200 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"-J S. IX. Mar. 17. '60. 



bearing the name of our Ladie of Muswell .... The 

 place taketh the name of the Well and of the hill, Mouse- 

 well hill, for there is on the hil a spring of fair water . . . 

 There was sometime an image of the ladie of Muswell, 

 whereunto was a continual resort, in the wa3 r of pyl- 

 grimage." (Norden, Spec. Brit. 1593, Part I., p. 36.) 



Now from the connexion which existed between the 

 nunnery at Clerkenwell and the chapel at Muswell, may 

 we not suspect something of an analogy in the etymo- 

 logies of Muswell and Clerkenwell? Clerkenwell, we 

 know, was originally the " Clerks' Well." Jordan Briset 

 presented a plot of ground, whereon to build the monas- 

 tery of Clerkenwell, " adjoining the Clerks' Well." 

 (Cromwell's Clerkenwell, 1828, p. 45.) But Muswell 

 chapel, as shown above, also owed its name to its well. 

 Add to this, the Clerkenwell nunnery was known as the 

 " Priory of St. Mary" and the church appertaining 

 thereto as the "Ecclesia Beat<e Maria: ;" while, as we 

 have already seen, the chapel at Muswell bore the name 

 of " our Ladie," who also had an image there, much re- 

 sorted to by pilgrims. Such being the affinity existing 

 between Clerkenwell and Muswell, as Clerkenwell is 

 "Clerken Well," or "Clerks' Well," what is Muswell? 



Mouesville, a small place in Normandy, was also called 

 Monesville (Expilly) ; and Monesville, one would be in- 

 clined to think (though unfortunately upon this subject 

 Valesius gives us no information), was Moinesville, i. e. 

 Villa Munachorum or Monkstown. Was Muswell, then, 

 Monges- welle, or Monks-well, monge being an old form for 

 moine, a monk ? Or could it be Monicas-ivell, i. e. Nuns- 

 well, relating to the Clerkenwell nunnery of which it was 

 an appendage? Or, lastly, viewing Our Lady, who had 

 an image at Muswell, as Our Saviour's Mother, could it 

 be Moers-wcll (Modors-ivell, or Mothers-well) ? Mner is 

 an old vernacular Dutch form of Moeder, Modor, or Mother. 



Taking into consideration all the circumstances, this 

 last conjecture is perhaps on the whole the least impro- 

 bable. But, till we can ascertain the primitive ortho- 

 graphy of Mousewell or Muswell, all must be speculation. 

 In a Computus, temp. Hen. VIII., the name stands 

 " Mossewell" (Dugdale, ed. 1823, vol. ii. p. 87.), but at 

 p. 86., " Musswell."'] 



Plutarch. — Can you assist me to the source 

 of the remark relative to Plutarch's Lives being 

 " the book for those who can nobly think, and 

 dare, and do?" S. L. 



[The passage occurs in Smith's Greek and Roman Bio- 

 graphy, iii. 420.: " Plutarch's work is and will remain, in 

 spite of all the fault that can b° found with it by plodding 

 collectors of facts, and small critics, the book of those who 

 can nobly think, and dare, and do."] 



Fonda. — What is the etymology of this Spanish 

 ord ? I presume it is from the Basque ? 



F. R. S. S. A. 

 [There are several words of the same family : Romance, 

 Fonda, a pocket; Ital. Fonda, a purse; French (though 

 not to be found in all Fr. Dictionaries), Fontes, holsters; 

 and Spanish, Fonda, now Honda. All these are connected 

 with the Lat. Funda, which the learned derive from the 



Gr. S^et'Soyij. 



Honda (a sling) is in Basque Ubalaria, aballa.] 



Plate. — What is the derivation of the woi'd 

 plate, as applied to articles made of silver, such as 

 spoons, forks, &c. ? J. W. Bryans. 



[The Spanish for silver is plata ; for a plate, plato ; for 

 plate, plata labrada (wrought silver). We think that we 

 ■ire indebted for the word plate, in the sense indi- 



\Y 



cated by our correspondent, to the Sp. plata, silver. la 

 one or two instances we translate plata, silver, by plate. 

 Thus, to the Rio de la Plata (or River of Silver), so 

 called from the great amount of silver which came from 

 the parts adjoining, we have given the name of River of 

 Plate. Of. " Port of Plate " (St. Domingo). The Gr. 

 irAaTvs appears to be the source of all words of this family, 

 English, Spanish, French, German, &c] 



Dogs. — Who wrote the following lines ? 



" So when two dags are fighting in the streets, 

 With a third dog one of the two dogs meets ; 

 With angry tooth he bites him to the bone, 

 And this dog smarts for what that dog has done." 



They occur in a note to the Pursuits of Litera- 

 ture (p. 324.), and the author (Mathias) quotes 

 them as "from a celebrated poet, a great observer 

 of human nature." Charles Wylie. 



[These lines will be found in 77ie Tragedy of Tragedies ; 

 or, the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great [by Heury 

 Fielding], 8vo. 1751, Act I. at the end of Sc. 5.] " 



ULtpliti. 



"PRUGIT." 



(2 nd S. ix. 4. 55.) 



In Merkel's edition of the Lex Alamanuorum 

 (Pertz, Mnn. Germ. Hist. Legum, torn. iii. fasc. 1. 

 p. 168.), the law in question stands thus : — 



" Si quis bissontem, bubalum, vel ccrvum qui prugit, 

 furaverit aut Occident, 12 solidos componat." 



The various readings for prugit are, rugit, 

 brugit, burgit, pringit, and prigit; with the gloss 

 bramit in one manuscript. The right reading is 

 rugit, as Ducange has remarked, Gloss, in v. 

 rugire. The sense is, " a stag which ruts," as 

 distinguished from those male animals of the deer 

 tribe which do not rut. The rutting deer are 

 those of the larger species, and therefore " cervus 

 qui rugit" is equivalent to " a large stag." Prof. 

 Owen informs me that the male roe utters .so 

 feeble a bleat during its brief season of rut as 

 'not to be regarded as the technical rut of the 

 foresters ; this property is restricted to the loud 

 and hoarse bellow of the hart and the grunt of 

 the buck. 



The distinction between the larger and smaller 

 deer, founded upon this property, receives illus- 

 tration from the passage of the Lombard laws 

 cited by Ducange : — 



" Si quis cervum domesticum qui tempore suo rugire 

 solet, intricaverit, componat domino ejus solidos xii. ; 

 nam si furatus fuerit, reddat in octogilt. 



" Si quis cervum domesticum alienum qui non rugit, 

 intricaverit, componat domino ejus solidos vi. ; nam si 

 furatus fuerit, reddat in octogilt."— (i. 19. 13. art. 320, 

 321., ed. Canciani.) 



The effect of these enactments is, that if any- 

 one traps a tame stag, which has the property of 

 rutting, he is to pay a composition of 12 solidi ; 



