Notes and Queries | Page 3

was sett up, and that was by Mr. Farr. Jonathan Paynter, over
against to St. Michael's Church, was the first apprentice to the trade, viz.
to Bowman.--Mem. The Bagneo, in Newgate Street, was built and first
opened in Decemb. 1679: built by ... Turkish merchants."
Of this James Farr, Edward Hatton, in his New View of London, 1708,
(vol. i. p. 30) says:--
"I find it recorded that one James Farr, a barber, who kept the
coffee-house which is now the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple Gate,
(one of the first in England), was in the year 1657, prosecuted by the
inquest of St. Dunstan's in the West, for making and selling a sort of

liquor called coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice to the
neighbourhood, &c., and who would then have thought London would
ever have had near three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee
would have been, as now, so much drank by the best of quality and
physicians." {315}
Howel, in noticing Sir Henry Blount's Organon Salutis, 1659, observes
that--
"This coffe-drink hath caused a great sobriety among all nations:
formerly apprentices, clerks, &c., used to take their morning draughts
in ale, beer, or wine, which often made them unfit for business. Now
they play the good-fellows in this wakeful and civil drink. The worthy
gentleman, Sir James Muddiford, who introduced the practice hereof
first in London, deserves much respect of the whole nation."
From these extracts it appears that the use of this berry was introduced
by other Turkey merchants besides Edwards and his servant Pasqua.
Anthony Wood in his Diary, records, under the year 1654, that--
"Coffey, which had been drank by some persons in Oxon. 1650, was
this yeare publickly sold at or neare the Angel, within the Easte Gate of
Oxon., as also chocolate, by an outlander or Jew."
And in another place he says--
"This yeere Jacob a Jew opened a Coffey-house at the Angel, in the
parish of St. Peter in the East, Oxon., and there it was by some, who
delighted in noveltie, drank. When he left Oxon. he sold it in Old
Southampton Buildings in Holborne, near London, and was living there
1671."
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
* * * * *
TRUE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD III.

In The True Tragedy of Richard the Third, the following passage--
"His treacherous father hath neglect his word, And done imparshall
past by dint of sword."
is considered by Mr. Baron Field as unintelligible. It seems to me that
the correction of it is obvious, and the explanation probable, though not
exactly fitting what had been said before, which is merely that Lord
Stanley had refused to come to Richard, not that he had actually joined
Richmond, much less fought for him. I read--
"And dome imparshall;"
_i.e._ and doom impartial, and interpret, "pass'd upon himself impartial
judgment," or rather on his son, as is said just before:--
"The father's fact condemns the son to die."
It is possible that doom by dint of sword may mean, to be executed by
dint of sword; that is, on the son. The doom in the Scotch court, in the
Heart of Mid Lothian, is not the verdict, but the punishment.
Immediately before, we have this passage, also described as
unintelligible:--
"_King._ Did not your selves, in presence, see the bondes sealde and
assignde?
"_Lo._ What tho my lord, the vardits own, the titles doth resign.
"_King._ The bond is broke, and I will sue the fine."
I see no emendation for this but the vardits own to mean, "the party
who has the verdict in his favour," and the speech to be a question. The
King tries to persuade himself that there is, ipso facto, no room for
forgiveness. Lovel answers, upon the principle of the rule of law, "Qui
vis potest renunciare juri pro se introducto."
C.B.

* * * * *
FOLK LORE.
_Merry-Lwyd._--My attention has been called to an inquiry in No. 11.
p. 173., as to the origin and etymology of the Merry-Lwyd, still kept up
in Wales.
I believe that all these mummings may be traced to the disguisings
which formed so popular an amusement in the Middle Ages, and that
the name applied in Wales to this remnant of our ancient pastimes is
nothing more than a compound of our English adjective "merry" and a
corruption of the Latin word "Ludi," which these masquings were
formerly termed.
Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, Book iii. chap. 13., speaks of
Christmas Spectacles in the time of Edward III., as known by the name
of Ludi; and in Warton's History of English Poetry, it is said of these
representations that "by the ridiculous and exaggerated oddity of the
Vizors, and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses, every thing
was out of