28 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 32. 



be a collar in the form of a serpent ? In the old 

 Roman de Blanchardin is this line : — 

 " Cy guer pison tuit Apoliii." 

 Can Uihjnton again be the place where such an 

 ornament was made ? Ickleton, in Cambridge- 

 shire, appears to have been of some note in former 

 days, as, according to Lewis's Topog. Hist-, a nun- 

 nery was founded there by Henry II., and a mar- 

 ket together with a fair granted by Henry III. 

 As it is only five miles from Linton, it may have 

 formerly borne the name of Ick-linton. C I. R. 



'Td preach as though" (Vol. i., p. 415.). — The 

 lines quoted by Henry Martyn are said by Dr. 

 Jenkyn (Introduction to a little vol. of selections 

 from Ra.xter — Nelson's Puritan Divines) to be 

 Baxter's " own immortal lines." Dr. J. quotes 

 them thus : — 



" I preached as never sure to prencli again. 

 And as a dying man to dying men." 



Ed. S. Jackson. 

 May 18. 



•■' Fools rush in" (Vol. i., p. -348.) — The line 

 in Pope, 



" For fools rush in where angels fear to tread," 

 it has been long ago pointed out, is founded upon 

 that of Shakspeare, 



" For wrens make wing where eagles dare not perch." 

 I know not why that line of Pope is in your corre- 

 spondent's list. It is not a proverb. C. E. 



Allusion in Friar Bracklej/s Sermon (Vol. i., 

 p. 351.). — It seems vain to inquire who the per- 

 sons were of whom stories were told in medieval 

 books, as if they were really historical. See 

 tlie Gesta Romanorum, for instance : or consider 

 who the Greek king Aulix was, having dealings 

 with the king of Syria, in the 7th Story of the 

 Novella Avtiche. The passage in the sermon 

 about a Greek king seems plainly to be still 

 part of the extract from the Liber Decalogonim, 

 being in Latin. This book was perhaps the 

 Dialogi decern, put into print at Cologne in XATl : 



Brunet. 



C. B. 



Earwig (Vol. i., p. 38-3.). — This insect is very 

 destructive to the petals of some kinds of delicate 

 flowers. May it not have acquired the title of 

 "couchbell" from its habit of couching or conceal- 

 ing itself for rest at night and security from small 

 birds, of which it is a favourite food, in the pendent 

 blossoms of bell-shaped flowers? This habit is 

 often fatal to it in the gardens of cottagei's, who 

 entrap it by means of a lobster's claw suspended 

 on an upright stick. S. S. S. 



Earwig (A^ol. i., p. 383.). —In the North of 

 England the earwig is called twitchhell. I know 



not whether your correspondent is in error as to 

 its being called in Scotland the "coach-bell." I 

 cannot afford any explanation to either of these 

 names. G. Bouchieb Richardson. 



Sir R. Haigh's Letter-hooh (Vol. i., p. 463.).— 

 This is incorrect ; no such person is known. 

 The baronet intended is Sir Roger Brads- 

 haigh, of Haigh ; a very well-known person, 

 whose funeral sermon was preached by Wroe, 

 the warden of Manchester Collegiate Church, 

 locally I'emembered as " silver-mouthed Wroe." 



This name is correctly given in Puttlck and 

 Simpson's Catalogue of a Miscellaneous Sale on 

 April 15, and it is to be hoped that Sir Roger's 

 collection of letters, ranging from 1662 to 1676, 

 may have fallen into the hands of the noble earl 

 who represents him, the present proprietor of 

 Haigh. Chethamensis. 



Marescautia (Vol. i. p. 94). — Your correspon- 

 dent requests some information as to the meaning 

 of the word " marescautia." Mureschaucie, in old 

 French, means a stable. Pasquier (Recherches de 

 la France, 1. viii. ch 2.) snys, — 



" Pausaniasdisoit que .Mark apud Celtas signifioit un 

 cheual . . . . je vous diray qu'en ancien langage alle- 

 niant Mark se prenoit pour un cheual." 



In ch. 54. he refers to another etymology of 

 " marechal," from " maire," or " maistre," and 

 " cheval," •' comnie si on les eust voulu ilire maistre 

 de la cheualerie." "jNIarechal" still signifies "a 

 farrier." Marechaussee was the term applied 

 down to the Revolution to the jurisdiction of Nos- 

 seigneurs les Marechaux de France, whose orders 

 were enforced by a company of horse that pa- 

 trolled the highways, la chaussee, generally raised 

 above the level of the surrounding country. 

 Froissart applies the term to the Marshalsea pri- 

 son in London. In D. S.'s first entry there may, 

 perhaps, be some allusion to another meaning of 

 the word, namely, that of " march, limit, bound- 

 ary. 



What the nature of the tenure per serjentinm 

 marescautia} may be I am not prepured to say. 

 May it not have had some reference to the sup- 

 port of the roj'al stud ? J. B. D. 



Memoirs of an American Lady (Vol. i., p. 335.). 

 — If this work cannot now be got it is a great 

 pity, — it ought to go down to posterit}' ; a more 

 vala.able or interesting account of a particular 

 state of society now quite extinct, can hardly be 

 fo\ind. Instead of saying that " it is the work of 

 Mrs. Grant, the author of this and that," I should 

 s.ay of her other books that they were written by 

 the author of the Memoirs of an American Lady. 

 The character of the individual lady, her way of 

 keeping house on a large scale, the state of the 

 domestic slaves, threatened, as the only known 

 punishment and most terrible to them, with being 



