is now done in towns, with watercress and 66 grunsel"? A. HALL. SHAKING HANDS."What is the origin of the custom of shaking hands?" is a question which appeared in 'N. & Q.' in the second year after that work began to be published (1 S. iii. 118). Again, ELLCEE (5th S. iv. 487) inquired whether the custom was not originally British. He said that when in Paris in 1817 no one offered him his hand, though he was received with kindness. Frenchmen also spoke to him concerning shaking hands as, "l'accollade Britannique." Other correspondents have traced the custom back to the Elizabethan era, quoting a line from Ancient Pistol, "Give me thy fist, thy forefoot to me give." The earliest allusion cited has been " Arreptaque manu," in Horace. But shaking hands was a far more ancient custom among Greeks. In the fifth century before our era Aristophanes describes Strepsiades as calling on his son to give him his right hand. There is also a phrase in the Iliad' (x. 542) which may show hand-shaking to be even prehistoric. When Ulysses returned to the Grecian camp with the horses of Rhesus he had stolen, Nestor saluted him with the right hand and with honeyed words. Will not some Grecian writer for 'N. & Q.' give us the true interpretation of the Nestorian salute, δεξιῇ ἠσπάζετο JAMES D. BUTLER. · Madison, Wis., U.S. HENDRE FAMILY.-Where can any pedigree, records, or historical information relating to the Hendre family be found? F. H. HENDRE, 3, Gauden Road, Clapham. FRENCH EMIGRATION TO BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, 1789-1815.- When the revolution broke out in France many families emigrated to the Canadas and other portions of British America. Has any account of these refugees ever been written; and, if so, by whom? Wimbledon, Surrey. T. W. F. ROBERT F. GARDINER. does this expression first occur? "To SLEEP THE SLEEP OF THE JUST."-Where R. S. COURT OF TRAILBASTON.-What is the origin and meaning of this name? Warton, 'Law Dict.,' does not vouchsafe any explanation. Q. V. CHARACTERS IN CUTHBERT BEDE'S 'MATTINS AND MUTTONS.'-Two of the characters in this clever novel of your old correspondent, viz., the Rev. Mr. Sand and Dr. O'Lion, were readily identified by Brightonians with the Rev. Edmund Clay (of St. Margaret's Church) and the Rev. James O'Brien, D.D. (of St. Patrick's), respectively. May I venture to inquire if any other characters in the book represented actual persons, and who was the original of the Rev. Mr. Pordage, famed for his "nectar"? FREDERICK E. SAWYER, F.S.A. Brighton. 5. Sa., a bend between two barbels ar. 6. Per pale sa. and ar., a wolf saliant counterchanged. 7. Per pale sa. and az., a wolf passant ar. 8. Ar., a fess engrailed gu., in chief a rose of gagement off Ushant with the French frigate La the last. Boston, Mass., U.S. IRON PERFORATED BY HAILSTONES.-Allusion was made in a newspaper last year to an exhibit in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of one or two sheets of corrugated iron roofing which had been perforated by hailstones, either in one of the Australian colonies or in New Zealand. A precisely similar case occurred within my own personal knowledge in the case of the corrugated iron roof of one of my gardeners' cottages at my country residence near Liverpool, distant about twenty miles from Sydney, New South Wales, which roof was perforated in several places by hailstones during a very severe hail-storm which occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 21, 1867.. I may mention that after the hail-storm in question was over hailstones were picked up in front of my house which were too large to go into an ordinary tumbler. As these statements have been received with some degree of doubt by persons to whom the facts have been mentioned in this country, will some one of your readers be so kind as to let me know through your colomns whether he had seen the exhibit above referred to; and, if so, in which of the colonial catalogues of exhibits it is mentioned ? AN EX-AUSTRALIAN M.P. THE FIRST OXFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.— Formerly I had charge of a MS., being a versified treatise on husbandry. In the prologue there is CAPT. GEORGE FARMER.-An engraving by John Murphy, after the portrait of this naval celebrity by Charles Grignion, jun., painted in 1778, bas lately been acquired by a relative of mine. Capt. Farmer commanded the Quebec in the enSurveillante on Oct. 6, 1779. After having silenced her, the Quebec caught fire and blew up, and her brave commander perished with her rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. The print was published in 1780 (February 14), by " John Boydell, engraver, in Cheapside." Can any one kindly inform me in whose possession the original portrait now is? Also, what is known of the painter, Charles Grignion, jun. ? ALPHA. MONTROSE.