98 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd S. IX. Feb. 11. '60. 



is there named porridge. But this is, I apprehend, 

 not the right etymon, and the English form is the 

 more correct one. In Richardson's Dictionary, 

 the first sense of scotch, is, "to strike," and I 

 think it is rightly derived from A.-S. scytan, to 

 shoot or throw out. In Scotland and Ireland, to 

 scutch flax, is by beating to drive off the ligneous 

 part of the stalk ; and in Ireland there is a mode 

 of threshing wheat called scutching, which is per- 

 formed by striking the head of the sheaf against a 

 piece of timber, so as to drive out the largest and 

 best grains. "Hop-scotch," then, I take to be 

 hop and drive out : — 



" A right description of our sport, my Lord." 



The other jeu de merelle is as plainly our 

 " noughts and crosses," &c. — the Irish " tip-top- 

 castle." In a former number of " N. & Q." I have 

 endeavoured to show that it was a favourite game 

 in the days of Augustus, and now we have the 

 testimony of M. Chabaille that it formed the re- 

 creation of " lords and ladies gay" in the Middle 

 Ages. So much indeed, he says, was it in vogue, 

 that " merel mestrait, c'est-a-dire un coup maljoue," 

 was a common saying. As to the cause of the 

 name merelle being given to two games of such 

 opposite characters, it was most probably the cir- 

 cumstance of the division into beds being common 

 to both. It has sometimes struck me that merrils, 

 the counters, &c, being the object in view, may 

 be the origin of the name of marbles, — which never 

 were made of the carbonate of lime so called. 



But there is one thing very strange about this 

 game of merelle, &c. It is probably more than 

 two thousand, nay, may be more than three thou- 

 sand years old, and has consequently been played 

 by myriads, perhaps millions of people ; and yet 

 there is a very simple rule or principle, the pos- 

 sessor of which is infallibly certain of winning 

 every game : when, consequently, there is an end 

 of all interest and pleasure. When I was a boy — 

 and that's some years ago — it was discovered and 

 communicated to me by a peasant-boy with whom 

 I was playing at "tip-top-castle." Now surely it 

 is hardly within the limits of possibility that so 

 simple a principle should not have been discovered 

 over and over again, times without number ; and 

 in that case, how could the game have continued 

 to exist ? It would indeed be wonderful, if what 

 had eluded the men and the women of centuries 

 and centuries, should have been detected by an 

 Irish cow-boy ; " No better doe him call." 



While I am on the subject of my boyish days, I 

 must notice another game at which I used to play. 

 It was called " cat," and was cricket in effect, only 

 that, instead of wickets, there were holes, and in- 

 stead of a ball, a shuttle-shaped piece of wood : in 

 all other respects, it was played precisely like 

 cricket. My father's gardener was the instructor 

 in it of myself and the sons of our workmen, with 

 whom I used to play it. I have never seen or heard 



of it anywhere else, either in England or in Ire- 

 land; but I remember, about five-and-twenty 

 years ago, meeting with a very clear allusion to 

 it, and by its name of " cat," in an old play, I 

 think Woman beware of Women. 



Thos. Keightj.ey. 



PRINTERS' MARKS, EMBLEMS, AND MOTTOES. 



I have often thought, and now venture to ex- 

 press my thought in " N. & Q." (which indeed is 

 its proper and best vehicle), that it would be an 

 acceptable service to many young readers who 

 love books, and who now and then ride their little 

 hobby-horses as small collectors of old books, if 

 some of your correspondents, who are more versed 

 in book- lore, would explain some of the pictorial 

 and emblematical marks, and the mottoes, &c. of 

 the printers and publishers of the olden time, 

 and their relation (if any) to the printers &c. 

 themselves. 



I have met with many that have puzzled, and 

 some that puzzle me still, though I have been a 

 reader and small collector for nearly seventy 

 years. I am sure, therefore, that young readers 

 would be thankful for the explanations suggested. 



May I be allowed to mention a fevr of those 

 emblems ? If so, I will begin with the well- 

 known mark of the celebrated Stephens family, as 

 my — 



No. 1. It consists of a man in ample drapery, 

 who stands beneath, and points up with his right 

 hand to a tree, branched, from which some 

 broken boughs have fallen and others are falling, 

 and to which last the figure is pointing with his 

 left hand. In the tree are some round balls 

 resting on the branches, but none on those fallen 

 down : and all these balls seem to be bound with 

 a single band, which crosses itself. A scroll pro- 

 ceeds from the tree bearing the words " noli 

 altvm sapere ; " to which, as I have read, was 

 sometimes added "sed time." 



This emblem, as used by Robert Stephens, in 

 his edition of Pagnini's Liber Psalmorum Davidis, 

 12 mo. m.d.lvi., differs from that used by his 

 brother Henry Stephens, in Beza's Novum Testa- 

 mentum, to., anno m.dlxv, and other his printed 

 works ; — in the former's having the mark of a 

 double cross rising out of a small object like an 

 oval stone on the ground ; which may be his own 

 private mark, and is not found in his brother's 

 mark. 



No. 2. — I find on the back of the last leaf of 

 my copy of Justinian's Institutes in Latin and 

 Greek, being a small thick quarto of 977 pages, 

 having the colophon "Basilea? in officina Henrichi 

 Petri. Anno m.d.xliiii. Mense Martio." This 

 emblem represents a sharp rocky pinnacle rising 

 from between two lower rocks. On the right 

 hand of the observer a draped hand proceeds out 



