150 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n'i S. VI. 138., Aug. 21. '58. 



right pugilistic combat, which a newspaper of the 

 day describes as follows : — 



"Friday last the long-talked-of battle between the 

 noted Dick Goodison and Sam Chifney took place. They 

 fought for half an hour extremely well, when victory de- 

 clared for Goodison, who won owing to the superior 

 strength and length of his arms." 



More of these two heroes and the race in ques- 

 tion, perhaps, some readers of " N. & Q." would be 

 so obliging as to supply. S. 



[Very little appears to have been recorded of Samuel 

 Chifney, senior, the celebrated jockey. He died Jan. 8, 

 1807, in the rules of the Fleet Prison, to which he had 

 been confined some years for a small debt. His Genius 

 Genuine was published (1801) chiefly in vindication of 

 his conduct in reference to the two days' races above re- 

 fened to, and contains "A Full Account of the Prince's 

 Horse ^Escape ' running at Newmarket." The work was 

 " sold for the Author, 232. Piccadilly, and nowhere else. 



Price Five pounds." Richard Goodison, commonly 



known as " H — 11 Fire Dick," was by birth a Yorkshire- 

 man, and first distinguished himself on the turf in 1777. 

 He died about the year 1826, near Newmarket, where he 

 cultivated successfully a very extensive farm.] 



Cinna : Panurge. 



" Some think he writes Ciuna, he owns to Panurge." — 

 Goldsmith. 



" Barrfe, in his strong language, spoke of a ' villain, a 

 dirty scoundrel,' who wrote in the service of the govern- 

 ment under the signature of Panurge or Cinna." — Blas- 

 sey's History of England, vol. ii. p. 90. 



Who was the person alluded to by Colonel 

 Barre, of such notoriety that his supposed pre- 

 sence at the feast where " the pasty was not," 

 was held out as a compensation for the loss of 

 Johnson and Burke ? J. H. L. 



[The individual was Dr. James Scott, familiarly called 

 by Goldsmith " Parson Scott." After studying for a 

 short time at Catherine Hall, be migrated to Trinitj' 

 College, Cambridge, and gained three prize medals. In 

 1765, at the suggestion of the Earl of Halifax, he pub- 

 lished some political letters, signed " Anti-Sejanus " in 

 the Public Advertiser. For a short time he was lecturer 

 at Trinity Church, Leeds, but returned to the metropolis, 

 and wrote a variety of political pieces in the public 

 journals under the signature of " Old Slyboots." In 1771, 

 he was presented, thi-ough the interest of Lord Sandwich, 

 to the rectory of Siraonburn, in Northumberland. " I 

 congratulate "the ministrv and the university," writes 

 NichoUs to Gray the poet (April 29, 1771), " on the 

 honour they have both acquired bj' the promotion of 

 Mr. Scott; may there never be wanting such lights of 

 the Church ! and such ornaments of that ftimous seminary 

 of virtue and good learning." During the contest of 

 Lords Sandwich and Hardwicke for the Cambridge High 

 Stewardship, when Scott was busy, as usual, in libelling 

 for his profligate patron, Gray had described the infamous 

 party-hack as hired to do all in his power to provoke 

 people by personal abuse, yet " cannot so much as get 

 himself answered." ( fFbr/js, iv. 34 ; v. 135.) Soon after 

 Dr. Scott's induction to Simonburn, he became involved 

 in litigation with his parishioners ; and a suit which he 

 commeiiced against them in 1774, after having been 

 carried on for twenty years, at an enormous expense on 

 both sides, was at length disposed of by his consenting to 

 relinquish the claim he had set up for the tithe of agist- 



ment, on the defendants imdertaking to pay 2,400/. to- 

 wards the costs which he had incurred. Dr. .Scott died 

 at his house in Somerset Street, Portman Square, on Dec. 

 10, 1814, in the 81st year of his age.] 



Moonshine. — Can any of your readers favour 

 me with the origin, or probable origin, of the 

 term " all moonshine?" A. G. 



["Moonshine" is in old-fashioned and provincial Eng- 

 lish "an illusive shadow," "a mere pretence" (Halliwell, 

 Holloway). The expression, " It is all moonshine," is 

 now variously applied, whether as referring to empty 

 professions, to vain boasts, to promises not trustworthy, 

 to questionable statements, or to any kind of extravagant 

 talk. There exist, in several languages, so many words 

 of lunar connexion, all implying variableness or incon- 

 stancy, that possibly this phrase also, " It is all moon- 

 shine," may have been primarily employed to express 

 some degree of ^cWe/iess, caprice; in allusion to the in- 

 constancy or changeableness of the moon, or rather 

 moonlight. When any one professes or promises great 

 things, which we do not expect to see realised, we say, 

 "It is all moonshine:" for moonshine is very shifty; 

 one week we have it, another we have it not; nay, it 

 shifts from night to night. " Lunes," in old English, are 

 not only fits of insanity, but freaks. And the term "lu- 

 natic " itself did not properly signify a person alwaj's in- 

 sane, but one who was mad at intervals, dependant, as 

 was supposed, on the phases of the moon. This distinction 

 is still very accurately maintained in Spanish philology : 

 " Lunatico. El loco, cuya demencia no es continua, sine 

 por intervalos que proceden del estado en que se halla la 

 Luna." Hence also in French, modern and old : " II a 

 des lunes," he is ivhimsical ov fantastic; " Tenir de la 

 lune," to \iQ inconstant, mutable ; "Avoir vn quartier do 

 la lune en la teste," or " II y a de la lune," he is change- 

 able, giddy, capricious. In the " language of sj'mbols," the 

 moon is the emblem of hypocrisy, as in the following 

 device : 



" La Lune, avec ces mots, 

 Mentiri didicit. 

 (Elle trompe toujours.) 

 Pour Vhypocrisie, dont la Lune est le simbole." 

 Menestrier, Philosophie des Images, vol. i. p. 266. 



Another emblem is the following : 

 " La Lune. 

 Non vultus non color unus. 

 Pour une personne qui n'est pas sincere." — lb. i. 269. 

 " Moonshine," in conformity with these ideas, was i)ro- 

 bably emplo3'ed originally in characterising the talk of 

 persons too mutable to be relied on from one time to 

 another.] 



Bishop Abbot's MS. Commentary on Romans. — 

 Is there not in the Bodleian Library a complete 

 Commentary on the Epistle to the Komans, in 

 MS., by Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury? 

 So says Erasmus Middleton, in his Evangelical 

 Biography., vol. ii. p. 382. Is it not to be re- 

 gretted that such a work by such a man should 

 be lost to the public ? Abhba. 



[The work is in the Bodleian, and consists of four 

 volumes, Nos. 3638— 3641., entitled " Rob. Abbot, Episc. 

 Sarisb. Prajlectiones sacrse in S. Pauli Epistolam ad Ro- 

 manos." It is written in a very clear hand, and filling 

 3692 pages in folio, 21 lines in a page, 8A inches wide. 

 The same library also contains the following MS. : No. 

 8120. "Collections out of Mr. Robert Abbot's Answer to W 

 D. Bishop."] 