-What proof can be had to enable me to fix the birthplace of the great Marquis of Montrose? ALEX. DUNBAR. HACKET'S 'LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS.'Who is the "Presbyter Pulpiteer" mentioned part ii. 149? May I repeat my former query, What is " a small white letter"? See the paragraph over the "Errata." Replies to me direct would be very acceptable. F. M. JACKSON. Hall Bank, Altrincham. where the clock was made will be indicated by the language or dialect in which the names are given. Replies. ST. GEORGE'S, BLOOMSBURY. (7th S. iv. 325.) O. M. MR. PUGH's suggestion that the original design of Hawksmoor's fine steeple at St. George's, Bloomsbury, so seriously mutilated a few years back to gratify some pedantic purism, should be made good is excellent, and I trust that it will be carried out. But why should he call the missing objects "dragons"? The animals which stood at the base of the spire, and so admirably broke the transition from the tower to the stepped pyramid, now too abrupt, were the royal supporters, the lion and the unicorn. These supporters, however much out of keeping with modern ideas of religious propriety, were an essential part of the architect's conception, and their loss has grievously marred its complete ness. New churches built at the end of the seven teenth or beginning of the eighteenth centuries, and they were few enough, were commonly named after the reigning sovereign or some royal personage. I may instance St. Ann's, Soho; St. Ann's, imehouse; St. James's, Piccadilly; and, in addition to the church now under consideration, St. George's, Hanover Square; St. George's-in-theEast; and St. George the Martyr, Queen Square. St. George's, Bloomsbury, may be regarded as the crowning example of this not very reverent adulation. Consecrated in 1731, in the early years of the reign of George II., and bearing his name, the steeple was designed as a memorial of the reigning "Defender of the Faith," with the statue of the king at the summit of the spire, and the royal supporters "hugging" the base. Horace Walpole condemns the steeple as a masterpiece of absurdity." But though the purity of its taste is more than questionable, it is a composition of great dignity and considerable originality. The idea of a stepped pyramid surmounted by a statue, it is true, was borrowed by Hawksmoor from Pliny's description of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus, but the carrying out the idea was his own. Nor can any one see it, now that the houses are cleared away, without agreeing in Mr. Fergusson's opinion that the whole fabric "forms as picturesque a group as almost any church in London." I do not know whether the epigram elicited by the unusual character of the steeple at the time of its erection is so familiar as to forbid its reproduction here : When Henry the Eighth left the Pope in the lurch, The Protestants made him the Head of the Church; But George's good subjects, the Bloomsbury people, Instead of the Church make him head of the steeple. EDMUND VENABLES. The outlines of Bloomsbury Church are in many respects fine, but they are not improved by the demolition of the neighbouring house, for Hawksmoor, Wren's pupil, built the church for its niche, and not for a western exposure. The studied plainness of the lower part of the singular tower proves this to have been his intention. MR. PUGH'S boyish memory has played him false here. The figures are not dragons, but the royal supporters, which "hugged" the steeple, as Walpole gives it. Their position looked a little hazardous, as if they might slide off on a gusty night; but we may rest assured that nothing of Hawksmoor's designing would be structurally dangerous. Walpole regards the steeple as "a master stroke of absurdity." It is remarkably original, but I do not know that it is absurd. It is a copy of one of the seven wonders of the world-the tomb raised by Artemisia to her husband Mausolus at Halicarnassus, in Caria (Pliny, xxxvi. 4, § 9). It was surmounted by a splendid marble quadriga, the work of Pythis. Noble, in his very interesting continuation of Granger, iii. 257, relates that Willia: lucks, a very opulent and loyal brewer of London, placed the statue of George I. upon the steeple of BloomsThe king is in Roman costume, and is placed on a bury, he being brewer to the royal household. short column. Walpole and Noble both say the figure is that of George I., and Cunningham is silent; but C. J. Partington, in his Views of London,' says it is George II. Timbs gives it to George I. Partington is no great authority, of course, but those who are interested in the point can see that the evidence preponderates for its having been meant for George II. (5th S. vi. 454). An argument that is not there adduced is that Hucks must have been a very loyal subject indeed he did not stick his then customer, George II., up if in 1731, four years after the death of George I., aloft in his stead. I should be glad to learn if Hawksmoor's original designs are yet to be seen, and whether the figure of the king