212 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 72. 



McjjTt'r^ to iHtnor caurric^. 



William Chilcott (Vol. iii., pp. 38. 73.). —The 

 few notes vvlikh follow are very imich at. the ser- 

 vice of your corresi)on(lent. William Chilcott, 

 M.A., was rector of St. George' .s, Exeter, where he 

 died on May 30, 1711, at the age of forty-eight. 

 The coat of ai ms on the tablet to his memory indi- 

 cates that he married a Coplestone. His daugh- 

 ter Catherine died in August, 1695. The first 

 edition of the Practical Treatise concernivg Evil 

 Thnughts was printed at Exeter in 1690, and was 

 dedicated to his parishioners. Robert Chilcott, 

 whom I take to be the brother of William, was 

 rector of St. Mary-Major in E.Keter, and dieil 

 Feb. 7, 1689. 



There does not appear to be any evidence that 

 the persons above mentioned were descended from 

 the Chilcotts of Tiverton, though the identity of 

 the Christian names renders it probable. If the 

 object were to trace their ancestors or their de- 

 scendants, much might be added to the suggestions 

 of E. A. D. by searching the registers at Tiverton, 

 and by comparing Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 

 1810, p. 213., and Polwhele's Devon, vol. iii. p. 351., 

 with Harding's Tiverton; in various parts of which 

 eight or nine individuals of the name are men- 

 tioned; especially vol. i. book ii. p. 114.; vol. ii. 

 book iii. pp. 101, 102. 167. 183., and book iv., 

 p. 20., where the connexion of the Chilcotts with 

 tiie lamilies of Blundell, Hooper, Collamore, Cross- 

 ing, Slee, and Hill, is set forth. Tailing these, the 

 object might be attained by reference to the regis- 

 ters at Stogumber, co. Somerset, and of Northam, 

 near Bideford, with the inscribed floorstones in the 

 church there. Something might perhaps be learned 

 of their descendants by reference to the registers 

 at Exeter, and those "at Morchard-Bifhop, where 

 a John Chilcott resided in 1700; Nympton St. 

 George, where a family of the same name lived 

 about 1740; North Molton, where C. Chilcott was 

 vicar in 1786 ; and Dean Prior, where Joseph 

 Chilcott was vicar about 1830. A IMr. Thomas 

 Chilcott, who was an organist at Bath, married 

 Aim, daughter of the Rev. Chichester Wrey. 

 This lady died in 1758, and was buried at Tavis- 

 tock, near Barnstaple. The coat of arms on the 

 tablet to her memory is almost identical with the 

 coat of the Rev. William Chilcott of Exeter first 

 above mentioned. J- 1^- S. 



Fossil Elk of Ireland (V«\. iii , p. 121.).— In the 

 Edinburgh Journal of Science, New Series, vol. ii., 

 1830, p. 301., is a curious paper by the late Dr. 

 Hibbert Ware, under the title of" Additional Con- 

 tributions towards the History of the Cerviis Eury- 

 ceros, or Fossil Elk of Ireland." It is illustrated 

 with a copy of an engraving of an animal which 

 Dr. H.W. believes to have been the same as the 

 Irish elk, and which was living in Prussia at the 

 time of the publication of the book from which it 



is taken, viz. the Cosmographia Universalis of 

 Sebastian Munster : Basilite, 1550. 



Dr. H. W. in this paper refers to a former one 

 in the third volume of the first series of the same 

 journal, in which he advanced proofs that the 

 Cervus was of a race which had but very recently 

 become extinct. W. C. Tbevelyan. 



Edinburgh, Feb. 19. 1851. 



Canes Lesos (Vol. iii., p. 141.). — In a note to 

 Beckwith's edition of Blount's Jocular Tenures, 4to. 

 ' 1815, p. 225., Mr. Allan of Darlington anticijiates 

 your correspondent C. W. B., and says, respect- 

 ing Blount's explanation of " Canes lesos,'' " 1 can 

 meet with no such word in this sense : why may 

 it not be dogs that have received some hurt? Icesos 

 from hedo." Clancturam slioidd be clausturam, 

 and so it is given in the above edition, and ex- 

 plained " a tax for fencing." S. W. Singer. 



''''By Hook or' by CroolC (Vol. iii., p 116.). — 

 However unimaginative the worthy Cit may be for 

 whose explanation of this popular phrase J. D. S. 

 has made himself answerable, the solution 

 sounds so pretty, that to save its obtaining further 

 credence, more than your well-timed note is 

 needed. I with safety can contradict it, fori find 

 that " Tusser," a Norfolk man living in the reign 

 of Henry VIH., in a ])0om wiiich he wrote as a 

 couii)lete monthly guide and adviser for the farmer 

 through the year, but which was not published till 

 1590, in the thirty-second year of Queen Eliza- 

 beth, has the following advice for March 30 : 



" Of mastiiies and mongrels, that many we ste 

 .4 number of ihnus;iiRls, to many there be : 

 Watch thoefoie in Lent, to thy sbeepe go and looke. 

 Fur dogs will have vittels, by hooke and by crooke." 



This must be a Norfolk phrase; for in January he 

 advises farmers po>sessing " Hollands," rich grass 

 lands, to only keep ewes that bear twins, " twin- 

 lins." Blowen. 



This appears as a well-known proverbial expres- 

 sion long l)efore the time pointed out by J. D. S. 

 Tiius, in Devout Contemplations, by Fr. Ch. de 

 Fonseca, Englished by J. M , London, 1629, we 

 read that the Devil 



" Overthroweth monasteries ; through sloth and 

 idleness soliciiing religious men to be negligent in 

 coming to C'huich, careless in preaching, and loose in 

 their lives. In the marriage bed he soweth tares, 

 treacherits, and lightr.ess. AVith noildly men he 

 persuadetli that lie is nobody that is not rich, and 

 therefore, iie it by hooke or by criio/ie, by light or wrong, 

 he would liave them gi t to be wealthv." 



\Y. D— N. 



Suem. — Allow me to suggest to your corre- | 

 spondents C.AV.G. (Vol iii., p. 7.) and A. (Vol. iii., 

 p. 75.), that svcni is probably a form of the 

 A.-S. word seam, a horse-load, and generally a ■ 

 burden. For cognates, see Boswortli's A.-S. Diet. 



