Notes and Queries, Number 44, August 31, 1850 | Page 8

therefore so highly valued, that the wearing of them was
restricted by several sumptuary laws to kings and princes. Sable, in
those laws called _vair_, was the subject of countless regulations: the
exact quality permitted to be worn by persons of different grades, and
the articles of dress to which it might be applied, were defined most
strictly. Perrault's tale of Cinderella originally marked the dignity

conferred on her by the fairy by her wearing a slipper of _vair_, a
privilege then confined to the highest rank of princesses. An error of
the press, now become inveterate, changed vair into _verre_, and the
slipper of sable was suddenly converted into a glass slipper.
Jarltzberg.
_Mistletoe on Oaks._--In Vol. ii., p. 163., I observed a citation on the
extreme rarity of _mistletoe on oaks_, from Dr. Giles and Dr. Daubeny;
and with reference to it, and to some remarks of Professor Henslow in
the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, I communicated to the latter journal, last
week, the fact of my having, at this present time, a bunch of that plant
growing in great luxuriance on an oak aged upwards of seventy years.
I beg leave to repeat it for the use of your work, and to add, what I
previously appended as likely to be interesting to the archæologist of
Wales or the Marches, that the oak bearing it stands about half a mile
N.W. of my residence here, on the earthen mound of Badamscourt,
once a moated {215} mansion of the Herberts, or Ab-Adams, of
Beachley adjacent, and of Llanllowell.
George Ormerod.
Sedbury Park, Chepstow.
_Omnibuses._--It may be interesting to your readers at a future time to
know when these vehicles, the use of which is daily extending, were
introduced into this country; perhaps, therefore, you will allow me to
state how the fact is. Mr. C. Knight, in his _Volume of Varieties_, p.
178., observes:
"The Omnibus was tried about 1800, with four horses and six wheels;
but we refused to accept it in any shape till we imported the fashion
from Paris in 1830."
And Mr. Shillibeer, of the City Road, the inventor of the patent funeral
carriage, in his evidence before the Board of Health on the general
scheme for extra-mural sepulture, incidentally mentions that he
"Had had much experience in cheapening vehicular transit, having
originated and established the Omnibus in England."--_Report_, p. 124.,
8vo. ed.
Arun.
_Havock._--Havock is a term in our ancient English military laws: the
use of it was forbidden among the soldiery by the army regulations of
those days; so in the Ordinances des Batailles in the ninth year of

Richard II, art. x.:
"Item, que nul soit si hardi de crier havoick sur peine d'avoir la teste
coupe."
This was properly a punishable offence in soldiers; havock being the
cry of mutual encouragement to general massacre, unlimited slaughter,
that no quarter should be given, &c. A tract on "The office of the
constable and Mareshall in the tyme of Warre," contained in the black
book of the Admiralty, has this passage:
"Also, that no man be so hardy to crye havock upon peyne that he that
is begynner shall be deede therefore: and the remanent that doo the
same, or follow, shall lose their horse and harneis ... and his body in
prison at the king's will."
And this appears to answer well to the original term, which is taken
from the ravages committed by a troop of wild beasts, wolves, lions,
&c., falling on a flock of sheep. But some think it was originally a
hunting term, importing the letting loose a pack of hounds. Shakspeare
combines both senses:
"Cry havock! and let slip the dogs of war."
In a copy of Johnson's Dictionary before me, I find
"HAVOCK (haroc, Sax.), waste; wide and general devastation."
Spenser.
"HAVOCK, _interj_, a word of encouragement to slaughter."
Shakspeare.
"TO HAVOCK, _v. a._, to waste; to destroy; to lay waste." Spenser.
Jarltzberg.
_Schlegel on Church Property in England._--Fr. Schlegel, in his
_Philosophy of History_, says, p. 403., "in England and Sweden church
property remained inviolate:" what the case may be in Sweden I do not
know, but it appears strange that a man of such general knowledge as F.
Schlegel should make such an assertion as regards England.
S.N.
* * * * *
QUERIES.
P. MATHIEU'S LIFE OF SEJANUS.
In a letter from Southey to his friend Bedford, dated Nov. 11, 1821
(_Life and Correspondence_, vol. v. p. 99.), he desires him to inform
Gifford that

"In a volume of tracts at Lowther, of Charles I.'s time, I found a life of
Sejanus by P.M., by which initials some hand, apparently as old as the
book, had written Philip Massinger. I did not read the tract, being too
keenly in pursuit of other game; but I believe it