Things that minister shadow

To the Editor

When Were Umbrellas Introduced into England?

homas Coryat, in his Crudities, vol. i, p. 134 gives us a curious notice of the early use of the umbrella in Italy. Speaking of fans, he says:--

"These fans are of a mean price, for a man may buy one of the fairest of them for so much money as countervaileth one English groat. Also many of them (the Italians) do carry other fine things of a far greater price, that will cost at the least a ducat, which they commonly call in the Italian tongue umbrellaes, that is, things that minister shadow unto them for shelter against the scorching heat of the sun. These are made of leather something answerable to the form of a little canopy, and hooped in the inside with diverse little wooden hoops that extend the umbrella in a pretty large compass. They are used especially by horsemen, who carry them in their hands when they ride, fastening the end of the handle upon one of their thighs: and they impart so long a shadow unto them, that it keepeth the heat of the sun from the upper parts of their bodies."

Lt.-Col. (afterwards Gen.) Wolfe, writing from Paris, in the year 1752, says:--

"The people here use umbrellas in hot weather to defend them from the sun, and something of the same kind to secure them from snow and rain. I wonder a practise so useful is not introduced in England, (where there are such frequent showers,) and especially in the country, where they can be expanded without any inconveniency."

Query, what is the date of the first introduction of the umbrella into England?

-from Notes and Queries Vol. 1 (26) Apr. 27, 1850, p414-15.

Mother Grey's Apples

To the Editor

Mother Grey's Apples

t the time I was a little girl,--you will not, I am sure be ungallant enough to inquire when that was, when I tell you I am now a woman-- I remember that the nursery maid, whose duty it was to wait upon myself and sisters, invariably said, if she found us out of temper--"So, so! young ladies, you are in the sulks, eh? Well sulk away; you'll be like 'Mother Grey's Apples', you'll be sure to come round again." We often inquired, on the return of fine weather, who Mother Grey was, and what were the peculiar circumstances of the apples coming round? --questions, however, which were always evaded. Now, as the servant was a Cambridge girl, and had a brother a gyp, or bedmaker at one of the colleges, besides her uncle keeping the tennis court there, I have often thought there must have been some college legend or tradition in Alma Mater, of Mother Grey and her apples. Will any of your learned correspondents, should it happen to fall within their knowledge, take pity on the natural curiosity of the sex, by furnishing its details?

A. M.

-from Notes and Queries Vol 2 (36) July 6, 1850, p.88.

Classic Derivations

To the Editor

rigin of the word "Snob".

I think that Snob is not an archaism, and that it cannot be found in any book printed fifty years ago. I am aware that in the north of England shoe-makers are still sometimes called Snobs; but the word is not in Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, which is against its being a genuine bit of northern dialect.

I fancy that Snobs and Nobs, as used in vulgar parlance are of classic derivation; and, most probably, originated at one of the Universities, where they still flourish. If a Nob be one who is nobilis, a Snob must be one who is s[ine] nob[iliate]. Not that I mean to say that the s is literally a contraction of sine; but that, as in the word slang, the s, which is there prefixed to language, at once destroys the better word, and degrades its meaning; and as, in Italian, an s prefixed to a primitive word has a privative effect--e.g. calzare, "to put on shoes and stockings"; scalzare, "to put them off"; fornito, "furnished;" sfornito, "unfurnished," &c.; as also the dis, in Latin (from which, possibly, the aforesaid s is derived), has the like reversing power, as shown in continue and discontinue--so nob, which is an abbreviation of nobilis at once receives the most ignoble signification on having an s put before it.

The word scamp, meaning literally a fugitive from the field, one qui ex campo exit, affords another example of the power of the initial s to reverse the signification of a word.

All this, Mr. Editor, is only conjecture, in reply to "Alpha's" query (No. 12, p.185); but perhaps you will receive it, if no better etymology of the word be offered.

A. G.
Ecclesfield, Jan. 21. 1850.

-from Notes and Queries Vol. 1 (16) Feb. 16, 1850 p. 250.

A Library Attached

To the Editor

Public Libraries

In looking through the Parliamentary Report on Libraries, I missed, though they may have escaped my notice, any mention of a valuable one in Newcastle-on-Tyne, "Dr. Thomlinson's;" for which a handsome building was erected early last century, near St. Nicholas Church, and a Catalogue of its contents has been published. I saw also, some years ago, a library attached to Wimborne Minster, which appeared to contain some curious books.

The Garrison Library at Gibraltar is, I believe, one of the most valuable English libraries on the continent of Europe.

