24, Victoria Grove, Chelsea, S. W.

"PRÆFERVIDUM INGENIUM SCOTORUM" (3rd S. vii. 11, 102). This phrase is an amusing instance of the vitality of a misquotation. In the 'General Demands concerning the Covenant' (Edinburgh, 1638, p. 8) we read :

"That famous and most learned Doctour Rivetus, in a late Treatise called 'Jesuita Vapulans,' speaking of the judgement of Buchanan and others who taught that Subjects might take armes against their Prince......pro

fesseth......that the rashnesse of these writers is to be ascribed partly to the hard and perilous times of persecution wherein they lived, and partly 'Scotorum præfervido ingenio."

This passage seems to have misled Sir Thomas Urquhart, who in his "Tracts' (Edinburgh, 1777, p. 134) assigns the phrase to Rivetus. Dr. Joseph Robertson (Delicia Literariæ,' Edinburgh, 1840, p. 154) cites Sir Thomas Urquhart as his authority for a similar statement. And MR. WILLIAM BATES (N. & Q.,' as above) quotes Dr. Joseph Robertson to the same effect. But the phrase in its received form does not occur in Rivetus. I extract the passage from the Jesuita Vapulans' (Lugd. Bat., 1635, p. 275):—

PARK (7th S. viii. 427).—Sir Henry Ellis, in his 'General Introduction to Domesday Book,' after citing some laws of King Canute and Edward the Confessor, says :—

"These Laws, it is probable, gave rise to the Parks,

which we find entered in the Survey; some of which were of considerable extent. The persons who are enumerated as holding Parks, beside the King, are the Bishop of Baieux, the Earl of Ow, Earl Roger, the Bishop of Winchester, Ernulf de Hesding, Hugh de Grentemaisnil, Peter de Valongies, Walter Giffard, Urso, Roger de Laci, the Countess Judith, Hugh de Belcamp, Suein of Essex, the Earl of Moretaine, Robert Malet, and Robert Blund. The usual term is Parcus,' Parcus bestium siluaticarum,' or 'Parcus ferarum siluaticarum.' The Monastery of St. Alban's seems to have had a Park in the Vill adjoining. Stow in his 'Annals and Sir William Dugdale in his Hist. of Warwickshire' appear to have been misled by John Ross into the opinion that the Park of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, said to have been made by King Henry the First, was the earliest in England" (vol. i. p. 113, London, 1833).

"Bestium" for Bestiarum.

Kelham, in his 'Domesday Book Illustrated,' London, 1788, has these entries :

"Parc' bestiis. A Park of beasts."

Parcus bestiarum silvaticarum. A park of beasts for the forest."

Parcus ferarum. A park of deer."

"Parchu'. A park."

"Parchi e'pi. Of the park of the Bishop."

The use of the word in Domesday thus appears to be the same as at present. W. E. BUCKLEY.

If MR. RADFORD examines the Domesday Book he will find that the term "park," parcus, does occur in that record, but not very frequently. But he will also find that the sense in which it is used is not that of "a demesne or pleasaunce surrounding a mansion "—an entirely modern idea, very remote from the mind of any Saxon or Norman owner at Donyatt or elsewhere-but of a tract of land, chiefly forest or brushwood, enclosed with fences, and devoted to animals of the chase, for the recreation of the owner in hunting. It was a principle of English law, recognized from the time of Canute downwards, that while the forest proper belonged to the Crown, freeholders had the right of sport in their own lands, which when enclosed beCame a park, a word derived from the Celtic parwg, Anglo-Saxon pearroc, an enclosure (cf. the modern paddock). As Sir Henry Ellis tells us ('Introduction to Domesday,' p. xxxv) this survey contains mention of some parks of considerable extent, among the holders being the King, the Bishops of Winchester and Bayeux, the Earls of Eu and Mortain, the Countess Judith, Walter Giffard, &c. Their titles, "parcus bestiarum sylvaticarum" or parcus ferarum," show their purpose. As Domesday proves, parks were known certainly soon after the Conquest, probably before. Stow and Dugdale are, therefore, in error in asserting that Woodstock, constituted a park by Henry I., was the EDMUND VENABLES. earliest in England.

RUNES (7th S. viii. 389, 475).—The only notable book on runic inscriptions written by an Englishman is that of G. Stephens, 'The Old Northern Runic Monuments,' 1868-84. But the value of it depends merely upon the splendid illustrations; in scientific respects it is now overstepped by the masterly researches of the Danish scholar Wimmer, whose latest great work ('Runeskroftens Oprindelse og Udvikling i Norden,' 1874, second edition, 'Die Runenschrift,' 1887, written in German) gives a final statement of the subject.

