44 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 33. 



1. He has erred in adopting the spelling of 

 Holdsworth's name (viz. Holsvvorth) which ap- 

 pears in the title-page of The Valley of Vision. 

 2. This work is very incorrectly styled "the ser- 

 mon," inasmuch as it consists of twenty-one 

 sermons. 3. My copy bears date 1661, not 1651. 



4. If Holdsworth's hand was " legible only to him- 

 self," we may sincerely commiserate the misfor- 

 tune of his nephew, Dr. Richard Pearson, who 

 had to prepare for the press 737 folio pages of 

 his Praelectiones Theologicie, &c. : Load. 1661. 



5. There is not the smallest reason for thinking 

 it " probable" that Dean Holdsworth " preached 

 other men's sermons." Respecting our great 

 Caroline divines it would seldom have been right 

 to say — 



" Quos ( Harpy iarum more) 

 Convectare juvat praedas, et vivere rapto." 



Now, as to what Dr. Holdsworth really wrote, 

 and with regard to that for which he is not re- 

 sponsible, it is to be observed, that he was so 

 averse to the publication of any of his works, that 

 he printed but a single sermon, (on Psalm cxllv. 

 15.), and that not until he had been three times 

 urged to the task by his royal master King 

 Charles I. The pagination of this discourse is 

 quite distinct from that of the twenty unauthentic 

 sermons which follow it in the quarto volume, and 

 which commence at signature b. These are tlius 

 described by Dr. Pearson, ad Lectorem : " Ceeterro 

 qua3 prostant Anglice venales, a prssdone illo 

 stenographico tam lacerai et elumbes, tarn niisere 

 deforniatffi sunt, ut parum aut nihil agmiseas 

 genii et spiritus Holdsworthiani." R. G. 



Gookin {Yo\.\., pp 385,473, 492.).— Vincent 

 Gookin was nominated by Cromwell one of the 

 six representatives of Ireland in the Barebones 

 Parliament ; and he was returned for Bandon and 

 Kinsale (which together sent one member) in 

 each of the three subsequent Cromwellian Parlia- 

 ments. 



Lord Orrery, writing to the Duke of Ormond, 

 June 15, 1666, speaks of Captain Robert Gooking 

 as one of the chief persons in the west of Cork 

 county, and describes him as rich and having good 

 brains, loyal, and ready to fight against French or 

 Irish, as every thing he has depends on his new 

 title. (Orrery's State Letters, ii. p. 13. Dublin 

 edition.) A little further on (p. 43.), Lord 

 Orrery names the same Robert Gooking as re- 

 commended by the chief gentlemen in the west 

 of Cork to be captain of a troop of horse in the 

 militia. CH. 



"Crosier" (Vol. i., p. 485.), "5'ocA-," " Tickr — 1 

 well remember the phrase, "brozier my dame," sig- 

 nifying to " eat her out of house and home." I had 

 forgotten that a boy at Eton was a " brozier," 



when he had spent all his pocket-money. As a 

 supplemental note, however, to Lord Braybrooke's 

 remarks upon this latter signification, I would re- 

 mind old Etonians of a request that would some- 

 times slip out from one in a " broziered " state, 

 viz. that a schoolfellow would sock him, i. e. treat 

 him to sock at the pastrycook's : and this favour 

 was not unfrequently granted ow tick, i. e. on credit 

 with the purveyor of sweets. 



In reply to your noble correspondent's Query, 

 I beg to say that Halliwell, in his Dictionary of 

 Archaic and Provincial Words, both spells and de- 

 fines thus : " Brosier. A bankrupt. Chesh." Mr. 

 H. says no more ; but this seems to decide that the 

 word does not exclusively belong to Eton. I 

 could have fancied that on such classic ground it 

 might possibly have sprung from ftpuaKu, fut. -aa, 

 to devour. 



Is sock only a corruption of stick, indicating a 

 lollipop origin ? or what is its I'eal etymological 

 root ? 



Richardson most satisfactorily says, that to " go 

 on tick" is to give a note or ticket instead of pay- 

 ment. Alfred Gattt. 



Ecclesfield, May 27. 1850. 



This Eton phrase, the meaning of which is very 

 correctly explained by Lord Braybrooke (Vol. i., 

 p. 485.), appears to be connected with the Cheshire 

 provincialism, which is thus interpreted in Wilbi-a- 

 ham's Cheshire Glossai-y: — 



" ' Brosier, s. a bankrupt.' It is often used by boys 

 at play, when one of them has nothing further to stake.'' 



The noun brosier, as Mr. Wilbraham indicates, 

 seems to be derived from the old word brose, or, 

 as we now say, bruise. A brosier would therefore 

 mean a broken-down man, and therefore a bank- 

 rupt. The verb to brosier, as used at Eton, would 

 easily be formed from the substantive. In the 

 mediaeval Latin, ruptura and rvptus were used to 

 signify bankruptcy and a bankrupt. See Ducange, 

 Gloss, in vv, Etoniensis. 



The word brozier, or (as I always heard it 

 pronounced) brosier, does not, or did not exclu- 

 sively belong to Eton. It was current at Hackney 

 School, an establishment formerly on the site of 

 the present Infant Orphan Asylum, and had the 

 precise meaning attributed to it by Lord Bray- 

 brooke. It was used both as a verb and as a sub- 

 stantive, but of its origin and etymology I am 

 ignorant. The last master of Hackney School 

 was the Rev. Dr. Heathcote, who died, I believe, 

 about 1820. The schoolhouse was a very large 

 and a very old building. May I take this oppor- 

 tunity of asking if anything is known of its his- 

 tory ? There was a tradition prevalent among the 

 boys, that it had been an hospital in the time of 

 the Plague. 



I recollect there was another singular word 



