APRIL 6. 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
369 
account of the family of Calverley, of Calverley, in | 
Yorkshire, an autograph of Ralph Thoresby in 
the year 1717, in which occurs the following pas- 
sage :— 
« Roger, so named from the Archbishop” (of York), 
“was a person of renowned hospitality, since, at this 
day, the obsolete known tune of Roger a Calverley is 
referred to him, who, according to the custom of those 
times, kept his minstredls, from that their office named 
harpers, which became a family, and possessed lands 
till late years in and about Calverley, called to this day | 
Harpersroids and Harper’s Spring. ... .« He was a 
knight, and lived in the time of K. Richard Ist. His 
seal, appended to one of his charters, is large, with a 
chevalier on horseback.” 
W. Catvertey TREVELYAN. 
DERIVATION OF “NEWS.” 
It is not declared with what motive “ Mr. Gutcu” 
(No. 17. p. 270.) has laid before the readers of 
“Notes anp Queries” the alleged derivation of 
N.E. W.S. 
It must therefore be supposed, that his object 
was to have its justness and probability contmented 
upon; and it is quite time that they should be so, 
since the derivation in question has of late become 
quite a favourite authoritative dictum with ety- 
mology compilers. Thus it may be found, in the 
very words and form adopted by your correspon- 
dent, in Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates, and in other 
authorities of equal weight. 
This sort of initial-letter derivation was pro- 
bably brought into fashion in England by the 
alleged origin of “Cabal,” or perhaps by the 
many guesses at the much disputed word “ Aira.” 
I shall take the liberty of quoting a few sentences 
with reference to such etymologies, as a class, 
which I find in an unpublished manuscript upon a 
kindred subject. 
“« Besides, such a splitting up of a word of significant 
and perfect meaning in itself is always a bad and sus- 
picious mode of derivation. 
“It is generally an after-thought, suggested by some 
fortuitous or fancied coincidence, the appropriateness 
of which is by no means a sufficient proof of proba- 
bility. 
“ Of this there can scarcely be a better example than 
the English word ‘news, which, notwithstanding the 
felicity of its supposed derivation from the four ear- 
dinal points, must, nevertheless, so long as the corre- 
sponding words ‘nova,’ ‘nouvelles,’ &¢, exist, be con- 
signed to its more sober and common-place origin in 
the adjective ‘new.’” 
To this it must be added that the ancient or- 
thography of the word newes, completely upsets the 
derivation Mr. Gutch has brought before your 
readers. Hone quotes from “ one Burton, printed 
in 1614: ‘if any one read now-a-days, it is a play- 
hook, or a pamphlet of newes.” 
I had been in two minds whether or not to send 
this communication, when the scale is completely 
turned by the apropos occurrence of a corro- 
boration of this latter objection in “ Norrs anp 
Queries” of this day. Mr. Rimbault mentions 
(at p. 277.), “a rare black letter volume entitled 
Newes from Scotland, 1591.” 
Here is one more proof of the usefulness of your 
publication, that Iam thus enabled to strengthen 
| the illustration of a totally different subject by the 
incidental authority of a fellow correspondent. 
A. E.B. 
Leeds, March 1850. 
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES. 
Swot is, as the querist supposes, a military 
cant term, and a sufliciently vulgar one too. It 
originated at that great slang-manufactory for the 
| army, the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. You 
may depend upon the following account of it, 
which I had many years ago from the late Thomas 
Leybourne, F.R.S., Senior Professor of Mathe- 
matics in that college 
One of the Professors, Dr. William Wallace, in 
addition to his being a Scotchman, had a bald 
head, and an exceedingly “ broad Scotch” accent, 
besides a not very delicate discrimination in the 
choice of his English terms relating to social life. 
It happened on one hot summer’s day, nearly half 
a century ago, that he had been teaching a class, 
and had worked himself into a considerable effu- 
sion from the skin. He took out his handkerchief, 
rubbed his head and forehead violently, and ex- 
claimed in his Perthshire dialect, —“ Jt maks one 
swot.” This was a God-send to the “ gentlemen 
cadets,” wishing to achieve a notoriety as wits and 
slangsters ; and mathematics generally ever after 
became swof, and mathematicians swots. I have 
often heard it said :—‘“ I never could do swot well, 
Sir ;” and “ these dull fellows, the swots, can talk 
of nothing but triangles and equations.” 
I should have thought that the sheer disgusting- 
ness of the idea would have shut the word out of 
the vocabularies of English gentlemen. It remains 
nevertheless a standard term in the vocabulary of 
an English soldier. It is well, at all events, that 
future ages should know its etymology. 
T.S. D. 
Pokership, (anté, pp. 185. 218. 269. 282. 323, 
324.) —I am sorry to see that no progress has yet 
been made towards a satisfactory explanation of 
this oflice. Iwas in hopes that something better 
than mere conjecture would have been supplied 
from the peculiar facilities of “T. R. FE.” 
“W. H. C.” (p. 823.) has done little more than 
refer to the same instruments as had been already 
adverted to by me in p. 269., with the new read- 