forms a part of it. If so, why did Hucks furnish the funds? It is disputed whether the portico is as fine as, or finer than, St. Martin's. One thing is certain, that the steeple is in the right place, standing on its own basis, and springing direct from the earth. No pupil of Wren's would be likely to make the blunder Gibbs has in St. Martin's, where the wedge of the pediment seems to be splitting the tower into two parts. There are two versions of the clever epigram that brought down so much ill-deserved ridicule upon this church : When Henry the Eighth left the Pope in the lurch, The Protestants made him the Head of the Church; But George's good subjects, the Bloomsbury people, Instead of the Church made him head of the steeple. Cunningham gives no other reference for this than 'Contemporary Epigrams.' Noble gives it iii. 258, which in its crudity, and in its more historical The King of Great Britain was reckoned before 1678. Walthamstow. At assigned to it by Littré-viz., "Plusieurs plantes With regard to chalumet, it is scarcely likely to be merely a "dictionary form," for Littré takes the trouble to mark it with a t to show that it is not in the French Academy Dictionary, and besides gives it a meaning, "bout d'une pipe," which he does not give either to calumet or chalumeau. I take it, therefore, that chalumet is a word still in use in French, although I have never met with it nor heard it, and it may be but rarely used. Sydenham Hill. F. CHANCE. CALUMET (7th S. iv. 207).-In Bartlett's 'Dictionary of Americanisms,' s.v., I find "An old Norman word derived from chalumeau (Charlevoix,' vol. ii. p. 212). It was introduced into Canada by the settlers from Normandy"; and at the end of the article he gives two long quotations (earlier than Bailey's 'Dictionary,' 1727) which I need scarcely transcribe, as, of course, DR. MURRAY has the book at his command; one from Marquette (1673), and the other from La Hontan, 'Voyages dans l'Amérique' (1704). The names of the writers are French, but both quotations are given DR. MURRAY finds no use of calumet in French in English. According to Bartlett, therefore, the earlier than in Voltaire. I can give him a hundred word is a Norman form, or rather the Norman citations of it before Voltaire was born, and that equivalent, of the ordinary French chalumeau; and with the desiderated meaning "the pipe of peace," this seems not improbable, as it is one of the or rather of war also. One is of the date 1673, in peculiarities of the Norman dialect to retain the Père Marquette's 'Voyage down the Mississippi' Latin c, and not to change it into ch. It is appa-(Recit des Voyages et des Decouvertes rently true also that the French settlers in Canada came from Brittany and Normandy (especially the latter), for I find this stated in Blackie's 'Popular Encyclopædia' (1874), s.v. 'Canada," and in a Dizionario Universale di Geografia, &c.,' published in 1878 at Milan by "Fratelli Treves." With regard to the change of the first e of the Old French chalemel (for this see Ducange, French Index) into u, see Brachet and Scheler, who give other instances of a similar change. Neither Bartlett nor Webster (an American) gives to calumet any other meaning than that of smoking-pipe generally, and pipe of war or peace (not of peace only) in particular. But this does not prove that in the French of North America* calumet may not have or have had the meaning en 1673 et aux Suivantes,' Lenox's ed., p. 54). "Il y a un calumet pour la paix, et un pour la guerre," &c. Calumet is often used by Marquette, and still oftener by Nicolas Perrot, concerning events in 1670 or earlier. Thus, "Qui avoit chante le calumet" ('Memoire sur les Mœurs des Savages,' &c.). In the Jesuit Relations' of 1638 (p. 35) there is this clause: "Jamais ils ne tirent aucune conclusion que le calumet a la bouche." Besides, the calumet is not here employed for the first time. Had it been, it must have been explained. Again, in 1721, Charlevoix wrote (ed. 1744, vol. iii. p. 211), "Le calumet est un mot Normand, qui vent dire Chalumeau, et est proprement le tuyeau d'une pipe." The Normans were among the first comers to Canada, and might naturally introduce the word. JAMES D. BUTLER. Bout, when applied to a pipe or cigarette, means the mouth-piece. This I know from my own experience. Cf. Gasc's Dictionary,' where chalumet is given the meaning of "tip (of a tobacco-pipe)," and what he means by tip is shown by what he says under "bouquin," viz., "(of a pipe) mouthpiece, tip." Calumet must be searched for in the languages of North-Western America, viz., those spoken by the Nez Percéz, Wallawallas, Tshinuks, and Upper Tshinuks, which contain six different spellings of the word. It is referred to by Ferdinando in 1538. R. S. CHARNOCK. Turks and the IntRODUCTION OF TOBACCO (7th S. iv. 368). The envoys of Christopher Columbus to Guahani (San Salvador) were certainly the first Europeans acquainted with the use of