réalité du mouvement de la terre qu'il démontre aux inquisiteurs, il ergote avec eux sur Job et sur Josué....... "La prison" fut commuée en une relégation à l'hotel de Toscane, et au bout de huit jours Galilée se vit maître de retourner dans sa patrie; il avait si peu souffert pendant sa détention, que, malgré ses soixante-quinze ans, il fit en pied une partie de la route de Rome à Viterbe. Il faut entendre Galilée lui-même, pour se faire une idée juste de ces chimériques souffrances dont on ne cesse de parler dans de prétendus livres historiques; Galilée s'exprime ainsi dans une lettre qu'il adresse, en Janvier, 1634, à l'un de ses amis: "Depuis bien des années, je n'ai jamais été mieux en santé qu'après ma citation à Rome. J'ai été retenu cinq mois en prison dans la maison de l'ambassadeur de Toscane, qui m'a traité, ainsi que sa femme, avec un si grand témoignage d'amitié qu'on n'eût pu mieux faire à l'égard de ses plus proches parents. Après l'expédition de ma cause, j'ai été condamné à une prison facultative, au libre arbitre de sa Sainteté. Pour quelques jours cette prison fut la palais et le jardin du Grand-Duc, à la Trinité-du-Mont. Ensuite, j'échangeai cette résidence contre la maison de Mgr. l'Archevêque, à Sienne, où j'ai passé cinq mois en compagnie du Père de Saint-Iré, et en visites continuelles de la part de la noblesse de cette ville. N'ayant donc point souffert dans les deux choses qui doivent seules nous être chères au-dessus de toutes les autres, je veux dire dans la vie et dans l'honneur-au contraire, étant à l'abri Bous ces deux rapports," &c. (Lettre conservée à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.) Comparez ce récit avec le tableau de fantaisie dressé par des romanciers qui s'intitulent historiens, et toujours suivis de cinquante plagiaires. C'est en 1784 que parut cette réfutation complète des mensonges imprimés au sujet de la persécution de Galilée, titre sous lequel Mallet du Pan publia son travail, et jusqu'en 1841, il ne se trouva personne pour répondre au critique protestant et pour oser reproduire les mensonges qu'il avait réduits à néant."

Sir David Brewster is also quoted as admitting that Galileo was treated with a marked deference and generosity by the principal members and highest dignitaries of the Church; while I would add, in conclusion, that, according to the researches of the late Prof. Heis (vide his Wochenschrift für Astronomie,' &c., 1868, No. 36), the famous "E pur si muove" is to be found for the first time in vol. iv. of the 'Dictionnaire Historique,' published in 1789, at Caen, and in this wise Au moment qu'il se releva, agité par le remord d'avoir fait un faux serment, les yeux baissés vers la terre, on prétend qu'il dit, frappant du pied, 'E pur si muove!"-a notable instance, surely, of "Se non è vero è ben trovato."

46

ROBERT STEGGALL.

I am somewhat surprised that as to the character of the famous astronomer's imprisonment in 1638 (when he was undoubtedly suffering some description of restraint at Florence) no correspondent has cited our John Milton's contemporary personal account of a visit or visits paid to Galileo, in August and September of the above year, and the editorial glosses that have from time to time assumed to throw light on the poet's somewhat ambiguous passage in the 'Areopagitica':

"I could recount what I have seen and heard in other

There [Florence] it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition for thinking in Astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought."

One editorial note to this is :

"This passage might have been expected to decide the question whether Galileo was in prison when Milton visited him; but unfortunately it throws no light upon the subject, though the construction of the sentence seems to favour the idea that he was still, when the poet saw him, a captive."-Select Prose Works of Milton,' edited by J. A. St. John (London, Hatchard & Son), 1836, vol. i. pp. 222-3.

advance the settlement of the question materially, But the lapse of half a century has enabled us to as is demonstrated by the late correspondence in your pages, and we have a more valuable exposition in the comment of Prof. Masson ('Life and Times of Milton,' i. 788):

"The words imply a walk in the company of Malatesti or Gatti or Buommatei, or some one of the Florentine group, to Galileo's delightful villa at Arcetri, just beyond the walls of Florence, an introduction to the blind sage [Galileo] and a cordial reception by him according to his wont," &c.

