376 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"'« S. VI. 149., Nov. 6. '5? 



clares, " quod superest indictum mecum commu- 

 tetur in sepulcbrum. I will no longer live, leav- 

 ing my beloved son to finish, by concealment, my 

 firsf, second, and third design mystical." He con- 

 cludes, "In profundis Novae Poi'taj; inlncumiseriae, 

 in luto ffficis." 



The third letter is addressed to Tho. Holly, 

 glazier, at Shcrwin's, Newgate. It is a high- 

 spirited cartel of defiance to the glazier, who had 

 " basely abused" his fellow prisoner, the indignant 

 Coo. "Look to hear from me!" he exclaims; 

 " AVhatsoever you attempt, I will cross it; where 

 you leave me in the lurch, ten to one I shall loose 

 you in the foil." It is dated, with ineffable con- 

 tempt, " Saturday, your Sabbath ! " 



" The threatened live long," says the proverb ; 

 assuredly those who are self-threatened run little 

 risk of committing suicide. Coo outlived the 

 wrath of the glazier, and his own determination 

 to live no longer. He probably even escaped the 

 sorrows of exile. There are no letters from him 

 between 1618 and 1623; whether there are any 

 between 1623 and 1625 will soon be made known 

 to us by Mrs. Green. In 1628 he reappears, and 

 with the jaunty air of a man with whom the new 

 reign agreed better than the old one. 



Under the date of 22 March, 1627-8, there oc- 

 curs a letter, or pamphlet, of twelve pages of small 

 4to, addressed " to the truly Noble and Renowned 

 Spencer Lord Compton, my honourable Lord and 

 ]\]aster, the sole son and heir apparent of William 

 Earl of Northampton." The writer describes 

 himself as "Tho. Coo, Laureate in both Laws, 

 civil and canon, and since a 'studient' in the Inner 

 Temple, now your Honour's officious attendant in 

 Parliament." This paper contains a rhapsodical 

 address, full of affectation and pedantry, founded 

 upon the " admired speech " of King Charles I. to 

 the Parliament of 1628. The evidence of hand- 

 writing and that of style both concur in giving 

 this letter to the Thomas Coo of the reign of 

 James I., although Archbishop Laud in an en- 

 dorsement assigned it to " Laurence Cooe." 



Of the Aimily of Coo one thing only appears in 

 these papers, but that is a circumstance of start- 

 ling significance. The " Laureate of both Laws " 

 makes use, in his letter to Lord Compton, of a 

 " foliate " by William Bendlowes, known in our 

 legal history as having been at one time " the 

 sole Serjeant " existing in the courts. I belie ve in- 

 deed, all hough I cannot at this moment quote an 

 authority, that he was twice " the sole serjeant ; " 

 once in the reign of Mary, and again in that of 

 Elizabeth. This worthy wrote a treatise, De Ori- 

 gine Juris, which was greatly to the taste of 

 Thomas Coo. Amongst other sentences extracted 

 from a part of Bendlowes's treatise, which seems 

 to have been entitled " Bendlowes his Bequest to 

 succeeding Parliaments," is the following : — 



" Insurgente necessitate arnioruni, sit Regium resciin- 

 (um, sit Ruris responsum, univocum ; " 



so, adds Thomas Coo, 



"Shall you maintain thennitj'of the Spirit in the Bond 

 of Peace, proceeding a unico Deo, a duabiis tabulis, a de- 

 cern prajceptis, a Regali ritu, first unto tlie Israelites, 

 then to the Chaldeans, thence to the Grecians, from them 

 to the Romans; thence translated by Lucius Coo, the 

 first Christian King of Albion and England, so-called 

 a Lucem Christi ferendo, where he hath left the Pandects 

 of the Laws, and driven away the dark fogs of Paganism 

 and the false Paynims." 



How the descent was traced from King Lucius 

 to Thos. Coo of the Compter, the Fleet, and New- 

 gate, I must leave to the curious. The docu- 

 ments on which it was founded were doubtless not 

 less genuine, — nor probably not more so, — than 

 the information which the worthy Thomas pre- 

 tended to worm out of his fellow- prisoners. 



There is curiosity and interest in the lives of 

 the men of the Coo class, and I think your readers 

 are indebted to Mb. Kingsley for having brought 

 him before them. I hope he will oblige us far- 

 ther, by giving an account of the other letters of 

 the same person to which he alludes. Whether 

 the writer be " John " or " Thomas," he is evi- 

 dently a bird of the same feather, and (if the pun 

 may be pardoned) coos in the same strain, as the 

 person whom I have introduced to you. 



JouN Beuce, 



P.S. I should add that there are other Coos men- 

 tioned in papers in the State Paper Office of Eliza- 

 beth and James : one, William Coo, clerk, was a 

 tenant of lands at Burgh Castle near Yarmouth, 

 and a John Coo was engaged in a dispute with "Mr. 

 Agas " in 1580. The Calendars of Mr. Lemon 

 and Mrs. Green will direct inquirers to all these. 



5. Upper Gloucester Street. 



" SURCINGLE, AND THE GIRDLE IN GENERAL. 

 (2"* S. vi. .308.) 



Mr. Elmes will find that his derivation of 

 " surcingle" from " succingulum" was anticipated 

 by old Rider in his valuable Dictionary, more than 

 200 years ago ; and repeated by the venerable 

 Ainsworth, who, by the way, spells it "circingle ;" 

 as does Mr. Rarey, the American horse-tamer, in 

 his admirable Taming of Horses. This is evidently 

 a "phonetic" corruption. 



There are two objections to the suggested de- 

 rivation. 1. " Succingulum" = s!<i ... c/nn-wZuw?, 

 implies an ?(?ifZe7--girdle ; whereas the "surcingle" 

 is decidedly an outer-girih going over the saddle, 

 &c. 2. " Sub" or "sue" of the Latin has never 

 collapsed into "sur," which is the eviscerated re- 

 presentative of "super" — for the most part 

 through the French. 



In Richardson's Dictionary the word is referred 

 to " the Italian sopraccinglia." This word is not 

 Italian. The Italian is " sopraccing-/((a." Cinghia 

 is the saddle-girth, and sopraccinghia is the girth 