smoking tobacco. The plant smoked by the Indians of Guahani was called by them cohiba, but they called their pipe tabaco, and Columbus gave the pipe's Indian name to the plant, the right spelling being tabaco (Spanish) and tabacco (Italian). The French pronunciation has varied between tobac and tabac, the latter having prevailed; and the German between tabak, tobak, and tubak. The form tobak, tobac, tobacco, is from the Flemish toubake. Tobacco was introduced to Europe about 1560 by a Dutch merchant, who offered the plant to John Nicot, French envoy to Portugal. Nicot presented the plant to the great inquisitor, and, at his return to France, to Queen Catherine de Medicis, who took an immediate fancy to it. The "petun," as the plant had been called by the Brazilian smokers, received for a time the poetical name of "herbe à la reine," and was adopted with enthusiasm by the gentry and army. John Nicot (hence nicotiana tabacum, nicotiana, &c.) had, before leaving Lisbon, informed the papal nuncio, Cardinal Saint Crovè, of the new discovery. Cardinal Saint Crovè introduced tobacco to Italy, and the Italian merchants introduced it to the countries of the East, specially to Athens, Smyrna, and Constantinople. It seems, however, that tobacco was used for smoking in Persia and China three or four centuries before the discovery of America (Pallas, Meyer, &c., who write that the Chinese yellow tobacco is the same as the American nicotiana rustica). As to the smokers in the 'Thousand and One Nights,' it seems impossible to ascertain if they smoked haschisch, American, or Persian tobacco. The botanist Neander thinks that the Persian and Dutch merchants have an equal right to claim the honour of the invention. JOSEPH REINACH. Breslau edition. The former edition seems to have been derived, though not immediately, from the same source from it very considerably throughout.-ED.]" as Mr. Lane's original; but the Breslau edition differs EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. I believe that neither coffee nor tobacco is mentioned in the 'Arabian Nights.' Hence these tales are supposed to be written between the reign of Haroun Alraschid and the time when the aforesaid luxuries were first used by Mahometans. Tobacco and coffee were first known to Christians in the sixteenth century. But as one came from the west and the other from the east, the Mussulmans may have used coffee before they had any knowledge of tobacco. E. YARDLEY. SIMOETHA (7th S. iv. 347).-I have not heard of the picture mentioned by R. S. B., but I conclude that the subject must be the quaila of the second idyl of Theocritus, imitated by Virgil in the second part of his eighth ecloque, "Pharmaceutria." JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Your correspondent will find the answer to his question in the second idyl of Theocritus. FRED. LEIGHTON. Simaitha (in Latin Simætha, not Simoetha) is introduced by Theocritus, in his second idyl, as using incantations in order to recall the estranged affection of her lover Delphis. The name occurs twice, at 11. 101 and 114. The idyl is entitled "Papμakevтpía, Venefica, Sorceress," not as if Simætha were a professional, like Canidia (Horace, Epod. xvii.), but as showing the several forms of magic which disappointed lovers had recourse to. The name is said to be derived from the river Zúpaidos, Simaithus, Simethus, Symethus, for it is written in divers ways, about eight miles from Catania, and separating the territories of Catana and Leontini (Thuc., vi.). It is also mentioned by Virgil, 'Æn.,' ix. 584, "Symathia circum Flumina," and by many other ancient writers. The editors call Simaitha "puella Syracusana mediocris conditionis," referring to 11. 70-4. Virgil has imitated part of this idyl in his eighth eclogue. W. E. BUCKLEY. R. S. B. will find an account of this lady in the second idyl of Theocritus. It is translated by Calvert. A. H. CHRISTIE. Paris. Tobacco is mentioned in the story of Aboo- "THE FOOL IN THE MIDDLE" (7th S. iv. 386). Seer and Aboo-Keer ('Thousand and One Nights,'-Comes from the game of the King and Queen of ch. xxvii.); but there is the following note in Lane's edition (1877), vol. iii. p. 563 "As it is certain that most of the stories in this work were written at least half a century before the introduction of tobacco into the East (which happened about the close of the sixteenth century), this tale must have been altered by a copyist or added to the original series: and I think it most probable that the latter was the case. [The tale, with the mention of tobacco, is contained in the Calcutta edition of the complete work, and in the Siberia. D. CHRISTABEL (7th S. iv. 368).—So many of my friends have written to me since my query appeared, telling me that "San Christobal" is merely the Spanish form of St. Christopher, that I have not ceased to blush for my ignorance, and am now convinced that almost everybody must have known except the writer in |