Again :

to Tuscany in December, 1633, in the seventieth year
"Liberated from his Roman prison, he had returned
of his age, still under certain restrictions on his liberty
imposed by the Holy Office, and the last years of his life
out of Florence on the South side......
were spent at Arcetri, a sunny vine-clad slope a little way

Seven years a prisoner at the City gate
Let in but in his grave clothes-
pp. 766, 767.
he lived happily enough."—Ibid., 766, 767, see also ante,

That the visit (if only one) alluded to in the Areopagitica' was paid during the month of August or September, 1638, the context of the whole chapter from which I have taken the above extracts amply proves.

the great English writer, the article on Galileo in A. L. L. and MR. LYNN is express, and in accord the Encyclopædia Britannica' referred to by with Prof. Masson's account also, as to date :

As to Galileo's blindness at the time he received

diurnal and monthly librations-was made in 1637, only

"This last telescopic discovery-that of the moon's

a few months before his eyes were for ever closed in hopeless blindness. It was in this condition that Milton found him when he visited him at Arcetri [Villa Martinelli] in 1638."-Ninth edition, vol. x. p. 34 (second col.).

In the same work we find, under the head "Milton" (probably from the pen of Prof. Masson), under date 1638:

"It was in the neighbourhood of Florence also that he found and visited' the great Galileo, then old and blind, and still nominally a prisoner to the Inquisition for his astronomical heresy.'

I have ventured to italicize the word appearing to settle the point in dispute.

The sum of the matter seems to be that A. L. L. countries where this kind of inquisition tryannises...... was justified in his suspicions as to the erroneous

character of the newspaper paragraph which MR. LYNN agrees with Miss BUSK in denouncing; that this error was twofold, first as to date, secondly as to the character of the great astronomer's imprisonment, which probably, modified in degree, was one continuing restraint on his personal liberty of some ten years duration. To the discussion on the other points between MISS BUSK and MR. LYNN, I can offer no appropriate contribution.

NEMO.

suffrages of historical writers. The older French
form hackbut, hagbut, occurs more frequently in
Scottish history for the weapon. The two forms
are connected by the intermediate hackbush, hag-
bush.
J. A. H. MURRAY.

Oxford.

NAME OF RUSKIN (6th S. xii. 145, 191; 7th S. iii. 438; iv. 71).-I do not think much reliance need be placed on the often-told anecdote in connexion with the name of Erskine. Similar stories are told about most of our old surnames,

and Areseskin. The common pronunciation in Scot-
"The name was variously spelt' Ereskin,'' Airskin,'
land is Askin,' which gave rise to an often-told repartee
of the famous Henry Erskine. A silly fellow at the
Scotch bar, not liking a question put to him by the
witty Dean of Faculty, testily said, 'Harry, I never
meet you but I find you Askin'; to which he replied,
'And I, Bob, never meet you but I find an Anser.'".
'Lives of the Lord Chancellors,' vol. vi. p. 368, note.

