34 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 220.. 



copy of some known toork or an original com- 

 pilation ? And if the former, state where the 

 original MS. is preserved ; and [(printed, the par- 

 ticulars of the edition ? 



If my MS. can be ascertained to have formerly 

 belonged to any library or individual, I shall be 

 clad to learn any particulars of its history. 



J. M. K. 



Shoreham. 



ffiinat tfluertrf. 



Jews and Egyptians. — Has any writer ever 

 started the idea that the early colonisers of some of 

 the Grecian states, who are commonly stated to 

 have been Egyptians, may have been, in fact, 

 Jews ? It seems to me that a good deal might be 

 said in favour of this hypothesis, for the following 

 reasons, amongst others : 



1. The Egyptian tradition preserved by Heca- 

 taeus, and quoted from him by Diodorus, that 

 Danaus and Cadmus were leaders of minor 

 branches of the great emigration, of which the 

 main body departed under the gtiidance of Moses. 



2. The near coincidence in point of time, as far 

 as can be traced, of the appearance of Danaus, 

 Cadmus, and Cecrops, in Greece, with the Jewish 

 exodus. 



3. The letter, preserved by Josephus, of Areus, 

 king of Sparta, to the high-priest of the Jews, 

 claiming a common descent with the latter from 

 Abraham, and proposing an alliance. It is difficult 

 to explain this claim on any other supposition than 

 that Areus had heard of the tradition mentioned 

 by Diodorus, and, as he and his people traced 

 their descent from Danaus through Hercules, 

 they consequently regarded themselves as sprung 

 from a common stock with the Hebrews. 



I throw out this theory for the consideration 

 of others, having myself neither leisure nor oppor- 

 tunity for pushing the subject any farther ; but 

 still I think that a distinguished statesman and 

 novelist, who amused the world some years ago 

 by endeavouring to trace most of the eminent 

 men of modern times to a Jewish origin, might, 

 with at least as much reason, claim most of the 

 glories of ancient Greece for his favourite people. 



J. S. Warden. 



Skin-flint. — Is the word skin-flint, a miserly or 

 niggardly person, of English or foreign derivation? 

 and where is the earliest instance of the term to 

 be met with ? J. W. 



Garlic Sunday. — The last Sunday of summer 

 has been heretofore a day of great importance with 

 the Irish, as upon it they first tried the new po- 

 tato, and formed an opinion as to the prospects 

 of the future harvest. The day was always called, 

 in the west in particular, " Garlic Sunday," per- 



haps a corruption of Garland Sunday. Can any 



one give the origin of this term, and say when 



first it was introduced ? U. U. 

 Dublin. 



Custom of the Corporation of London. — In the 

 evidence of Mr. Bennoch, given before the Royal 

 Commissioners for inquiring into the corporation 

 of the city of London, he stated that there is, 

 amongst other payments, one of 133Z. "for cloth 

 to the great ministers of state," the city being- 

 bound by an old charter to give a certain amount 

 of cloth annually to them. He subsequently 

 states that this custom is supposed to be connected 

 with the encouragement of the wool manufacture 

 in its early history ; and that four and a half 

 yards of the finest black cloth that the country 

 can produce are annually sent to the First Secre- 

 tary of State, the Second Secretary of State, the 

 Lord Chancellor, the Chamberlain of the House- 

 hold, the Vice-Chancellor of the Household, the 

 Treasurer of the Household, the Lord Steward, 

 the Controller," the Lord Chief Justice of the 

 Queen's Bench, the Lord Chief Justice of the 

 Common Pleas, the Chief Baron of the Exche- 

 quer, the Master of the Bolls, the Recorder of 

 London, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor- 

 General, and the Common Sergeant. 



Can any of the readers of " N. & Q." give a 

 more particular account of this custom ? 



Cervtjs. 



General Stokes. — Can any of your readers give 

 me any information respecting the parentage of 

 General Stokes ? In the historical table of re- 

 markable events in the Jamaica Almanack for 

 1847 it says: "General Stokes, with 1600 men 

 from Nevis, arrived and settled near Port Mo- 

 rant, anno Domini 1655." And in Bryan Ed- 

 wards' work on Jamaica and the West Indies,. 

 mention is made of General Stokes in the follow- 

 ing words : 



" In the month of December, 1655, General Stokes, 

 with 1600 men from Nevis, arrived in Jamaica, and 

 settled near Port Morant. The family of the Morants 

 of Vere (in Jamaica) are the lineal descendants of 

 General Stokes, who took the name of Morant from 

 the port at which he landed. General Stokes was 

 governor of Nevis ; and on his arrival in Jamaica was 

 appointed one of the high commissioners for the 

 Island." 



H. H. M. 



Rev. Philip Morant. — I shall be obliged by 

 any information respecting the lineage of the 

 Rev. Philip Morant, who wrote a History of 

 the County of Essex; and whether he was an 

 ancestor of the Morants of Brockenhurst Park, 

 Hants. He was born at St. Saviour's, in the 

 Isle of Jersey, Oct. 6, 1700; entered, 1717, Pem- 

 broke College, Oxford. He was presented to 



