Nov. 16. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



405 



iBinav iiateS. 



Quin's incoherent Story. — The comic story of 

 Sir Gammer Vans (Vol. ii., p. 280.) reminds me 

 of an anecdote related of Quin, who is said to have 

 betted Foote a wager that he would speak some 

 nonsense which Foote could nut repeat off-hand 

 after him. Quin then produced the following 

 string of incoherences : — 



" So she went into the garden to pick a cabbage 

 leaf, to make an apple-pie of ; and a she-bear, coming 

 up the street, put her head into the shop, and said, 

 ' Do you sell any soap ? ' So she died, and he very 

 imprudently married the barber ; and the powder fell 

 out of the counsellor's wig, and poor Mrs. Mackay's 

 puddings were quite entirely spoilt ; and there were 

 present the Garnelics, and the Gohlilies, and the Pic- 

 ninnies, and the Great Pangendrum himself, with the 

 little round button at top, and they played at the an- 

 cient game of ' Catch who catdi can,' till the gun- 

 powder ran out of the heels of their boots." 



L. 



Touchstone's Dial. — Mr. Knight, in a note on 

 As You Like It, gives us the description of a dial 

 presented to him by a friend who had picked it 

 " out of a deal of old iron," and which he supposes 

 to be such a one as the " fool i* the forest " drew 

 from his poke, and looked on with lacklustre eye. 

 It is very probable that this species of chronometer 

 is still in common use in the sister kingdom ; for 

 my brother mentions to me that, when at school 

 in Ireland some fifteen or sixteen years since, he 

 had seen one of those " ring-dials " in the posses- 

 sion of one of his schoolfellows: and Mr. Carleton, 

 in his amusing Traits and Stories of the Ii'ish 

 Peasantry, thus describes them : — 



" The ring-dial was the hedge-schoolmaster's next 

 best substitute for a watcli. As it is possible that a 

 great number of our readers may never have heard of 

 — much less seen one, we shall in a word or two 

 describe it — nothing indeed could be more simple. It 

 was a bright brass ring, about three quarters of an inch 

 broad, and two inches and a half in diameter. There 

 was a small liole in it, which, when held opposite the sun, 

 admitted the light against the inside of the ring behind. 

 On this were marked thL- hours and the quarters, and 

 the time was known by observing the hour or the qnar- 

 ler on which the slender ray, that came in from the 

 hole in front, fell." 



J.M.B. 



America and Turtary. — 



" Un j^suite rencontra en Tartarie une femme 

 huronne qu'il aToit conimc au Canada- il conclut de 

 cette etrange avcniure, (jue le continent de rAmeritjue 

 te rapproclie au nonl-ouest du coEitincnt de I'Asie, et 

 il devina ainsi I'txistence du detroit (|ul, longtemps 

 apres, a fait la gloire de Hiring et de Cook." — 

 Chateaubriand, Ginie du Christianisme, Partie 4., 

 Livre 4., ('hap. I. 



Yet, with all deference to the edifying letters of 



this missionary Jesuit, it is difficult to make such 

 distant ends meet. It almost requires a copula 

 like that of the fool, who, to reconcile his lord's 

 assertion that he had with a single bullet shot a 

 deer in the ear and the hind foot, explained that 

 the deer was scratching his ear at the time with 

 his foot. 



Subjoined is one more proof of the communica- 

 tion whieli once existed between America and the 

 Old World : 



" Colomb disoit meme avoir vu les restes des 

 fourneaux de Salomon dans les mines de Cibao." — 

 Chateaubriand, Genie, Notes, §-c. 



Manleius. 



A Deck of Cards. — 



" The king was slily finger'd from the deck." 



Henry VI., pt. iii. Act v. Sc. 1. 



It is well known, and properly noteil, that a 

 pack of cards was formerly called a deck; but it 

 should be added that the term is still commonly 

 used in Ireland, and from being made use of in 

 the famed song of " De Night before Larry was 

 stretched," 



" De deck being called for dey play'd» 

 Till Larry found one of dem cheated," 



it seems likely to be preserved. I may add, that 

 many words and many forms of expression which 

 have gone out of vogue in England, or have 

 become provincial, are still in daily use in Ireland. 



J. M. B. 



Time when Herodotus wrote. — The following 

 j>assage appears to me to afford strong evidence, 

 not only that Herodotus did not complete his his- 

 tory till an advanced age, but that he did not 

 begin it. For in lib. i. 5. he writes : "to Se iir' 



ifJLOV ^v fieyaXa, irpSr^pov ■^v cr/JUKpa.," " those cities, 



whicb in my time were great, were of old small." 

 This is certainly such an expression as none but 

 a man advanced in years could have used. It 

 is perhaps worth observing, that this passage oc- 

 curring in the Introduction does not diminish its 

 weight, as the events recorded in it, leading na- 

 turally into the history, could not well have been 

 written afterwards. As I have never seen this 

 passage noticed with this view, I shall be glad to 

 see whether the argument which I have deduced 

 from it appears a reasonable one to your classical 

 readers. A. W. H. 



" Dat veniam corcis," SfC. — There were two head- 

 masters of the school of' Merchant Taylors, of the 

 respective names of Du Gard and Stevens : the 

 former having printed Salmasius' Defensio Regia, 

 was ejected by Lord President Bradshaw ; and the 

 latter held the vacant post in the interim, finirn 

 February to Sejitember, 1650. He wrote during 

 his tenure of oIKce in the " School Probation- 

 Book," — 