ARQUEBUS (7th S. iii. 514; iv. 96).-Harquebus, hackbush, and hackbut are variants of the same.g., Percy, Turnbull, &c. The name is evidently original word. The ultimate source is the (fifteenth to the Mars family we find reference to "Sir a territorial surname. In a document pertaining century) German hakenbüchse, hakebüchse (six- Thomas of Erskyn," under date May 24, 1397 teenth century) Flemish haeckbuyse, Dutch haakbus, meaning "hook-gun," "gun with a hook" (à Mar"). We also meet with the barbarous form (quoted by Lord Crawford in his Earldom of croc), so called from the hook cast with the piece, Araskine, temp. Charles II. (Sir Charles Araskine, by which it was kept in place on its support. The of Cambo, was Lyon King of Arms.) The examples word became in fourteenth century French hacque- given by MR. ELLIS destroy any probability there buche, acquebuche (1478), and eventually, after might seem to be in James Hannay's suggestion many variations (e. g., ocquebute, harqbute, haque that the names Ruskin and Erskine were related. buse, &c.), hacquebutte. In Italian, the word was, by The broad pronunciation of Erskine has been repopular etymology, perverted about 1500 to arco-ferred to (6th S. xii. 191); it is also, and most bugio, arcobuso (arco probably having reference to commonly, pronounced with the silent. Lord the bow or arcubalist of which the new weapon Campbell tells the following story in his 'Life of took the place, and bugio, buso="hole, hollow," Lord Erskine ':either to the barrel or the hole connecting the barrel and external pan). In later Italian the notion of the bow disappeared, and the word was assimilated to words like archiduca, architrave, making archibugio or archibuso. Á much improved form of the weapon was introduced in Italy, and first used, it is believed, at the siege of Pavia in 1521. This was, in fact, what was afterwards called in French the arquebuse à meche or arquebuse proper, and was so great an improvement on the haquebute (or arquebuse à croc) already used by the French as to be practically a new weapon, which was at once adopted by the Spanish and French with the Italian form of the name, giving Spanish arcabuz, French arquebuse. For the fact that the latter was actually taken from Italian we have the contemporary testimony of the surgeon A. Paré (Treatment of Harquebus Wounds'), 1545, who also cites the Italian popular etymology. Mixture of the two forms in French gave arquebouste (1546), harquebutte (1580), halquebouze (1589), and various other curious forms. English shows, early in the sixteenth century, hackbush, hagbush, from the early Flemish or French type haeckbuyse, hacquebuche; also, about 1540, arcubos, arcubose, from Italian or Spanish; but the two typical sixteenth century English forms were haquebute (later, hackbut, hagbut) and harquebuse (commonly hargubush), with endless variant spellings. The finally accepted French form arquebuse appeared in English in the seventeenth century, and harquebus, arquebus, with many minor varieties of spelling, now divide the

ROBERT F. GARDINER.

This name apparently terminates in the suffix -kin, and should therefore be a dimunitive form of some Christian name, after the manner of Wilkin, Hawkin, Jenkin, &c. MR. A. S. ELLIS quotes The original Roskyn as an old form of the name. Christian name I believe to have been Roger. The following table will exhibit the successive stages from Roger to Ruskin in the easiest way:Roger

Rodge+kin

Roskyn
Ruskin

In support of this I append another name-group,
illustrating the above derivation in every detail:-
Hodge
T
Hodge+kin

Hoskin
I
Huskin-son.

61, Hanover Square, Bradford.

C. J. BATTERSBY.

MAZARINE BIBLE (7th S. iv. 28, 115).-Neither of the two answers to the above query has touched upon the fact that there are two Bibles known under the name of Mazarine. The first and best known is the forty-two-line Bible, printed c. 1455-6 by Schoiffer, called the Mazarine or Mazarin Bible, in accordance with stories which state either that the first copy brought into notice belonged to Cardinal Mazarin, or was discovered in the Mazarine Library at Paris. The second, and lesser known, is the Bible of forty-five lines, printed before 1466 by Eggestein, which was formerly attributed to Bamler, his name having been found in a copy as illuminator. I would suggest that the attribution of the forty-two-line Bible to Guten-place-names, whether by Celts or by Teutons, was, berg is almost certainly incorrect; it must surely be given to Schoiffer.

E. S. D.

HIT (7th S. iii. 28, 112, 295, 435).-This form of the neuter pronoun occurs on a fifteenth-century encaustic tile, in the following inscription :

Thenke mon thi liffe
mai not ev' endure.
That thou dost thi self
Of that thou art sure
but that thou kipist
un to thi sectur* cure.
And ev hit availe the
hit is but aventure.