The earliest runic inscription known is a Gothic one, written on a spearhead that was found at Kowel, in Wolhynia (Russia); it dates from the beginning of the migration of people, at the end of the fourth century A.D. But the runes must have been known to the Goths before that time, as their Bishop Ulfilas, in the middle of the fourth century, used some of the runic letters for the compiling

being otherwise than natural. As to pigeon's blood, so far from such blood being regarded as of evil portent, both in England and France it was constantly used in folk-medicine. For example, some drops of pigeon's blood let fall from under the wing of a young pigeon would cure, it was said, a wounded eye, if they fell upon the wound. I forbear to give other examples of the medical use of pigeons, as they may be found in every collection of folk-lore. What, therefore, I take to be the facts are: (1) that pigeons flying near a person were supposed to indicate approaching death; (2) that the stain on the bust of Charles I. acquired significance from the association of ideas familiar among civilized, as well as savage peoples, which linked mystically a person and his bust or his picture. I doubt if pigeon's blood were ever regarded as unlucky; or that, except among personal adherents of the Stuarts (if even among them), the "proverb had any common acceptance. It is so desirable to be accurate in matter of folk-lore, and to prevent, if possible, fictitious folk-lore getting mixed up with genuine, that I trust some one may be able to settle the question raised in 'N. & Q.'

WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK.

1, Alfred Terrace, Glasgow. The pigeon is always a sinister bird in folk-lore. It is a common superstition that no one can die happy on a bed of pigeons' feathers, and for the bird to settle on a chimney portends death.

C. C. B.

THE FORMATION OF COMPOUND WORDS (7th S. viii. 448). Some time ago I had a practical difficulty with regard to these. I wanted to order a butter-knife by wire, and the compound word was charged as two words. In answer to an expostulation I was informed that no word not found in Nuttall's or Webster's 'Dictionary' is accepted by the Post Office as a single word. According to this rule butterknife is not one word, though butter-print is; barn-door is one, house-door is (or are) two. This seems somewhat arbitrary; and why should the words cited by B. L. R. C. be more 66 provincial" than butter-print or barn-door? Some of them are certainly necessary. Thus in Lancashire bread-loaf is distinguished from bun-loaf and plum-loaf. Plum-loaf, by the way, is not in the dictionaries, but plum-cake is. I can only suppose the reason to be that the natural tendency to multiply such compounds would soon swamp the dictionaries were not a line drawn somewhere. But where? That, apparently, depends somewhat upon the taste and fancy" of the dictionarymakers, for they certainly are not all agreed.

C. C. B. PIGS SEEING THE WIND (7th S. viii. 367, 457). That pigs can see the wind-in particular the east wind-is a notion pretty general in the

Midlands. The belief is current here. In the villages near Derby this was a common idea many years ago, and perhaps is so now, and the villagers always said that the reason why the pigs ran squealing when the wind blew in their faces was because the wind appeared to them as long streaks of fire. At any rate pigs do run before a strong wind, a fact to which probably many can testify. THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

HUMAN LEATHER (7th S. vii. 326, 433; viii. 77, 131, 252, 353, 437).—Will you allow me to add my mite to what has been written in your columns about human leather? I think none of your learned contributors has quoted the following passage of Sir Walter Scott:

"Cressingham was killed in the very beginning of the battle [of Stirling], and the Scots detested him so much that they flayed the skin from his dead body, and kept pieces of it in memory of the revenge they had taken upon the English treasurer" (Tales of a Grandfather,' chap. vii.).

If this is not "legendary lore," it shows that the process of flaying men (dead men, at least) was not quite unknown to the Scots of the thirteenth century. I remember having seen, some twentyfive years ago, in a museum at Basle (Switzerland), a long piece of skin placed by itself in a case with a glass lid. Of course the guide said it was a human skin complete, and explained why and when it had been flayed, and how it came to the said museum; but I have forgotten everything except the fact of having seen, but not touched it.

DNARGEL.

I am inclined to doubt whether human skin can be used for gloves or shoe-leather, as stated by one of your correspondents. Herewith are enclosed two pieces for you to see; the thick piece is taken from the back, the thin from the chest. It was removed too thinly to be of much use, and at the same time is very rotten. A much larger piece I have given to a friend, who has had a book bound with it. He would be pleased to show it to any of your readers who would care to see it.

E. C. F.

In the Times of 22nd and 27th September, "HUMANITY" MARTIN (7th S. viii. 427, 478). 1884, your correspondent will find two letters about the Martins. One of these was written by Lieut.-General Fraser; the other by Miss Harriet Martin, a daughter of "Colonel" Richard by his second marriage. In the latter I think it is stated that he was first married at the age of twentythree, in his father's lifetime. His only son, the issue of that marriage, died in 1847-48, aged fifty-five, so that he was born in 1792-3-say a year after his parents' marriage. This calculation would fix the date of his birth in 1769–70. Y. S. M.

