vol. x., p. 432.). — Thanks for the 

 answer to my Query. Now as to the derivation of 

 the word. It can scarcely be from hattoir, the 

 name both of the washing beetel and the toy ; but 

 Alberti gives " Battoir,grosse palette avec laquelle 

 on bat la lessive ! " and on bat I'eau also ; there-' 

 fore may not our word have been originally " battre 

 d'eau ?" It is curious that, instead of adopting the 

 name of the implement and the toy, we should 

 have made a longer and a meaningless name for 

 ourselves. In the case quoted from Annals of 

 Cambridge, the implement was doubtless used to 

 prevent infection by handling the clothes of per- 

 sons who had the plague ; the hint might be taken 

 in the present day. F. C. B. 



Diss. 



Abelardand the " Damnamus" (Vol. x., p. 485.). 

 — See Berengarius, " Apologet. contra B. Ber- 

 nardum," &c. in 0pp. Abcelard., 4to., Paris, 1616, 

 p. 305. But it was never intended as a serious 

 narrative. C. P. E. 



Novel in Manuscript and the " Sea Otter T — 

 (Vol. vii., p. 130. ; Vol. x., p. 465.). — In answer 

 to the Queries of your correspondent William 

 DuANE, of Philadelphia, I have gone over the 

 principal part of " Lloyd's List " for the year 1809, 

 and can find no such ship as the " Sea Otter," 



