Both authors then state how Geraint said to the queen that he would go to the next town for arms, which he would either borrow or buy, and would then demand an apology from the knight for the currish behaviour of the dwarf. When the prince got to the town he found it full, and every man was busy preparing for a tournament to be held on the morrow. Some were polishing armour, others sharpening swords or shoeing horses, so that it was impossible to get attended to, and as for buying or borrowing arms, it was quite out of the question.

the conditious to be observed, and the earl answered him, saying

Mabinogion.-" In the midst of a meadow...two forks will be set up, and upon the two forks a silver rod, and upon the... rod a sparrow-hawk, and for the sparrow-hawk there will be a tournament...and no man can joust... except the lady he loves best be with him...but thou hast neither dame nor maiden...for whom thou canst joust." Tennyson." In this tournament can no man tilt Except the lady he loves best be there. Two forks are fixt into the meadow ground, And over these is placed a silver wand, And over that a golden sparrow-hawk, The prize of beauty...

But thou that hast no lady canst not fight." Mabinogion." Ah, sir," said he [Geraint], "if...thou

man,

Tennyson. Then rode Geraint...and Beheld...in a long valley...a castle in decay, Beyond a bridge that spanned a dry ravine. There musing sat the hoary-headed earl (His dress a suit of frayed magnificence). "Whither, fair son?" he said. Geraint replied, "O friend, I seek a harbourage for the night." ["Come then," the old man said,] "and partake My slender entertainment."...

Then rode Geraint into the castle court.

Mabinogion. Having come to the castle] in a chamber he beheld a decrepit old woman, sitting on a cushion, clad in an old tattered garment of satin...and beside her a maiden, upon whom were a vest and a veil that were... beginning to be worn out...The hoary-headed man said to the maiden, "There is no attendant for the stranger's horse but thyself." "I will render the best service I am able," said she...and when she returned the old man said to her, Go now to the town and bring hither the best that thou canst find, both of meat and drink"...and she went to the town to do her [his] bidding.

Tennyson.-[When the prince entered the castle] He found an ancient dame in dim brocade, And near her...

Moved the fair Enid, all in faded silk, Her daughter... Then [said] the hoary earl, "Enid, the good knight's horse stands in the court, Take him to stall and give him corn, and then Go to the town and buy us flesh and wine." Mabinogion. To the town went the maiden. And the old man with his guest conversed together till her return. She came back, and a youth with her, bearing on his back a costrel full of meat and wine. The maiden carried in her hand a store of white bread, and some manchet bread in her veil...and they caused the meat to be boiled...and when all was ready they sat down...and the maiden served them.

Tennyson. So Enid...reached the town, and while
the prince and earl

Yet spoke together, came again with one,
A youth, that following with a costrel, bore
The means of goodly welcome, flesh and wine,
And Enid brought sweet cakes to make them cheer,
And in her veil enfolded manchet bread.

And then...she boiled the flesh, and spread the board,

And stood behind and waited on the three.

Geraint then asked about the tournament and

engage if I escape...to love her as long as I live; and if do not escape, she will remain unsullied as before."...At night, lo! they went to sleep, and before the dawn they arose...and by the time that it was day they were...in the meadow.

Tennyson.--To whom Geraint:

"Let me lay lance in rest...for this dear child... And if I fall, her name will yet remain Untarnished as before; but if I live...

I will make her truly my true wife." [Then all retired for the night,]

And when the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun, arose...and moved Down to the meadow where the jousts were held. Then follows the battle, in which the two combatants were matched, till Yniol went

Mabinogion. And said, "Remember the insult to Gwenh wyvar, the wife of Arthur." Then Geraint called up all his strength, and lifted up his sword and struck the knight upon the crown of his head, so that he broke all his head-armour, and cut thro' the flesh and skin... until he wounded the bone.

Tennyson. And either force was matched, till
Yniol's cry,

"Remember that great insult done the queen," Increased Geraint's, who heaved his blade aloft And cracked the helmet thro' and bit the bone. Geraint then granted the vanquished man his life on the usual conditions.

Mabinogion.-"Thou shalt go to Gwenhwyvar, the wife of Arthur, and offer satisfaction for the insult which the maiden received from thy dwarf."... And [the knight made answer], "This will I do gladly."...And he went forward to Arthur's court.

Tennyson.-"Thou shalt ride to Arthur's court, and
coming there

Crave pardon for that insult done the queen."
And Edyrn answered, "These things will I do."...
And rising up he rode to Arthur's court.
E. COBHAM BREWER.

Lavant.

(To be continued.)

