NOTES AND QUERIES.

Evening Star, Issue 7307, 3 September 1887, Page 5 (Supplement)

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Anchorites literally means persons who withdraw from society; the hermits who began to appear in the Christian Church in the third century, living in solitude, and not (like the monks) in communities. The persecutions to which Christians were subjected drove some into the solitudes of deserts; and afterwards the glory of a life spent in loneliness and austerity became a substitute for that of the martyr’s death. The fame of their sanctity, however, drew many to visit them, and their advice was often sought. BUCEPHALUS was the name of the favorite charger of Alexander the Great._ According to tradition, Alexander, in his boyhood, broke in the steed, and thus fulfilled the condition stated by an oracle as necessary for gaining the crown of Macedon. Bucephalus died during Alexander’s Indian expedition, and the town of Bucephalia was founded near the grave. Bykon, we call “ a dandy of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” This is a brief definition of him.—Carlyle. Bravo. Meaning “excellent,” “well done !” an Italian exclamation of praise, the superlative form of which is bravmimo. It is commonly used in England without distinctinction of number or gender ; _ but the Italians say Bravo! to a male singer or actor; Brava! to a lady ; and to a company of actors or singers, Bran! Blok Stocking. A name given to learned and literary ladies, who display their acquirements In a vain and pedantic manner, to the neglect of womanly duties and graces. The name is derived from a literary society formed in London about the year 1780, which included both men and women. A gentleman of the name of Stillingfleet, a distinguished member of this society, was in the habit of wearing blue stockings; hence the name, which has been adopted both in Germany and France. Comets.— The word is derived from the Greek lc6me (hair), a title which had its origin in the hairy appearance often exhibited by the haze or luminous vapor, the presence of which is at first sight the most striking characteristic of the celestial bodies called by this name. Newton succeeded in demonstrating that they are guided in their movements by the same principle which controls the planets in their orbits. Their periodicity is pretty well established, and the paths of Gome of them are accurately known. Comets have been alternately regarded with terror and with welcome in the popular mind. The appearance of Halley’s comet, in 1456, just as the Turks had become masters of Constantinople, and threatened an advance into Europe, Was regarded by Christendom with a superstitious dread, and to the Ave Maria was added the prayer “ Lord save us from the Devil, the Turk, and the Comet.” The salubrity of cometary influence is now a popular idea, and the vintages in comet years are considered so favorable that the produce is often advertised as “comet

wines.” Onus Pkobandx —that is, the burden of "proof. It is often a difficult question in litigation; but as a general rule the plaintiff who institutes the suit is bound to give proof of the allegations on which he relies. There are many nice and technical rules on the subject, both in suits and actions, which are too minute to be stated, and which must be left to the keen discrimination of those engaged in unravelling the subtleties of legal proceedings. Parricide is rather a popular than a legal term. In the Roman law it comprehended everyone who murdered a near relative; but in English the term is usually confined to the murderer of one’s father, or of one who is in loco parenti «. In the Roman law, a parricide was punished in n severe manner, being sewed up in a leather bag along with a live cock, viper, dog, and ape, and cast into the sea, to take his fate with ■ these extraordinary companions. Palm Sunday, the last Sunday of Lent, is so called from the custom of blessing branches of the palm tree, or of other trees, , substituted in those countries in which palms cannot be procured, of carrying the blessed branches in procession, in commemoration of the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem. The date of this custom is uncertain. The first writer who expressly refers to it is the Veuerable Bede, A special service is found in the Roman missal for the blessing of branches of palms and olives; but in many countries other trees—as in England the yew or the willow, and in Brittany the box—are blessed instead, A procession is formed, the members of which issue from the church carrying branches in their hands, and singing a hymn suited to the occasion. In some of the Catholic countries of the West a priest, or occasionally a lay figure, was led at the head, mounted upon an ass, in commemoration of our Lord’s entry into the city, a usage which still exists in Spain. At Rome the procession of the palms, in which the Pope is carried, is among the most striking of the picturesque ceremonies of the Holy Week. In England, Palm Sunday anciently was celebrated with much ceremonial; but the blessing and the procession of the palms were discontinued in the Church of England, and, together with other ceremonies, abolished in the reign of Edward VI. Saint Anthony’s Fire.— The Rev. Alban Butler, in his ‘ Lives of the Saints,’ gives the following account of the origin of this name“ In 1089 a pestilential erysipelous distemper, called ‘the iaored fire,’ swept off great numbers in most of the provinces of France. Public prayers and processions were ordered against this scourge. At length it pleased God to grant many miraculous cures of this dreadful distemper to those who implored His mercy through the intercession of St. Anthony. The Church of La Motte St. Didier, in which his relics were deposited, was resorted to by great numbers of pilgrims, and his patronage was implored over the whole kingdom against this disease.” The order of Canons Regular of St. Anthony, a religious fraternity, founded for the relief of persons afflicted ’ with “St. Anthony’s fire,” survived in France till the year 1790. Stannaries (the mines from which tin is dug),—The term is most generally used with reference to the peculiar laws and usages of the tin mines in the counties of Cornwall and Devon. By an early usage, peculiar to these counties, the prerogative of the Crown, elsewhere reaching only to gold and silver mines, is extended to mines of tin, which are the property of the Sovereign, whoever be the owner of the soil. A charter of King John to his tinners in Cornwall and Devonshire authorised them to dig tin and turf to melt the tin anywhere in the moors, and in the fees of the bishops, abbots, and earls, as they had been used and accustomed. When Edward the Third created his son (the Black Prince) Duke of Cornwall, he at the same time conferred on him the Stannaries of Devon and Cornwall, which were incorporated in perpetuity with the duchy. In the County of Cornwall the right to dig tin in unenclosed or waste lands may be acquired by anyone, who is not the owner of the lands, on going through certain formalities, the party acquiring the right being bound to pay one-fifteenth to the owner of the lands. Tartarus, from the Greek word Tarturos. According to Homer, it is a deep and sunless abyss, as far below Hades as earth is below Heaven, and closed in by iron gates. Into Tartarus Zeus hurled those who rebelled againtt his authority. Afterwards, the name was employed sometimes synonymous with Hades, or the under-world generally ; but more frequently to denote the place where the wicked were punished after death. Taktoffe. The name of the chief character in Molifcre’s most celebrated comedy, which has become a synonym in all languages for a hypocritical pretender to religion. The original of the character was believed to be a certain Abbe de Roquette. The name is said to have suggested Itself to Molßre on the occasion of a visit to the Papal Nuncio, where he saw the solemn countenances of the Nuncio’s courtiers suddenly lighted up with ecstatic animation by the appearance of a seller of truffles. This play excited a greater commotion than perhaps any other production of the kind ever did. The Archbishop of Paris threatened with excommunication all actors who should take part in the performance, and even those who should only read it; and one dignitary went so far as to declare that Molßre, whom he called a devil in human form, was deserving of the stake. It, however, to the great vexation of the priests, had an uninterrupted run of three months on the public stage.