FOLK-LORE (7th S. viii. 464).-I think it was "a rule in olden times" that the squire should be communicated first, then the gentry, and the poor folk last, but in this form an unwritten rule. The rubric in the Book of Common Prayer says that bishops, priests, and deacons are to receive first, and then "the people in order," which last words are held to mean according to some rule of precedence. Some churches now have a rule, men first, then women. Nearly thirty years ago I spent a school holiday at a farm-house on the Yorkshire wolds. The squire was just dead, and on the first Sunday after the funeral nobody stirred out of his place in church, at the end of mattins, until the late squire's footman had gone to the empty family pew and made believe to let somebody out. It was a ghostly proceeding which I have never forgotten. W. C. B.

"TO STAY AT HOME IS BEST" (7th S. viii. 447). -In answer to E. S. E., the lines quoted are by Longfellow, but only two verses are given, omitting the last as follows:

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest,
The bird is safest in its nest;

O'er all that flutter their wings and fly,
A hawk is hovering in the sky;

To stay at home is best.

Some months since I sent you the stanza, and in the accompanying notice I made allusion to the Latin epitaph on the tomb of Jane Wren, the only daughter of Sir Christopher Wren, on her tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral, in which the word domiseda occurs (a stayer at home), but I cannot supply the date of it. W. CHAFFERS.

From a song in 'Birds of Passage,' by H. W. Longfellow ("Albion " edition of 'Poems,' p. 492). EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M. A.

ARMS (7th S. viii. 427).-Change the tinctures, and they are the bearings of the Scottish name Cathcart. GEORGE ANGUS.

St. Andrews, N.B.

BLACK CAP WORN BY A JUDGE (7th S. viii. 449). -The costume of judges has undergone so many changes that it is difficult in a few words to give an answer respecting even a small portion of it. That which is now called the black cap is said to have originated in the old custom of the judge, when pronouncing sentence of death, taking off his black cornered cap and drawing up the black or violet hood from behind, and so covering the close white silk coif always worn beneath the cornered cap. The cap appears to have been taken off and the black or violet hood drawn on to add solemnity to this particular office, and perhaps also to veil the emotions of the judge.

The regulations for the apparel of judges, issued in 1635, are printed in Dugdale's 'Originales.' It

is ordered that

"the judges in term time are to sit at Westminster in their black or violet gowns, whither they will, and a hood of the same colour put over their heads, and their mantles above all, the ends of their hood hanging over behind, wearing their velvet caps and coifs of lawn, and cornered caps.'

There is much confusion of terms in the various descriptions that have come down to us, and an artist suddenly called upon to depict accurately any legal dignitary of a period before the middle of the seventeenth century would find he had a difficult subject. It seems that black coifs were worn in the time of Elizabeth over white ones, and black ones only in the time of Charles II. These latter are now represented by the black patch on the top of the wig. ALBERT HARTSHORNE. In Chaucer's 'Shipman's Tale' is this passage:To Seint Denys i-come is daun Johan

With croune and berd al freisch and newe i-schave; and in Robert Bell's edition, revised by Prof. Skeat (London, 1878), from which the above text is taken, I find the following note:

"It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remind the reader that all clerks used to shave the crown of the head, a remnant of which custom may be observed in the form of the wigs of our judges, who in the Middle Ages were generally clerks. This tonsure on the crown of his wig the judge, in passing sentence of death, covers with a black cap, not to give additional solemnity to the occasion, as some suppose, but to show that for the time he lays aside his clerical office, it being against the primitive canons for a churchman to have anything to do with the death of a fellow creature."

This note, having passed under the revision of Prof. Skeat, is worthy of careful attention, though no authority is given. J. R. GILLESPIE.

15, Stratford Grove, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

This cap is part of the judge's full dress. The judges wore their black caps annually on November 9, when the Lord Mayor was presented in the Court of Exchequer. Covering the head was a sign of mourning among the Israelites, Greeks, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons; and see 2 Samuel XV. 30. G. W. BURTON.

Lee Park, Blackheath.

COLUMN ON CALAIS PIER (7th S. viii. 206, 352, 417, 473).-No one, à propos of this matter, has yet called attention to the fact that not only the column on Calais Pier, but also Calais Pier itself, and the whole town of Calais, are henceforth out of reach of the British tourist, unless he delays his journey and makes a detour for the purpose of visiting them. Until last year 1889, and especially until ten or fifteen years ago, when the railway was brought to the water's edge, you could always spend a few hours pleasantly at Calais while waiting for the express to Paris, or to Brussels, or to Basle. You strolled up the pier, past the column, through the Hogarth Gate (until they pulled it down), and across the wide marketplace, to the "old grey tower of Calais Church," in