442 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»a S. IX. June 9. '60. 



rister who wore a full-bottomed wig in court was 

 Mr. Kettleby, who is immortalised in some of the 

 works of Hogarth, another of whose works con- 

 tains the portrait of Speaker Onslow and of 

 several other Members of Parliament, all of whom 

 are in full-bottomed wigs. 



At Clyffe Manor House in Wiltshire, the resi- 

 dence of the present High Sheriff, H. Nelson God- 

 dard, Esq., there is a very fine portrait of one of 

 his ancestors, who was High Sheriff of that 

 county, also wearing a full-bottomed wig and a 

 coat richly laced. In my own home I have 

 u portrait of the celebrated Admiral llussell by 

 Sir Peter Lely wearing a full-bottomed wig over 

 armour : it belonged to my late friend, Mr. Syd- 

 ney Taylor, and was given to me after his death. 

 There was also, and I believe is still, a portrait of 

 Sir Christopher Wren in the rooms of the Royal 

 Society, he being represented as wearing a full- 

 bottomed wig. This wig was introduced by Louis 

 XIV., and brought into England by Charles II. 

 In his reign it was worn by all the nobility, and 

 from these facts I infer that it is the full-dress 

 wig of every English gentleman. 



F. A. Carrington. 



Minor &ate&. 

 Flirt. — No one of our English dictionaries 

 suggests a derivation for this word which seems 

 to me acceptable. Johnson attempts none, merely 

 repeating the dictum of Skinner that it is vox a 

 sono flcia. llichardson suggests that it may be 

 ixvm fleer, " to flee, avoid, or escape from; , fleer, 

 fleered, flirt; but this is unsatisfactory : at least 

 as regards the modern acceptation of the term, 

 in the sense of coquetting, and its accompaniment 

 of pretty speeches. The French have an idiom 

 which expresses the same idea, and seems to me 

 to be the probable origin of our own term. A 

 gentleman in paying his court to a lady is said 

 " conter fleurettes" and of a lady receiving his 

 attention it is said " elle aime la fleurette^ Bes- 

 cherelle, besides its ordinary signification of a 

 "little flower," explains fleurette to mean, " jolie 

 chose, que dit a une femme aimable l'homme que 

 veut lui plaire ; " and in illustration of this sense 

 he quotes Dufresnoy, — 



" Quant un galant bien fait, de bonne mine, 

 Me conte fleurette, croit on 

 Que j'en sois chagrine ! " 



Bescherelle alludes to the fact that both the 

 Romans and Greeks employed a similar figure of 

 speech to express the same agreeable idea, " rosas 

 locjui," and " p65a tlpuv." I cannot find the former 

 in any Latin writer except Erasmus : but in the 

 " Clouds " of Aristophanes, the "ASikos Aoyos, in 

 reply to the taunts of the AIkmios, says ironically, 

 " '?6Sa fi ttp-rtKas ! " You flatter me ! 



J. Emerson Tennent. 



First Book printed in Greenland. — The 

 Athenceum (May 26, 1860) quotes from a Copen- 

 hagen paper as follows : — 



" In the colony of Godthab, in Greenland, a small 

 printing-office and a lithographic pre^s were established 

 last year, and the first-fruits of their labours have been 

 published a short time ago. The title of the first book 

 printed in Greenland is Kalndlit Ohatluktualiallit. It 

 contains a collection of Greeuland popular legends, 

 written in the Greenland idiom, translated into Danish, 

 and printed by Greenlanders. The book is illustrated 

 with ten woodcuts, likewise the work of the natives, who 

 are said to be very clever in mechanical things of the 

 kind. A very interesting and original division of the 

 book is formed by eight Greenland songs, the music ac- 

 companying the words. A second volume is in prospect." 



R. F. Skletchlet. 

 The Sayings and the Doings op Count 

 Cavour. — Walpole said of himself during a 

 portion of his life which was nationally eventful, 

 that he was engaged less in "reading" than in 

 " living" history. With much greater reason may 

 we say so now, and on the critical contemporary 

 history which is so rapidly enacting, I hope you 

 will allow me to register a Note, — not as a par- 

 tizan, but as a student anxious to preserve for 

 himself and others characteristics of. the great 

 actors in such history, which might otherwise be 

 forgotten : — Three months ago, when the idea of 

 the surrender of Savoy and Nice to France was 

 rendering the public mind uneasy, application was 

 made to Count Cavour by men whose anxiety 

 was relieved by that minister's reply, to this 

 effect : that he knew of no intention existing in 

 any party, on the one side to ask, or on the other 

 to consent to, such a surrender. As for himself, 

 he would never agree to such a step, &c. Soon 

 after this, it became public that a treaty had been 

 agreed upon by France and Sardinia for the 

 carrying out of this very arrangement ; and now, 

 in the debate which took place recently in the 

 Sardinian Parliament, I find Count Cavour closing 

 his "apology" for himself by saying: "Gentle- 

 men, I tell you frankly, I am proud of having ad- 

 vised the King to sign this treaty. To free Venice 

 from her chains no new cession of territory will 

 be necessary. Were it proposed, we would refuse 

 it.'" It is of these last words, in Italics, I wish 

 especially to make a Note, that students of contem- 

 porary history may bear the assertion in mind, 

 and watch how performance may agree with 

 promise. John Doran. 



Anj-.mometer. — The incidental etymology of 

 this compound word occurs, 2 Esdras iv. 5. : — 



" Then said he unto me, go thy way, weigh me the 

 weight of the fire, or measure me the blast of the wind, 

 &.c. Then answered I, and said, what man is able to do 

 that?"&c. 



The above passage may have suggested to the 

 scientific mind of Croune, or his more fortunate 

 successor Wolfius, to the former of whom the 