A. A. LOCH LEVEN (7th S. ii. 446; iii. 30, 113, 177, 295, 458; iv. 131).-MR. GARDINER has formulated the rule that the Celtic race in

naming streams and rivers did so by specifying some characteristic in the stream itself; and when examples are produced of streams named from features external to them he says that these are but exceptions to his rule; and he asks me if I can point to any rule, "especially in so liquid a science as geographical etymology," to which exceptions cannot be found. If he will turn to my last note he will see that I told him I could tell him of hundreds of streams in Scotland and Ireland whose names are formed in a manner contrary to his rule. I protest against à priori theories being accepted as rules. If they should be so accepted I am afraid geographical etymology will continue to be a "liquid" science. MR. GARDINER's third paragraph contains the A B C of place-names. "The stream," or an equivalent name, would invariably be the first name of every stream; but in a land of streams a qualitative word would of necessity come to be added. My belief is that it was added by unconscious selection of any prominent feature in, near, or connected with the stream. Where no such feature obviously presented itself, then successive races added as a qualitative to their own word for a stream the word for a stream in the speech of their predecessors, the result being

* Successor or executor.

such awkward linguistic edifices as Wansbeckwater.
The same process takes its course in place-names
other than those of streams, giving such bilingual
pleonasms as Barr Hill, Knockan Hill, from barr
and cnocán; and even in names composed in a
single language we find such repetition-as Blaiket
Wood (blac wudu), black wood wood; Aiket
Wood (ác wudu), oak wood wood. Within a
mile of where I am sitting, in this most Teutonic
county of Surrey, are two ponds, Pirdmere Pond
and Mere Pond, showing that the sense of the
word mere has been so completely forgotten that it
is used only as a distinctive label. What I am
arguing for is this-that the process of conferring
in primitive times, entirely unconscious and auto-
matic; and that nothing but mischief can arise by
devising fanciful rules founded upon partial in-
vestigation.
HERBERT MAXWELL.

May I venture to suggest, in the most delicate
manner possible, that MR. GARDINER'S water-
water-water etymology of Wansbeckwater is a
broken cistern, that will hold no water? Granting
avon may become wan, Avonbeck would become
Wanbeck, not Wansbeck. There is a much graver
objection than that; but till, at least, MR. GAR-
DINER accounts for the s which thrusts itself into
the word I, for one, shall be unconvinced, even by
Hebrew citations.
G. N.
Glasgow.

GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF

GREAT BRITAIN (7th S. iv. 68).-This society was started in 1856-57 by a Mr. Rycroft Reeve, who then lived in Brompton Crescent. As I was elected an honorary member of it, perhaps it may seem ungracious on my part to say that it did very little work after the first year or two of its existence, that its "local habitation " has been unknown to

me and undiscoverable by me for the last few years, and that I have not withdrawn my name from it only in a vague hope that it will wake up again some day, like a second Rip van Winkle, into a vigorous and useful existence. The hopes with which I joined it thirty years ago have not been realized. At present I could not honestly recommend any friend to join it, even if he could discover its address; and its place seems to me to be fairly well supplied by the Royal Historical Society, which meets in Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, and of which Lord Aberdare is the president.

Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.

E. WALFORD, M.A.

I have a circular, dated May 14, 1858, from Mr. Rycroft Reeve, secretary, wherein it is stated that "a large amount of authentic genealogical and historical matter relating to the early ancestry of fellows of the society has been collated and arranged, and several elaborate pedigrees, commencing in the

ninth and eleventh centuries and brought down to
the present time, have been compiled." The circular
is headed 208, Piccadilly, London, W., and appa-
rently the society had a seal, Az., three scrolls;
crest, a hand holding a pen; supporters, Time and
Fame (?), each holding a scroll.
R. J. F.

Your correspondent Y. S. M. can probably find
out some of its secret history by addressing R.
Reeve, Esq., 25, Oakley Street, Chelsea.
MUS URBANUS.

