154 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 10. 
Biron. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. 
King. What ? 
Biron. That you three fools lacked me fool, to make 
up the mess ; 
He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I, 
Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. 
O! dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. 
Dumain. Now the number is even. 
Biron. True, true; we are four. 
Love's Labour’s Lost. Act. IV. Scene 3, 
« Avarice is the mother; she bryngs forth bribe- 
taking, and bribe-taking perverting of judgement: 
there lackes a forth thinge to make upp the Messe.” — 
Latimer’s Fifth Sermon. Roserr Snow. 
[Our correspondent furnishes the earliest instance 
yet recorded of a proverbial saying which Nanes has 
explained in his Glossary, as arising from the custom 
of arranging the guests at dinners and great feasts in 
companies of four, which were called Messes, and were 
served together; from which the word Mess came to 
mean a set of four in a general way, in which sense it 
occurs in the title-page of a vocabulary published in 
London in 1617, “Janua linguarum quadrilinguis, or a 
Messe of tongues, Latine, English, French,and Spanish :” 
the editor of which, in his address to the English reader, 
says, there being already three languages he translated 
them into French ‘“‘to make up the Messe.” 
Coffee.—“ 1637. There came in my tyme to 
the College, Oxford, one Nathaniel Conopios, out 
of Greece. He was the first I ever saw drink 
coffee, which custom came not into England till 
thirty years after.” — Evelyn's Diary. 
To endeavour oneself.—P. C. 8. S. begs leave 
to observe, in answer to the question of G. P. in 
the eighth number, that the use of the verb “ en- 
deavour” which G. P. cites, is also to be found in 
Shakspeare’s Twelfth Night, Act IV. Sc. 2.:— 
“ Malvolio, Malvolio, thy wits the Heavens restore’! 
endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble- 
babble.” 
Countess of Pembroke’s Letter.— With reference 
to Mr. Cunningham’s third query in your second 
number, I beg to refer him to p. 294. of Nicholson 
and Burn’s History of Cumberland, 4to, London, 
1727, and to Martin’s History of Thetford, Ato. 
1779, p. 292*, where he will find some allusion to 
the Countess Anne and Sir J. Williamson ; and 
it is possible that the Original Letter from the 
Countess my be amongst the MSS. which Sir 
J. Williamson gave to the Library of Queen’s 
College, Oxford. The letter is quoted in Collins’ 
Peerage, 5th edition, 1779, but Zhe World was 
printed in 1768. J. B. 
Peal of Bells.—I believe many persons are at 
a loss to know what is meant by a Peal; but I 
think, with the kind assistance of a ringing friend, 
I am able to answer Mr. Gatty’s question, pub- 
lished in your eighth number. ‘The term is ge- 
nerally applied to any ringing of bells together, 
no matter whether of ten minutes or ten hours 
duration. Bells are first raised, either singly, or 
in peal (that is, in ringing order) ; they may then 
be set or not, as the ringers please, or rung in 
changes or round ringing, and then ceased by 
setting or falling, and then would end a peal in 
common parlance. But the term is known and used 
by all scientific ringers for a performance of above 
5000 changes ; any portion of changes under that 
number is called either a short or long touch, in 
some places a piece of ringing, by others a flourish 
on the bells, &e. 
While on the subject of bells, I beg leave to ask 
your correspondent ‘‘Crpaas” whether the ring- 
ing he speaks of in his letter as bemg so common 
in his locality in this month of December, is gene- 
rally known by the name he gives it— Advent 
Bells ? H. T. Exuacomse. 
Bitton, Dec. 27th. 1849. 
Dowts of Holy Scripture. — The hook of the 
Dowts of Holy Scryptur, concerning which Buri- 
gensts has asked for information, seems to have 
been a copy of the Liber Questionum Veteris et 
Novi Testamenti, formerly ascribed to §, Augustin. 
R. G. 
Weeping Crosse. — Can any of your correspond- 
ents explain the origin of the figure contained in 
the following passage, or refer me to a similar use 
of it? It occurs in Florio’s Translation of Mon- 
taigne, book iii. ch, 5. 
« Few men have wedded their sweethearts, their 
paramours, or mistresses, but have come home by 
Weeping Crosse, and ere long repented their bargain.” 
G. H.B. 
[Nares tells us, on the authority of Howell’s En- 
glish Proverbs, p. 36. — 
‘© He that goes out with often losse, 
At last comes home by Weeping Crosse,” 
that to return by Weeping Cross was a proverbial ex- 
pression for deeply lamenting an undertaking, founded 
on a quibbling allusion to certain places so designated, 
where penitents are supposed formerly to have more 
particularly offered their devotions. There remain 
three places which still bear the name of Weeping 
Cross; one between Oxford and Banbury, another 
very near Stafford, where the road turns off to Walsall, 
and a third near Shrewsbury. | 
QUERIES. 
THE BOOK OF THE MOUSETRAF. 
Query for the Curators of the Bodleian. 
In that very singular and caustic book JI Vo- 
cabolario Cateriniano of Girolamo Gigli (which was 
suppressed by a papal bull, and the author banished 
forty miles from Rome by a decree of the pope, 
dated the 21st August, 1717), at fo. cciij. is the 
following curious passage : — 
«“ The Florentines have, better than the inhabitants 
