92 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"-' S. VI. 135., July 31. '58. 



the Memoirs of Edwnrd Alleyn, by Mr. Collier in 

 1841. I have no doubt that many of your corre- 

 spondents are able to furnish the requisite in- 

 formation. Charles Wylte. 



[The author of this poem was the Rev. John Huckell, 

 who, from the specimens extant of his poetical genius, 

 ought to have found a niche in our biographical dic- 

 tionaries. He was a native of Stratford-upon-Avon, 

 baptized Dec. 29, 1729, and educated at the Free Gram- 

 mar-school of this town. After studying at Oxford, he 

 took orders, and was presented to tlie curacy of llounslow 

 in Middlesex. He died deservedly esteemed and re- 

 gretted, and was buried at Isleworth, Sept. 20, 1771. In 

 the Gtnt. May. for April, 1813, p. 357., is a poem by him, 

 entitled, " An Kpistle to David Garrick, Esq., on his 

 being presented with the Freedom of Stratford-upon- 

 Avon ; and on tlie Jubilee held there to the Memory of 

 Shakspeare in Sept. 1769." See also the Gent. 3Iag. for 

 March, 1813, p. 212.] 



JBunkum. — 



" A diffuse and angry orator having made a somewhat 

 irrational and very unnecessary speech in the House of 

 Eepresentatives at Washington, when nobody thought it 

 worth while to contradict him, was afterwards asked by 

 a friend who met him in Pennsylvania Avenue why be 

 had made such a display .' ' I was not speaking to the 

 House,' he replied; 'I was speaking to Buncombe' — a 

 county or district by the majority of whose votes he had 

 been elected." — Illustrated News for June 26, 1858. 



Where is Buncombe ? and is this the orij^in of 

 the phrase " speaking Bunkum"? 



William Feaser, B.C.L. 



Alton, Staffordshire. • 



[Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, has given 

 the origin of the phrase : " A tedious speaker in Congress 

 being interrupted and told it was no use to go on, for the 

 members wore all leaving the house, replied, ' Never 

 mind ; I'm talking to Buncombe.' Buncombe, in North 

 Carolina, was the place he represented." Judge Halli- 

 burton of Nova Scotia thus explains this expressive 

 word : " All over America every place likes to hear of its 

 members of Congress, and see their speeches ; and if they 

 don't, they send a piece to the paper, inquirin' if their 

 member died a natural death, or was skivered with a 

 bowie knife, for they bante seen his speeches lately, and 

 his friends are anxious to know his fate. Our free and 

 enlightened citizens don't approbate silent members ; it 

 don't seem to tbem as if Squashville, or Punkinsville, or 

 Lumbertown was rightly represented, unless Squashville, 

 or Punkinsville, or Lumbertown, makes itself heard and 

 known, ay, and feared too. So every feller in bounden 

 duty talks, and talks big too, and the smaller the State, 

 the louder, bigger, and fiercer its members talk. Well, 

 when a critter talks for talk sake, jist to have a speech 

 in the paper to send home, and not for any other airthly 

 puppus but electioneering, our folks call it Bunkum. Now 

 the State of Maine is a great place for Bunkum — its 

 members for years threatened to run foul of England, 

 with all steam on, and sink her about the boundary lini; 

 voted a million of dollars, payable in pine logs and spruce 

 boards, up to Bangor mills; and called out a hundred 

 thousand militia (only they never come) to captur a saw 

 mill to New Brunswick. That's Bunkum — all that 

 flourish about Right o' Search was Bunkum — all that 

 brag about hangin' your Canada aheritf was Bunkum — 

 all the speeches about the Caroline, and Creole, and 

 Right of Sarch, was Bunkum. In short, almost all that's 

 said in Congress, in the Colonies (for we set the fashions 



to them, as Paris gals do to our milliners), and all over 

 America, is Bunkum. Slavery speeches are all Bunkum; 

 so are Reform speeches too."] 



Whim-wham. — I had often heard this strange 

 word amon^j those expressions boys will use 

 among theiiiselves in play ; but I find it in such 

 grave company unexpectedly that I am induced 

 to query its meaning. Among the memoranda 

 preserved in the Collectanea Curiosa, i. 385., 

 connected with the trial of the seven bishops, I 

 find directions for their lordsliips' communicating 

 secretly with the archbishop, by delivering their 

 missives to a private friend, to be given into his 

 grace's own hands. Among the rest the Bishop 

 of Ely is desired to send his " to Madam Womock 

 at Elie, in a ivomaii\<i hand, ivith a whim-ivham !" 

 (this last word being followed by a kind of dash 

 of crossed lines), probably means a flourish or ex- 

 travaganza of the pen ; but the origin of the name 

 is worth asking after. A. B. R. 



Belmont. 



[In the passage quoted from the Collectanea Curiosa 

 this word seems to mean a whimsical ornament, or flourish 

 of the pen. Hence we find in Nares's Glos.iary, " Whim- 

 WHASIS. Trinkets, trifles, jvhimsical ornaments. A mere 

 reduplication of whim."'] 



Satyru qua; innci'ihitur Lis. — In the Epistolia, 

 Dialogi Breves, Oratinncula, Poematia, ex variis 

 utriusqua Lingua Scriptoribus of Henricus Ste- 

 phanus (Secundus) 1577, I find the following : — 

 " Inter poematia autem est Satyra elegantissima, 

 quas inscribitur Lis, non prius edita." This 

 satire is the last poem in the book ; it consists of 

 147 lines, and is placed immediately after the 

 Moretum ascribed to Virgil. Can any of your 

 classical coi-respondents give me any information 

 respecting this poem ? C. W. Staunton. 



[This satire is by Michael de I'Hospital, or Hopital, 

 Chancellor of France, and is reprinted in his (Euvres 

 Completes, Paris, 8vo. 1825, vol. iii. p. 113., where it is 

 entitled " Ad Jacobiun Fabmm, Prtesid. Inquis. in senatu 

 Parisiensi. Litium execratio."] 



laepltc^. 



CEANMER's lost book, " DE NON DUCENDA 

 FRATEIA." 



(2""' S. vi. 33.) 



On referring to Jenkyns's Preface to The He- 

 mains of Thomas Cranmer, Oxford, 1833, I find, 

 to the passage quoted in answer to my Query, the 

 following note appended : — 



" Its loss may perhaps have been occasioned by the in- 

 corporation of its arguments into a Summary of the 

 reasons for the divorce, which was published shortly 

 afterwards by the King's printer, Berthelet, with the 

 judgments of the Universities prefixed. The contents of 

 this Summary are described by Burnet, Reformat., vol. i. 

 p. 195. See also Strype, 3Iemorials, vol. i. p. 141. ; Ames, 

 Typogr. Antiq., ed. Dibdin, art. 1133." 



