2 nd S. IX. Mar. 24. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



221 



his " Reception." The Viennese, though severely 

 chastised for their presumption, flocked to con- 

 gratulate his Majesty on the departure of their 

 troublesome friends. Their losses were forgotten, 

 and, buoyed with the hope his Majesty might live 

 to see their army at no distant period restore the 

 empire (though for the present torn) to the former 

 boundary, tbey came to do their homage to their 

 monarch. The court was crowded ; all was gay 

 and brilliant ; impatience to show their loyally to 

 their sovereign was evident in all, and restrained 

 but for a brief space before the Emperor was 

 announced. His Majesty entered ; all strove to 

 obtain a gracious look or smile, but in vain ; un- 

 heeding the salutations he passed with unmoved 

 countenance through the throng of courtiers till 

 he reached his throne ; there, placing his elbow 

 on some convenient resting-place, he covered his 

 face with a white kerchief. Scarcely had the 

 astounded courtiers time to exchange their won- 

 dering thoughts before the ministers arrived and 

 announced the fact that the Emperor Napoleon 

 had demanded the hand of the Arch-Duchess 

 Maria Louisa, and that for " state reasons " his 

 Majesty had thought proper to give his consent to 

 their union. H. Daveney. 



S. Matthias' Day. — The Catholic Church 

 keeps the feast of S. Matthias on the 25th of 

 February when Leap Year happens. In the 

 Calendar prefixed to the Norwich Domesday 

 Book this couplet, 



"Cum bisextus erit: f bra bisnumeretur 

 Posteriori die : celebrabis festum Mathie," 



is written immediately after the 24th of February.* 



ExTRANEBS. 



Jackass. — Is it, or is it not, a thing generally 

 known that the term Jackass, for donkey, has an 

 Eastern origin ? 



When Dr. Wolff, the Bokhara Missionary, was 

 at Mardun in Mesopotamia, he gave great of- 

 fence to some Armenian Roman Catholics, by an 

 accident committed in a fit of absence, and was 

 called in consequence, " Wolff Jakhsh" i.e. Wolff 

 the Jackass. 



Jakhsh is an Arabic word used only in Mesopo- 

 tamia, its root-meaning being, one ivho extends his 

 ears. It is impossible to give the proper pro- 

 nunciation of the word in English letters, but 

 sight, sound, and original moaning confirm the 

 idea that it must be the original of our Jackass. 



Of course I give this account on the authority 

 of Dr. Wolff himself. Margaret Gatty. 



Mottoes used by Regiments. — Some years 

 since I joined a regiment, the pioneers of which 

 had on a scroll of their bear-skin caps the sen- 

 tence " Nee aspera terrenl." Not long before I 

 had been poring over school-books, and I consi- 



[• See our 1st S. v. 58. 115.] 



dered that I recognised the Nee vulnera terrent 

 (JEneid, xi. 643.), but modified by substituting 

 aspera for vulnera, which might be accounted for, 

 the pioneer being a sort of military navvy, rather 

 than a combating soldier. Mixitavi. 



«Etuerto$. 



SIR BERNARD DE GOMME. 

 Sir Bernard de Gomme was perhaps the most 

 eminent engineer in the service of the British 

 crown during the period of the Civil Wars. In 

 Pepys's Diary, under date 1667, March 24, is this 

 entry : — 



" By and by to the Duke of York, where we all met, 

 and there was the King also; and all our discourse was 

 about fortifying of the Medway and Harwich, which is 

 to be entrenched quite round, and Portsmouth : and here 

 they advised with Sir Godfry Lloyd and Sir Bernard de 

 Gunn, the two great Engineers, and had the plates drawn 

 before them." 



To this entry of Pepys the editor has added 

 the following note : — 



" Sir Bernard de Gomme was born at Lille in 1620. 

 When young, he served in the campaigns of Henry Fre- 

 deric, Prince of Orange, and afterwards entered the ser- 

 vice of Charles l 8t , by whom he was knighted. Under 

 Charles 2 nd and James 2 nd , he filled the Offices of Chief 

 Engineer, Quarter-master General, and Surveyor of the 

 Ordnance. He died, November 23, 1685, and is buried in 

 the Tower of London. He first fortified Sheerness, Liver- 

 pool, &c, and he strengthened Portsmouth." 



In The Illustrated London News for 5th Jan. 

 1856, is an examination or critique of the late 

 Mr. E. Warburton's work, entitled Memoirs of 

 Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers. On a passage 

 therein, in which the author congratulates himself 

 and his readers on being able to refer to a plan of 

 the battle of Naseby (fought 14th June, 1645,) 

 "drawn up by Prince Rupert's orders, and found 

 amongst his papers," Sir Frederic Madden makes 

 the following remarks : — 



" The original plan was sold with the collections of 

 Rupert and Fairfax's papers, at Messrs. Sotheby & Co.'s, 

 in June, 1852 (Lot 1443.), and was executed by Sir Ber- 

 nard de Gomme, a Dutch engineer of eminence, who was 

 in the service of Frederic Henry, Prince of Orange; and 

 afterwards, having accompanied Prince Rupert to Eng- 

 land, was knighted by Charles I., and subsequently 

 became Chief Engineer, Quarter-Master General, and 

 Surveyor of the Ordnance, in the reigns of (,'haries 11. and 

 James II. A military plan executed by so eminent an 

 authority, who was contemporary with the event must 

 be admitted to be of considerable interest and value, &c. 

 In the British Museum exists, not only a larger and 

 more carefully coloured drawing of the same plan of the 

 Battle of Naseby, by Sir Bernard de Gomme, but also 

 coloured military plans by the same hand of the Batile 

 of Marston Moor (2nd July, 1644), and the second fight 

 at Newbury (27th October", 1644) ; all drawn of the same 

 size (2 ft. 4 in. by I ft. 8 in.). These plans, with many 

 others by De Gomme, were purchased for the British 

 Museum at the sale of the library of Mr. Gwyn of Ford 

 Abbey, Dorsetshire, in October 1846, and are believed to 



