2 oJ S. iX. Feb. 18. 'CO.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



125 



and patrons of the beaux-arts that this nation has 

 produced ; and I am the more induced to con- 

 tinue this search, that I may promote the inquiry 

 of your correspondent (2 nd S. ix. 64.) concerning 

 the society of English dilettanti, now I fear in de- 

 cadence, if not extinct. Mr. Lyde Browne col- 

 lected, at his villa at Wimbledon, such a variety 

 of splendid objects of virtu as were never before 

 seen in this country, and which were described in 

 a quarto pamphlet which he published, entitled, 

 Catalogo dei Marmi, eccetera, del Sign. Lyde 

 Browne, Londra, 1779. 



I should feel much indebted to any correspon- 

 dent of " N. & Q." who would favour me with an 

 account, or direct me to a memoir of this distin- 

 guished connoisseur ; and to inform me what be- 

 came of his collection ? I may add that I have 

 understood that several eminent characters were 

 members of the associated dilettanti, and that the 

 Duchess (Georgiana) of Devonshire (ob. 180G) 

 was a principal patroness of the Society. When 

 Mr. Lyde Browne's villa became vacant, either by 

 his decease or removal, it was taken and occupied 

 for a long period by the Bight Hon. Henry Dun- 

 das (Viscount Melville, 1802). Amateur. 



Tumbrel. — The punishment of the tumbrel 

 for dishonest tradesmen, more especially of brew- 

 ers, was one of the privileges claimed by lords of 

 manors during the mediaeval period of English 

 history. When was it discontinued? I do not 

 allude to the ducking-stool which was continued 

 as a punishment for scolds to the early part of the 

 present century. M. P. Todd. 



William Pitt's Portrait. — I have been told 

 by a gentleman (who forgets his authority) that 

 the only picture in the Louvre at Paris painted 

 by an Englishman, is a portrait of the celebrated 

 William Pitt, painted by the late John Hoppner, 

 R.A. If any of your numerous correspondents 

 could verify this statement, I should feel truly 

 obliged, as I have a particular wish to know if 

 such is the case. Lau. A. Pratt. 



Camden House, Islington. 



Arms (2 nd S. ix. 80.) — The Query should be, 

 what family bears the following arms : — " Argent 

 between 2 bars gules, six martlets sable, 3, 2, and 

 1 ? " I have searched Gwillim and Edmondson in 

 vain. C. J. Robinson. 



<hxxtxiti toftf) <&n&totTi. 



Old Welsh Chronicles. — In Sharon Turner's 

 History of the Anglo-Saxons (iii. 465.) is the fol- 

 lowing statement : — 



" The Red Book of Hengest is still in the library of 

 Jesus College at Oxford — a parchment in fol. It con- 

 tains three Welsh Chronicles, a Welsh Grammar, and 

 some Welsh romances." 



Of Saxon and English chronicles wc have 



plenty ; but of Welsh not one, I think, has yet 

 been Englished and printed. Gildas was indeed 

 a Welshman, as was Geoffrey of Monmouth ; but 

 one is too curt, and the other too doubtful to be 

 of much use to a student anxious to know the 

 state of our ancient British Church before the 

 first aggi-ession upon it in 596. 



I am not a Welshman, and a visit to Oxford 

 would, therefore, be of no use ; but I beg to ask 

 any of your learned correspondents for such in- 

 formation as they may be in a position to furnish, 

 relative to the real age and contents of the three 

 Welsh chronicles mentioned by Mr. Turner. 



After Rome had gradually changed the dogma 

 and form of our ancient British Church, the chro- 

 niclers — the Papal I mean — very naturally noted 

 only such facts as touched the Papal pole, and in 

 such way as most to favour it. There is, too, not 

 a little ground to suspect that, from 596 to 1170, 

 Welsh MSS. were caught up and destroyed, in 

 order to darken the history of our ancient Church. 

 There is too much proof of this. If, then, the 

 above chronicles are valuable, information of the 

 fact will oblige Anglofidius. 



Bath. 



[A full description of the contents of this "Codex 

 dmbro-Britannus membranaceus" is printed in the Rev. 

 H. O. Coxe's valuable Catalogue of the MSS. m the Col- 

 leges at Oxford, vol. ii., Jesus College, art. cxi. The Red 

 Book of Hengest is of the fourteenth century, and con- 

 tains, besides poems, the prose romances known as the 

 Mabinogion, and which were so admirably edited a few 

 years since by Lady Charlotte Guest. The only Welsh 

 documents that have as yet been published are the His- 

 torical Triads, translated by the late Mr. Parry, editor of 

 the Cambio-Briton, and contained in that publication, 

 and likewise by Mr. William Probert, of Alnwick, in his 

 Laws of Howell the Good, Historical Triads, §-c. Much 

 pertaining to the religious system of the ancient Britons 

 will also be found in the Appendix to Edward Williams's 

 Poems, whence the late Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the author 

 of Ancient Wiltshire, §T., drew his information. Consult 

 also Rees's Welsh Saints,8vn. 1836, and Williams's Eccle- 

 siastical Antiquities of the Cymry, 8vo. 1844.] 



" Gumption." — Can any of the readers of " ST. 

 & Q." inform me of the derivation of this common 

 word ? Merrick Chrtostom, M.A. 



[The few lexicographers, who insert the word "gump- 

 tion" at all, note it as "vulgar." Many words, it is 

 true, have been vulgarised by use ; but they are gentle- 

 men who have seen better days; and the antecedents of 

 some of them are highly respectable. The proposed de- 

 rivations of gumption are various. Gumption has been 

 derived from the A.-S. gymene, care. That will hardly 

 do. Next, "complio" has a good claim. Comptus is 

 smart (in respect to dress). Comptio is mediajval, in 

 form akin to comptus. Could it be shown (but here is 

 the difficulty) that comptio ever signified smartness, we 

 should feel little hesitation in presenting comptio as the 

 origin of gumption. 



We referred the question to an eminent etymological 

 friend, who suggests that "<7nm;)<ious," which he deems 

 the immediate origin of gumption, and in its proper sense 

 allied to gumption in meaning, is merely a modified form 

 of the Latin adjective consents (used in the sense of the 