THE RUTHERFURD PEERAGE. In an article in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1867 (new series, vol. iii.), I find a question incidentally raised respecting a once famous Scottish peerage case, which produced a decidedly acrimonious controversy, and enlivened more than

one election of "the Sixteen" at Holyrood House after a fashion not altogether unknown even in these decorous days. The writer of the article to which I refer describes the curious way in which the supporters of the Lords Rutherfurd have been made the shuttlecocks of fortune, granted, it would appear, by a Lyon King (of days anterior to his present Leonine majesty) to an English baronet without a drop of Rutherfurd blood in his veins, but who had purchased the estate of Rutherfurd; and assumed, it would appear (we should imagine without the Lyon's authority), by a Fifeshire family of good repute as heirs of line of the old Lords Rutherfurd, whose peerage they are understood to claim."

66

I have recently had the good fortune to come across a very rare old pamphlet setting forth the doughty deeds of "that Renowned General Andrew, Earl of Teviot, Lord Rutherfurd," Governor of Tangier, which was published "in Commemoration of his Fredecessor" by one of the rival claimants, George Durie of Grange, styling himself "George, Lord Rutherfurd," who takes the opportunity to fulminate dire anathemas upon one John Rutherford, a reduc'd subaltern officer," who "of late arrogantly pretends to represent" the noble family of Hunthill. The pamphlet is entitled :"The Moors Baffled, being a Discourse concerning Tangier.......In a Letter from a learned Person (long Resident in that Place) wrote at the Desire of a Person of Quality, and now published....... With an Abbreviate of the Genealogy of the Family of Rutherfurd thereto annexed. Edinburgh, Printed by T. and W. Ruddimans,

1738."

This date is highly significant when read in connexion with the election of a representative peer for Scotland in that year, at which, as will be seen by the Return of the Court of Session, presently to be cited, the two rival claimants renewed their protestations against each other. If we could be certain that the publication took place before the election we should incline to call the dedicatory letter to the king, which prefaces the whole work, and is immediately followed by the genealogical "Abbreviate," a daring attempt to make His Majesty appear to the world as allowing the superiority of George Durie's claim, which is explicitly asserted in the body of the Dedication, and re-asserted by the signature "Rutherfurd" at its close. It says much for the judicial calmness of the Court of Session that their Return, made two years after this publication issued from the Edinburgh press, should be couched in such severely impartial language. The following passages from the "Return of the Lords of Session to an Order of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled June 12, 1739," and submitted in their name Feb. 27, 1740, by Duncan Forbes, Lord President, have such a forcible application to the entire subject of Scottish peerage law that I extract them

from the Return, as printed in Nisbet, vol. ii. pt. iv. (Fleming's edition, 1804) :—

"After the practice of creating peerages by patent the records, till of late, have been so carelessly kept that they cannot be absolutely depended upon; patents of honour have passed the Great Seal, and yet copies of the patents so passed are not to be met with in the Register of that Seal;......besides that of vol. 57 of the Register of the Great Seal, in the keeping of the Lord Keeper, twelve leaves are lost, by some accident now unknown; and it appears from the minute book that the patent of Bargeny and several others were passed at such time; that they probably may have been entered in some of those

leaves that are lost.......

"The practice of Scotland went still farther; and it was usual to obtain grants of honours not only to the grantee and his heirs male, and of tailzie, referring to the particular entail then made, but also to his heirs of him in his estate, and even to any person whom he tailzie whom he might thereafter appoint to succeed should name to succeed him in his honours at any time in his life, or upon death-bed: Now as it is impossible to trace through the records such nominations and appointment, which in some cases may be valid, though not Lords of Session are not able to give your Lordships any hitherto recorded, your Lordships will easily see that the reasonable satisfaction touching the limitations of the peerages that are still continuing; and your Lordships will further perceive the reason why, in the foregoing observations, they speak so doubtfully of the continuance of peerages which, were they to judge only on what appears from the examination they have had of the records, they should not doubt to report to be extinct or so conjoined with other titles of honour as not to be again separable."

In order that it may clearly be seen what were the various questions to which the Rutherfurd patent might give rise, I now cite the words of limitation in the grant, which I give from Nisbet, who prints (vol. ii. app. ii.) the relative clauses of all the patents referred to in the Return of the Court of Session:

"Andreas Rutherfurd, Legatus Generalis. "Carolus, &c. Fecisse, nominasse, constituisse, et

creasse, Dominum Rutherfurd de viz. ipsum Andream ejusque Hæredes masculos ex corpore suo legitime procreatos seu procreandos; quibus deficientibus, quamcumque aliam Personam seu Personas quas sibi, quoad vixerit, quinetiam, in Articulo mortis ad ei succedendum; ac fore ejus Hæredes Talliæ et Provisionis in eadem Dignitate, nominare et designare placuerit secundum Nominationem et Designationem Manu ejus subscribendam, subsque Provisionibus, Restrictionibus, et Conditionibus, a dict[o] Andrea pro ejus Arbitrio in dicta Designatione Præsentium dare, &c., ei ejusque antedict[is] dictum concessisse Tenoreque exprimendis: Ac dedisse et Titulum, Honorem, Dignitatem, et Gradum Domini Parliamenti, ut ita tempore futuro vocitentur et denominentur, cum Potestate sibi suisque antedict[is] denominandi et designandi semetipsos Dominos Rutherfurd

de

ac gaudendi et fruendi eadem dignitate," &c. From the clause beginning "quibus deficientibus" down to that ending "in dicta Designatione exprimendis," the words of limitation as given in Burke's Extinct and Dormant Peerage (1866), s.v. Rutherford, Earl of Teviot and Lord Rutherford, are identical with the same clauses as I have taken

them from Nisbet, save as to the use of capital letters, the substitution of "subque" for Nisbet's "subsque," and the printing of "dicto" without indication of the contracted form in which it appears in the earlier text, and which I represent by placing the omitted letter within square brackets. I am thus minute in pointing out these very slight differences, not as in any way reflecting on the accuracy of Sir Bernard Burke's reprint-which, indeed, so far as it goes, I prove to be substantially identical with my own-but in order to show that in working out the present subject I have gone to the older sources of information, the same, in fact, as were no doubt used by Ulster himself in preparing his account of this peerage.

The exact state of the question regarding the Rutherfurd peerage in 1740 is best explained by the Court of Session, in language as remarkable for its caution as for its succinctness :

"Rutherford. That in the Records of the Great Seal, in the keeping of the Lord Register, anno 1661, there appears a patent granting the dignity of Lord Rutherford to Andrew Rutherford and the heirs male of his body; which failing, to whatsoever person or persons he should, by any writing under his hand, even on death-bed, appoint to succeed him. The Lord Rutherford appears by the rolls of Parliament to have sat or voted in the 1698, and Robert, Lord Rutherford, appears to have voted at the election of sixteen peers anno 1715; and in the year 1733, at the election of a peer in room of the Earl of Sutherland, then deceased, George Durie of Grange appeared and voted as Lord Rutherford without any objection. At the general election the year following, 1734, the same person claimed his vote, but he was protested against by Captain John Rutherford, who laid claim to the honours of Rutherford, and gave in to the clerks his list in virtue thereof; against which the said George Dury in his turn protested; and in the election, anno 1738, of a peer to serve in Parliament in the room of the late Earl of Morton, these two claimants renewed their protestations against each other, and tendered severally their votes; but whether any, or which of them, has a sufficient right to that peerage they cannot say." C. H. E. CARMICHAEL.

New University Club.

"Ten times more dishonourably ragged than an old-faced ancient." 1 Hen. 1V., iv. 2. "And I, sir (bless the mark !), his Moorship's ancient." Othello, i. 1.

The common interpretation of this word is that it means an ensign, in the double sense of standard and standard-bearer. So our older dictionaries explain it, and Cotgrave has, " Enseigne, an ensigne, auncient, standard-bearer." The explanation is correct, as far as it goes, but is not sufficiently precise. The ancient was a banner bearing an heraldic device, the token of ancient or noble descent, borne by a gentleman or a leader in war:

"Lord Westmorland his ancyent rais'd,
The dun bull he rais'd on hie."

The Rising in the North.
"Master, Master, see you yon faire ancyent,
Yonder is the serpent and the serpent's head."
Percy's Rel. (ed. 1867), i. 303.

The servant recognized by this device that the ship which bore it belonged to Duke John of Austria. The word was, however, used to denote

one who was connected with some blazon of this

kind, whether as an attendant to a standard or to some gentleman who had armorial bearings. In the English edition of the Janua Linguarum Trilinguis, by J. Comenius, published by Roger Daniel in 1662, it is said that "the standardbearers carrie the standards in the midst of the

troops, whom the ancients march before with hangers"; the Latin is "quos præcedunt antesignani cum romphæis" (p. 245). The word antesignanus is explained by Ducange as one "qui præibat vexillo ad illius custodiam." In Anchoran's Gate of Tongues Unlocked (ed. 1639), which is based on the work of Comenius, the passage runs thus: "whom the lieutenants precede or go before, with long two-handed swords " (p. 143).

From these instances it is easy to see how the word came to mean a personal attendant or bodysquire, who, says Fosbroke (Ant., ii. 752), “had the care of the things relating to the person of the knight, carried his master's standard, and gave the catchword in battle," an office often borne by men of honourable descent. This is the meaning of the word in Othello. Iago was the personal attendant of the Moor in a military capacity, in modern language his aide-de-camp, receiving orders from his superior, especially, but not exclusively, about military movements. Hence Othello calls him "my ancient," and says to him: "These letters give, Iago, to the pilot,

And by him do my duties to the senate;
That done, I will be walking on the works,-
Repair there to me.
Lago.

