Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850 | Page 4

by example as well as precept. Let me make a note on two words that I find in No. 37.: _sanatory_, p. 99., and _connection_, p. 98.
Why "sanatory laws?" Sanare is _to cure_, and a curing-place is, if you like, properly called sanatorium. But the Latin for health is _sanitas_, and the laws which relate to health should be called sanitary.
Analogy leads us to _connexion_, not _connection_; _plecto_, _plexus_, _complexion_; _flecto_, _flexus_, _inflexion_; _necto_, _nexus_, _connexion_, &c.; while the termination ction belongs to words derived from Latin verbs whose passive participles end in ctus as _lego_, _lectus_, _collection_; _injecio_, _injectus_, _injection_; _seco_, _sectus_, _section_, &c.
CH.
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Minor Notes.
_Pasquinade on Leo XII._--The Query put to a Pope (Vol. ii., p. 104.), which it is difficult to believe could be put orally, reminds me of Pope Leo XII., who was reported, whether truly or not, to have been the reverse of scrupulous in the earlier part of his life, but was remarkably strict after he became Pope, and was much disliked at Rome, perhaps because, by his maintenance of strict discipline, he abridged the amusements and questionable indulgences of the people. On account of his death, {132} which took place just before the time of the carnival in 1829, the usual festivities were omitted, which gave occasion to the following pasquinade, which was much, though privately, circulated--
"Tre cose mat fecesti, O Padre santo: Accettar il papato, Viver tanto, Morir di Carnivale Per destar pianto."
J. Mn.
_Shakspeare a Brass-rubber._--I am desirous to notice, if no commentator has forestalled me, that Shakspeare, among his many accomplishments, was sufficiently beyond his age to be a brass-rubber:
"What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax."
_Timon of Athens_, v. 4.
From the "soft impression," however, alluded to in the next scene, his "wax" appears rather to have been the forerunner of gutta percha than of _heel-ball_.
T.S. LAWRENCE.
_California._--In the _Voyage round the World_, by Captain George Shelvocke, begun Feb. 1719, he says of California (_Harris's Collection_, vol. i. p. 233.):--
"The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very likely in most of the valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn it fresh up to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust; some of which we endeavoured to purify and wash from the dirt; but though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mingled with common earth, yet we endeavoured to cleanse and wash the earth from some of it; and the more we did the more it appeared like gold. In order to be further satisfied I brought away some of it, which we lost in our confusion in China."
How an accident prevented the discovery, more than a century back, of the golden harvest now gathering in California!
E.N.W.
Southwark.
_Mayor of Misrule and Masters of the Pastimes._--the word Maior of Misrule appears in the Harl. MSS. 2129. as having been on glass in the year 1591, in Denbigh Church.
"5 Edw. VI., a gentleman (Geo. Ferrars), lawyer, poet, and historian, appointed by the Council, and being of better calling than commonly his predecessors, received his commission by the name of 'Master of the King's Pastimes.'"--_Strutt's Sports and Pastimes_, 340.
"1578. Edward Baygine, cursitor, clerk for writing and passing the Queen's leases, 'Comptroller of the Queen's pastimes and revels,' clerk comptroller of her tents and pavilions, commissioner of sewers, burgess in Parliament."--Gwillim, _Heraldry_, 1724 edit.
A.C.
Roland and Oliver.--Canciani says there is a figure in the church porch at Verona which, from being in the same place with _Roland_, and manifestly of the same age, he supposes may be _Oliver_, armed with a spiked ball fastened by a chain to a staff of about three feet in length. _Who are Roland and Oliver_? There is the following derivation of the saying "a Roland for your Oliver," without any reference or authority attached, in my note-book:--
"--Charlemagne, in his expedition against the Saracens, was accompanied by two '_steeds_,' some writers say 'pages,' named Roland and Oliver, who were so excellent and so equally matched, that the equality became proverbial--'I'll give you a Roland for your Oliver' being, the same as the vulgar saying, 'I'll give you tit for tat,' i.e. 'I'll give you the same (whether in a good or bad sense) as you give me.'"
JARLTZBERG.
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QUERIES
THE STORY OF THE THREE MEN AND THEIR BAG OF MONEY.
Lord Campbell, in his _Lives of the Chancellors_, relates, in connection with Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper Ellesmere, a very common story, of which I am surprised he did not at once discern the falsehood. It is that of a widow, who having a sum of money entrusted to her by three men, which she was on no account to return except to the joint demand of