W. C. T.

Edinburgh, March, 30, 1850.

-from Notes and Queries, Vol. 1 (24) Apr. 1850 p.391.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

To the Editor

Books by the Yard-

any of your readers have heard of books bought and sold by weight,-in fact it is questionable whether the number of books sold in that way is not greater than those sold "over the counter,"-but few have probably heard of books sold "by the yard." Having purchased at St. Petersburg, the library left by an old Russian nobleman of high rank, I was quite astonished to find a copy of Oeuvres de Frederic II originally published in 15 vols., divided into 60, to each of which a new title had been printed; and several hundred volumes lettered outside Oeuvres de Miss Burney, Oeuvres de Swift &c., but containing, in fact all sorts of French waste paper books. These, as well as three editions of Oeuvres de Voltaire, were all very neatly bound in calf, gilt, and with red morocco backs. My curiosity being roused, I inquired into the origin of these circumstances, and learnt that during the reign of Catherine, every courtier who had hopes of being honoured by a visit from the Empress, was expected to have a library, the greater or smaller extent of which was to be regulated by the fortune of its possessor, and that, after Voltaire had won the favour of the Autocrat by his servile flattery, one or two copies of his works were considered indispensable. Every courtier was thus forced to have a room fitted up with mahogany shelves and filled with books, by far the greater number of which he never read or even opened. A bookseller of the name of Klostermann, who being of an athletic stature, was one of the innumerable favourites of the lady "who loved all things save her lord," was usually employed, not to select a library, but to fill a certain given space of so many yards, with books, at so much per volume, and Mr. Klostermann, the "Libraire de la Cour Imperiale," died worth a plum, having sold many thousand yards of books (among which I understood there were several hundred copies of Voltaire), at from 50 to 100 roubles a yard, "according to the binding."

A. Asher

Berlin. Dec. 1849

-from Notes and Queries Vol. 1 (11) Jan. 12, 1850, p. 166.

Half-caf, non-fat latte with a whisper of cinnamon

To the Editor






offee, the Lacedaemonian Black Broth

Your correspondent "R. O." inquires what modern author suggests the probability of coffee being the black broth of the Lacedaemonians? The suggestion, I think, originated with George Sandys, the translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Sandys travelled in the Turkish empire in 1610. He first published his Notes in 1615. The following is from the 6th edit. 1652, p. 52:

"Although they be destitute of taverns, yet have they their coffa-houses, which something resemble them. Their sit they, chatting most of the day, and sip of a drink call coffa (of the berry that it is made of), in little China dishes, as hot as they can suffer it; black as soot, and tasting not much unlike it (why not that black broth which was in use among the Lacedaemonians?) which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and procureth alacrity," & c.

Burton also (Anatomy of Melancholy) describes it as "like that black drink which was in use among the Lacedaemonians, and perhaps the same."

E. B Price


-from Notes and Queries Vol. 1 (9) Dec. 29, 1849, p. 139.

A Game-keeper's umbles

Mr. Editor,




our correspondent, Mr. Hammack, having recorded Mr. Pepys's love of "brave venison pasty," whilst asking the derivation of the phrase, "eating humble pie," in reference to a bill of fare of Pepys's age, I venture to submit that the humble pie of that period was indeed the pie named in the list quoted; and not only so, but that it was made out of the "umbles" or entrails of the deer, a dish of the second table, inferior of course to the venison pasty which smoked upon the dais, and therefore not inexpressive of that humiliation which the term "eating humble pie" now painfully describes. The "umbles" of the deer are constantly the perquisites of the game-keeper.



Ecclesfield, Nov. 24, 1849.




-from Notes and Queries, Vol. 1 (6) Dec. 8, 1849, p. 92.

Dr. Dryasdust

Sir,

o you or any of your readers know anything of the family of that celebrated antiquary, and do you think it probable that he was descended from, or connected with, the author of a work which I met with some time ago, intituled "Wit Revised, or A new and excellent way of Divertisement, digested into most ingenious Questions and Answers. By Asdryasdust Tossoffacan. London: Printed for T. E. and are to be sold by most Booksellers. MDCLXXIV." 12mo. I do not know anything of the author's character, but he appears to have been a right-minded man, in so far as he (like yourself) expected to find "wit revived" by its digestion into "most ingenious questions and answers;" though his notion that asking and answering questions was a new way of divertisement, seems to indicate an imperfect knowledge of the nature and history of mankind; but my query is simply genealogical.

H. F. W.

-from Notes and Queries Vol. 1 (2) November 10, 1849, p. 26.