"RARE" BEN JONSON (7th S. iv. 129). Though the contemporary notices of Ben Jonson and his works have not been examined by me specially for this epithet rare, yet I have read most, if not all, such notices, and can, I think, say with some confidence that we have no knowledge of its being given to him before Sir John Young, of his own motion, caused it to be inscribed on his supposedly temporary tombstone. That I might somewhat rehabilitate my memory, I have, since I read E. H.W.'s query, again run through the 'Jonsonius Virbius,' the commendatory verses, and some other pieces, with the same result. The nearest, from Geo. Chapman on Sejanus, is so far off that it is no

instance :

I should like to know is what has become of my
uncle's MSS., which were in the late doctor's pos-
session, and about which his widow wrote to me
at the Reform Club shortly after her husband's
death, and asked me to purchase. This was, so far
as I can remember, in the year 1881. I replied
that if she would allow me to peruse them I should
be pleased to do so, provided they would be of ser-
vice to me in a then contemplated biography of my
uncle; but from that day to this I have never heard
a word from Mrs. Pearce; even if she be alive or
not I am ignorant. If this should meet the eyes
of any friend of Mrs. Pearce, or any one who may
happen to know of the whereabouts or exist-
ence of these MSS., I should feel greatly obliged if
he would communicate with me direct, as I still
have an idea of leaving a short memoir of that stern
unflinching Tory, "who was speaking in 1831
when William IV. dissolved the Parliament which
would not be reformed," so prettily described in
Miss Harriet Martineau's History of the Thirty
Years' Peace.'
EDWARD R. VYVYAN.

231, Elgin Avenue, Maida Vale, W.

COMBER FAMILY (7th S. iii. 515; iv. 111).-The following is the entry from the parish register of Westerham, Kent, relative to the baptism of Thomas Comber, Dean of Durham: "1645, Mar. 20, was baptized Thomas, the sonne of James Comber." The family was not one of any note. The name is still common in the district as a surname. G. L. G. THE ARMS OF THE CITY OF LONDON (7th S. iv.

As is this, in the first of the 'Jonsonius Virbius' 68). The extract from the Harl. MS. given by MR. pieces by Lord Falkland, ad fin.:

Let Digby, Carew, Killigrew, and Maine,
Godolphin, Waller, that inspired brain,

STOCKEN is due to William Smith, who was created Rouge Dragon Oct. 22, 1597. He was a London merchant who travelled abroad, and Or whose rare pen besides deserves the grace. was added to the Heralds' College on the request BR. NICHOLSON. of that society. Though he was opposed to Stow's Dr. Brewer, in 'Phrase and Fable,' art. "Rare theory, he was not an enemy, for "they were well Ben," says, "So Shakespeare called Ben Jonson, acquainted, and communicated their labours to the dramatist." On what occasion the epithet was each other." But for all that, "Stow would not applied is not stated. Shakespeare, in his plays, be persuaded concerning the Dutch blazon of frequently applies the epithet rare to both persons the London arms, but affirmed them to have and things; e. g., "Vulcan a rare carpenter" been always the same" (Strype's "Life of Stow," ('Much Ado,' I. i.); "Most rare Pompey "'Love's prefixed to Stow's Survey,' vol. i. p. 15). This Labour's Lost,' V. ii.). See also Mrs. C. Clarke's notice, with other particulars concerning the 'Concordance,' s. v. "" Rare." FREDK. RULE. question of the origin of the sword or dagger in Ashford, Kent. the City arms, is given in the Chronicles of London Bridge,' second edition, London, 1839, pp. 126-134.

SIR RICHARD R. VYVYAN, BART. (5th S. xii. 148, 332, 357).—Happening this morning to require a reference in some back numbers of 'N. & Q.,' I lighted on these three, which refer to my late uncle, but which, as I was not in England at the time, must have escaped my notice, or I should have certainly replied thereto. The late DR. PEARCE, who writes at the third of these references, says, rightly, ""The Harmony of the Comprehensible World' was never published." But what

The extract given by MR. STOCKEN appears in 'N. & Q.,' 2nd S. x. 88 (wrongly called in the Index vol. ix.), but at greater length. There is also a similar query as to the Church in Antwerp which received no answer. An editorial note in 4th S. v. 490, enters upon the question of the arms, and refers to the 'Liber Custumarum.' There are also other communications in 5th S. xi. 327, 355, 457, but the account in the 'Chronicles of London