July 27. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



131 



Bieddied with any snakes which maketh me look so 

 young." — Holy State, 16-12, p. 36. 



" He hath left off o' late to feed on snakes; 

 His beard's turned white again." 



Massinper, Old Law, Act v. Se. 1. 

 " He is your loving brother, sir, and will tell nobody 

 But all he meets, that you have eat a snake. 

 And are grown ymmg, gamesome, and rampant." 

 Ibid, Elder Brother, Act iv. Sc. 4. 



Jarltzberg, 



I/ONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER. 



Mr. Cunningham, in his Handhook of London 

 (2nd edition, p. 540.), has the following passage, 

 under the head of " Westminster Abbey : " 



" Observe. — Effigies in south cloister of several of 

 the early abbots ; large blue stone, uninscribed, (south 

 cloister), marking the grave of Long Meg of Westmin- 

 ster, a noted virago of the reign of Henry VIII." 



This amazon is often alluded to by our old 

 writers. Her life was printed in 1582; and she 

 was the heroine of a play noticed in Henslowe's 

 Diary, under the date February 14, 1594. She 

 also figured in a ballad entered on the Stationers' 

 books in that year. In Holland^ s Leaguer, 163"2, 

 mention is made of a house kept by Long Meg in 

 Southwark: — 



" It was out of the citie, yet in the view of the citie, 

 only divided by a delicate river ; there was many handsome 

 buildings, and many hearty neighbours, yet at the first 

 foundation it was renowned for nothing so much as for 

 the memory of that famous amazon Longa Margarita, 

 who had there for many yeeres kept a famous infamous 

 house of open hospitality." 



According to Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1608, — 

 '■ Long Meg of Westminster kept alwaies twenty 



courtizans in her house, whom, by their pictures, she 



sold to all commers." 



From these extracts the occupation of Long 

 Meg may be readily guessed at. Is it then likely 

 that such a detestable character would have been 

 buried amongst " goodly friars" and " holy abbots" 

 in the cloisters of our venerable abbey? I think 

 not: but I have considerable doubts as to whether 

 Meg was a real per.sonage. — Query. Is she not 

 akin to Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant-killer, Doctor 

 Kat, and a host of others of the same type? 



The stone in question is, I know, on account of 

 its great size, jokingly called " Long JMcg of West- 

 minster" by tiie vulgar; but no one, surely, before 

 Mr. Cunningham, ever .leriously suppo.sed it to be 

 lier burying-])iacc. lienry Iveel'e, in his Monu- 

 menta Wc.stinonasterien.su, lti82, gives the following 

 account of this monument : — 



" That large and stately plain black marble stone 

 (which is vulgarly known by the name of Lony Mrg of 

 Westminaler) on the north side of l.aurcntius theal>lH>t, 

 wus placed there fur O'ervasiiis de litois, another abbot 



of this monastery, who was base son to King Stephen, 

 and by him placed as a monk here, and afterwards 

 made abbot, who died anno 1160, and was buried 

 under this stone, having this distich formerly thereon : 

 " De regntim genere pater hie Gervasius ecce 

 Monstrat defnnctiis, mors rapit omne genus." 



Felix Summerly, in his Llandbooh for Westmin- 

 ster Abbey, p. 29., noticing the cloisters and the 

 effigies of the abbots, says, — 



" Towards this end there lies a large slab of blue mar- 

 ble, which is called 'Long Meg' o. Westminster. Though 

 it is inscribed to Gervasius de Blois, abbot, 1160, 

 natural son of King Stephen, he is said to have been 

 buried under a small stone, and tradition assigns 'Long 

 Meg ' as the gravestone of twenty-six monks, who 

 were carried oft" by the plague in 1349, and buried to- 

 gether in one grave." 



The tradition here recorded may be correct. 

 At any rate, it carries with it more plausibility 

 than that recorded by Mr. Cunningham. 



Edward F. Rimbaclt. 



[Some additional and curious allusions to this pro- 

 bably mythic virago are recorded in Mr. Halliwell's 

 Descriptive Notices of Popular Enylish Histories, printed 

 for the Percy Society.] 



A NOTE 0»T SPELLING. " SANATORV, " CON- 

 NECTION." 



I trust that "Xotes and Queries" niaj% among 

 many other benefits, improve spelling by example 

 as well as precept. Let me make a note on two 

 words that I find in No. 37. : suaato7'y, p. 99., and 

 connection, p. 98. 



AVhy '■'■sanatory laws?" Sanare is to cure, and 

 a curing-place is, if you hke, properly called 

 sanatorium. But the Latin for health is .sanitas, 

 and the laws which relate to health should be called 

 sanitary. 



Analogy leads us to connexion, not connection; 

 plecto, plexus, complexion ; flecto, Jlexus, inflexion; 

 necto, nexus, connexion, &c. ; while the termination 

 ction belongs to words derived from Latin verbs 

 whose passive participles end in ctus : as lego, 

 lectus, collection; injecio, injectus, injection; seco, 

 sectus, section, &c. CH. 



Minor i^aUS. 



Pasquinade on Leo XII. — Tlie Query put to a 

 Pope (Vol. ii., p. 104.), which it is dilhcult to 

 believe could be put orally, reminds nie of Pope 

 Leo XII., who was reported, whether truly or not, 

 to have been the reverse of scrupulous in the earlier 

 part of his life, but was remarkably strict after he 

 became Pope, and was much disliked at Rome, per- 

 hapsbccause, by his maintenance of strictdiscipline, 

 lie abiidged the amusements and (piestionable in- 

 dulgences of tlie people. On account of his death, 



