184 
In the first place, can any of your readers inform 
me by whom a pamphlet, of the Elizabethan period, 
noticed in the Censura Literaria, and entitled 
The Fraternitye of Vagahondes, was reprinted, 
| some years since >—Was it by Machelle Stace, of 
Scot.and Yard, who died a brother of the Charter- 
House ? 
In the second place, can any of your -clerical 
readers tell me where I can find any account of 
| the late Rev. Mr. Genesse, of Bath, author of a 
| History of the Stage, in ten volumes, one of the 
most elaborate and entertaining works ever pub- 
lished, which must have been a labour of love, and 
| the labour of a life ? 
And, in the third and last plaee, I find, in the 
| Bristol Gazette of the early part of last month, the 
following paragraph: — “THe Rep Marps, 120 
in nuinber, enjoyed their annual dinner in honour 
ot the birthday of their great benefactor, Alder- 
man Whitson. ‘he dinner consisted of joints of 
veul (which they only have on this occasion), and 
some dozens of plum puddings. The Mayor and 
Mayoress attended, and were much pleased to 
witness the happy faces of the girls, to whom the 
Mayoress distributed one shilling each.” 
Can any of your curious eontributors give me 
any account of these Red Maids ?—why they 
are so called, &c. &c. ? — and, in fact, of the cha- 
rity in general ? 
It will not be one of the least of the many bene- 
fits of your publication, that, in noticing from 
time to time the real intention of many ancient 
charitable bequests, the purposes of the original 
benevolent founder may be restored to their in- 
tegrity, and the charity devoted to the use of 
those for whom it was intended, and who will 
receive it as a charity, and not, as is too often the 
case, be swallowed up as a mere place, —or worse, 
a sinecure. ARTHUR GRIFFINHOOF, JUN. 
THE NAME OF SHYLOCK. 
Dr. Farmer has stated that Shakspere took the 
name which he has given to one of the leading 
characters in the Merchant of Venice from a pam- 
phlet entitled Caleb She loche, or the Jew's Predic- 
| tion. he date of the pamphlet, however, being 
some years posterior to that of the play, renders 
this origin impossible. Mr, C. Knight, who points 
out this error, adds — “ Scialac was the name of 
a Marionite of Mount Libanus.” 
But “query,” Was not Shylock a preper name 
among the Jews, derived from the designation 
| employed by the patriarch Jacob in predicting 
| the advent of the Messiah — “ until Shiloh come” ? 
(Gen. xlix. 10.) The objection, which might be 
urged, that so sacred a name would not have been 
applied by an ancient Jew to his child, has not 
much weight, when we recolleet that some Chris- 
tians have not shrunk from the blasphemous impo- 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 12. 
sition of the name Emanuel (“God with us”) 
upon their offspring. St. Jerome manifestly reads 
Suitoacn, for he translates it by Qui mittendus 
est. (Lond. Encyc. in voc. **Shiloh.”) Now the 
difference between Shiloach and Shylock is very 
trivial indeed. J shall be very glad to have the 
opinion of some of your numereus and able con- 
tributors on this point. 
But, after all, Shylock may have been a family 
name familiar to the great dramatist. In all my 
researches on the subject of English swrnames, 
however, I have but once met with it as a generic 
distinction. In the Battel Abbey Deeds (penes 
Sir T. Phillipps, Bart.) occurs a power of at- 
torney from John Pesemershe, Esq., to Richard 
Shylok, of Hoo, co. Sussex, and others, to deliver 
seizin of all his lands in Sussex to certain persons 
therein named. ‘The date of this document is 
July 4. 1435. Marx Antony Lower. 
TRANSPOSITION OF LETTERS. 
I should be obliged if any of your readers would 
give me the reason for the transposition of certain 
letters, chiefly, but not exclusively, in proper 
names, which has been effected in the course of 
time. 
The name of our Queen Bertha was, in the 
seventh century, written Beorhte. 
The Duke Brythnoth’s name was frequently 
written Byrthnoth, in the tenth century. 
In Eadweard, we have dropped the a; in Eal- 
dredesgate, the e. In Aedwini, we have dropped 
the first letter (or have sometimes transposed it), 
although, I think, we are wrong; for the given 
name Adwin has existed in my own family for 
several centuries. 
John was always written Jhon till ahout the 
end of the sixteenth century; and in Chaucer’s 
time, the word ¢hird, as every body knows, was 
written thridde, or thrydde. 1 believe that the h 
in Jhon was introduced, as it was in other words 
in German, to give force to the following vowel. 
Certain letters were formerly used in old French 
in like manner, which were dropped upon the 
introduction of accents. B. WituiaMs. 
Hillingdon, Jan. 5. 
PICTURES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES I. IN 
CHURCHES. 
Your correspondent “ R.O.” will find two pic- 
tures of Charles I. of the same allegorical cha- 
racter 2s that described by him in his note (ante, 
p- 137), one on the wall of the stairs leading to 
the north gallery of the church of St. Botolph, 
Bishopsgate, and the other in the hall of the 
law courts in Guildhall Yard. I know nothing 
of the history of the first-mentioned picture; the 
latter, until within a few years, hung on the wall, 