Well, my good lord, I'll do 't."

iii. 2.

But the word is a mere invention, and, moreover, the breeding places of the sea-mew or sea-gull are so few that it would always be a difficult task to obtain the young birds. Mr. Dyce proposes staniel, a kind of hawk, and Theobald, with whom Mr. Knight agrees, has suggested stannel, a name of the kestrel, as emendations of the text, but without much probability in either case. A meaning may be found for the word as it stands which presents no difficulty, and is quite in harmony with the other parts of Caliban's address. The root appears to be the O.N. and Dan. skal, which bears the various meanings of shell, scale, pod, vessel, and skull. The primary meaning is that of covering or enclosing, as in the Sans. kul, to cover, to defend. Hence we have O.N. skali, a house; skalkr, a helmet; and skalma, a sheath. This last form becomes in Sweden skama (pron. skauma), which represents an older skamma or skama, the being either assimilated or lost, as in the O. Fries. scemma and schema, for scel-ma, in Dutch zal men (shall or ought we ?). This skama means a pod or husk (in Lancashire a shull), but primarily a shell, and scamel will mean a little shell. It might be applied to any of the smaller molluscs, but as reference is made especially to the rock as the habitat of the scamel, we shall not be far wrong if we identify it with the limpet, which clings to the rock with so much force that it is not always easy to separate it. I propose, therefore, to interpret the passage thus :"I'll bring thee

To clust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee
Young limpets from the rock."

There may seem to be a difficulty in proposing a Scandinavian origin for a Warwickshire word, but the root or stem was skal or skäl in North Friesic, and we have retained the tenuis in scull and scalp, which are cognate words. In the fifth and sixth centuries the Angles, who peopled Mercia, appear to have been very nearly related in speech to the Danes, who had formerly been their neighbours. The word was probably provincial and of limited area, being hemmed in by words similar in sound but of different meaning, such as skam, shame, and skamel or schamel, a foot-stool. Belsize Square.

J. D.

THE PRINCE IMPERIAL'S NURSE.-In Dean Stanley's recent sermon, which alluded to the Prince Imperial's sad death, these words were used: "We heard of his faithful English nurse, and of her good counsels to him." The story of this nurse, as I heard it at the time of the prince's birth, is very remarkable. She lived at Gilling, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, and having seen that Dr. Locock was inviting respectable women to offer themselves for the situation, either through a dream or mental conviction she persuaded her

self that she was destined to have the care of the expected child. Disregarding all ridicule or remonstrance from her less romantic neighbours, she presented herself, in plain cotton dress, at the time appointed for elective competition, at the great physician's house in London, and was at last admitted after many more pretentious candidates. Her tale to Dr. Locock was the same that she had told her neighbours: "She knew that it was her lot to nurse the coming child." Her manner and fitness for the office prevailed, and she was sent to Paris. Some years elapsed, and my lady informant was in Paris, with a niece, and called at the Tuileries to see her Gilling acquaintance. She was received by the good woman in like peasant dress to what she had worn at Gilling. The imperial child was exhibited amongst his toys, and the offer was made them of a drive in the carriage that was always at her disposal for the recreation of her charge. She was as simple and unspoilt as when she left her English home. On the night of Orsini's attempt to destroy the emperor and empress as they were about to enter the theatre, this good nurse was awoke, about midnight, by some one opening the door of the nursery, where she slept with the young prince. Perceiving that it was his father, she lay still, and saw the emperor go and kneel for a few seconds at the child's cot, and then quietly depart. More is probably known of this "faithful English nurse," but what I have stated of her original interview with Sir Charles Locock marks her strength of character. ALFRED GATTY, D.D.

Ecclesfield Vicarage.

THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.-At a time when so much is being said upon this subject, the following figures may perhaps be deemed apropos. The present Parliament is the thirty-fourth since the passing of the Septennial Act in 1716. Of these no less than ten had each a duration of six years and upwards, while nine others sat for more than five years. During the 163 years that have elapsed since the Septennial Act there has been no single instance in which a Parliament has died of old age, although that in which the Act was passed came very near to it. It was called (under the old triennial system) for March 17, 1715, and dissolved March 10, 1721-2, thus wanting but one week to completing the full term of seven years. The longest Parliament since then was the second Parliament of George II. It met June 13, 1734, and was dissolved April 28, 1741, an existence of six years, ten months, and fifteen days. In the present century the longest Parliament was the first of George IV., which met April 23, 1820, and was dissolved June 2, 1826, thus lasting six years, one month, and nine days; but in the present reign the Parliament called by Lord Derby in 1859 was within three days of the same length.