Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850 | Page 8

misprint, or noticeable idiom of the word _began_: Yes! and a
very beautiful idiom it is: the first colloquy or address of the flesh."
The idiom is still in use in Scotland. "You had better not begin to me,"
is the first address or colloquy of the school-boy half-angry
half-frightened at the bullying of a companion. The idiom was once
English, though now obsolete. Several instances of it are given in the
last edition of Foxe's _Martyrs_, vol. vi. p. 627. It has not been noticed,
however, that the same idiom occurs in one of the best known passages

of Shakspeare; in Clarence's dream, _Richard III._, Act i. Sc. 4.:
"O, then began the tempest to my soul."
Herbert's Poems will afford another illustration to Shakspeare,
_Hamlet_, Act iv. Sc. 7.:--
"And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing."
Coleridge, in the _Literary Remains_, vol. i. p. 233., says--
"In a stitch in the side, every one must have heaved a sigh that hurts by
easing."
Dr. Johnson saw its true meaning:
"It is," he says, "a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength,
and wear out the animal powers."
In allusion to this popular notion, by no means yet extinct, Herbert says,
p. 71.:
"Or if some years with it (a sigh) escape The sigh then only is A gale to
bring me sooner to my bliss."
D.S.
"_Crede quod habes_," &c.--The celebrated answer to a Protestant
about the real presence, by the borrower of his horse, is supposed to be
made since the Reformation, by whom I forget:--
"Quod nuper dixisti De corpore Christi Crede quod edis et edis; Sic tibi
rescribo De tuo palfrido Crede quod habes et habes."
But in Wright and Halliwell's _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, {264} p. 287., from
a manuscript of the time of Henry VII., is given--
"Tu dixisti de corpore Christi, crede et habes De palefrido sic tibi
scribo, crede et habes."

M.
_Grant to the Earl of Sussex of Leave to be covered in the Royal
Presence._--In editing Heylyn's _History of the Reformation_, I had to
remark of the grant made by Queen Mary to the Earl of Sussex, that it
was the only one of Heylyn's documents which I had been unable to
trace elsewhere (ii. 90.). Allow me to state in your columns, that I have
since found it in Weever's Funeral Monuments (pp. 635, 636).
J.C. ROBERTSON.
Bekesbourne.
The first Woman formed from a Rib (Vol. ii., p. 213.).--As you have
given insertion to an extract of a sermon on the subject of the creation
of Eve, I trust you will allow me to refer your correspondent
BALLIOLENSIS to Matthew Henry's commentary on the second
chapter of Genesis, from which I extract the following beautiful
explanation of the reason why the rib was selected as the material
whereof the woman should be created:--
"Fourthly, that the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam;
not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled
upon by him; but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to
be protected, and near his heart to be beloved."
IOTA.
_Beau Brummel's Ancestry._--Mr. Jesse some years back did ample
justice to the history of a "London celebrity," George Brummell; but,
from what he there stated, the following "Note" will, I feel assured, be
a novelty to him. At the time that Brummell was considered in
everything the _arbiter elegantiarum_, the writer of this has frequently
heard Lady Monson (the widow of the second lord, and an old lady
who, living to the age of ninety-seven, had a wonderful fund of
interesting recollections) say, that this ruler of fashion was the
descendant of a very excellent servant in the family. Not long ago,
some old papers of the family being turned over, proofs corroborative

of this came to light. William Brummell, from the year 1734 to 1764,
was the faithful and confidential servant of Charles Monson, brother of
the first lord: the period would identify him with the grandfather of the
Beau; the only doubt was, that as Mr. Jesse has ascertained that
William Brummell, the grandfather, was, in the interval above given,
married, had a _son William_, and owned a house in Bury Street, how
far these facts were compatible with his remaining as a servant living
with Charles Monson, both in town and country. Now, in 1757,
Professor Henry Monson of Cambridge being dangerously ill, his
brother Charles sent William Brummell down, as a trustworthy person,
to attend to him; and in a letter from Brummell to his master, he, with
many other requisitions, wishes that there may be sent down to him a
certain glass vessel, very useful for invalids to drink