PARAGUAYAN TEA (6th S. xii. 466). It is to the Jesuits that we owe the introduction of the use of the Paraguayan herb. They exported it so early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, and hence it is frequently called Jesuit's tea :

"In the reign of Queen Anne the London physicians forbade Jesuit's tea as productive of barrenness in men and women, but possibly they were jealous of its origin, although they certainly encouraged the use of Jesuit's bark."-Mulhall's Hand Book of the River Plate.'

The herb yerba is cultivated in Paraguay and the neighbouring districts, the yerba of the firstnamed state being considered preferable to that of any other. On being gathered it is scorched and suspended in sheds exposed to a slow wood fire. On the following day the twigs are ground, and it is ready. It is sewn up in raw or untanned hide (hair on the outside), and this hide, being wetted at the time it is used, dries and contracts, rendering the bundle tercio or sobernal, as it is termed, compact. These bundles weigh from 200 to 250 lb. Brazil exports 30,000 and Paraguay 5,000 tons annually.

The gourd from which this tea is imbibed is called the máte, and hence the name applied to the drink itself. This gourd is cultivated in all parts of the country. I noticed that my gardener had placed nearly two hundred to dry in the sun the other day. This gourd is, as a rule, about the size of an orange, circular in shape, a little flat at its sides, and some three inches of the stem is usually left on. It is brought into the kitchen in the winter, and dries completely in the smoke there. The seeds are then cut out and it is ready for use.

Owing to the fineness of the yerba, the liquid is imbibed by means of a bombilla, a long stem with a perforated bulb, generally made of white metal, though not unfrequently of silver, or even gold. This stem is well embedded in the yerba, warm water is poured over it, and the tea is thus drunk. Men drink it bitter. Women add sugar, and sometimes milk. I have never seen lemon-juice used, and I may add that I have been a constant drinker of máte for the past five years.

In the house of the gaucho, or native workman of this country there are certain customs with regard to the use of yerba that are worthy of note. Where five or six are gathered round the fire in the centre of the smoke-begrimed kitchen, the máte is handed round the circle in rotation, served always by the same person. The technical word used is sevar máte (cebar, lit., to bait, to grease, applied in the sense of doughing together the paste formed by the yerba and water and accommodating the bombilla). It is the worst possible etiquette to wipe the mouthpiece of the bombilla when handed to you, or to return the máte only half emptied. As the taste is exceedingly bitter when the yerba is newly placed in the gourd, it is a saying that the fool of the company" drinks the first máte.

"Siempre me toca á mi tomar el primer máte " (lit., "I have always to drink the first máte," i. e., "I am an unlucky fellow"). As a beer king in Germany is by his stiff drinking a brave fellow, so is a hearty drinker of máte honoured by his fellows in this country. Not many days ago a woman, com plaining to me of the poor health of her brother, remarked, "En otros años solia tomar tres cebadas* antes de ladrar el cimarront y ya ni ganas tiene!" ("In former years he would drink three replenishings of the gourd before the morning dog bayed, and now he seems to have no desire to drink at all"). We also have the proverb, "Calientar agua para que tóme otro el máte " ("Heat water that another may drink máte," i. e., "Sow that others may reap"). It is a most sustaining beverage, and if one drink seven or eight mátes before sunrise he is better able to resist a day's work and fatigue than had he drunk any quantity of coffee or tea. But it is an acquired taste, and anything but agreeable. The probable reason that it is generally drunk by the people in this country is that they cannot afford anything better, and that its slow process of circulation and imbibing suits their indolent nature. H. GIBSON.

La Tomasa, Cachari, F.C.S., Buenos Ayres.

The notes at p. 409 clearly refer to James ChadLAWYER AND WARRIOR (7th S. ii. 409, 450).— wick, who was created Steward of the Honour of Peverel in 1638, and Deputy Recorder of Nottingham in 1642, the Earl of Clare being the Recorder. Chadwick played an important part in local politics, and he had the misfortune to incur the She abuses him in hatred of Mrs. Hutchinson. her usual virulent manner, but there is no doubt that her character of him is grossly distorted. Many notices of Chadwick will be found in her book. Chadwick died in June, 1660. From one of the notes in Mr. Firth's edition of Col. Hutchinson's 'Life' we learn that Chadwick raised a force in the moorlands of Staffordshire, of which he became colonel. Chadwick's description of this command as the office of "Commander en cheife de moorelands in Com. Staff." is somewhat magniloquent. Mrs. Hutchinson states that Chadwick had been a "parcel-judge" in Ireland. It is possible that Chadwick has exaggerated the importance of his judicial appointments in Ireland in the same way as he has done with his military command. W. H. STEVENSON.

Nottingham,

His name was Chadwick. He is roughly dealt with by Mrs. Hutchinson in her' Memoirs' of her husband, the Governor of Nottingham. He

to prepare máte (tech.).. A cebada will last out some eight to twelve replenishings of the gourd with water. † Cimarron, a semi-wild dog, yellow in colour, almost extinct now.

* From cebar (Arg. sevar), to grease, to bait, ultimately

CONGERS, A BOOKSELLING PHRASE (7th S. ii. 365).Glossographia Anglicana Nova,' 1707, gives :

"Congress or Congre, a Society of Booksellers, who have a Joynt Stock for Trading."

Again, in Phillips's 'New World of Words,' 1720, I find :

"Congress, or Congers, a particular Society of Booksellers, who put in joint Stocks for the Buying and Printing of Copies, and Trading for their common Advantage."

According to the above passages the word would seem to be derived from Lat. congressus.

F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

"EXPERTO CREDE" (7th S. ii. 368, 433).—It is almost a primary rule with readers of N. &Q to require chapter and verse where possible, and I marvel that such a veteran note-taker as MR. SALA should be content to simply ascribe the phrase "Experto crede Roberto" to dear old Democritus Junior. May I supply the omission? The passage in which the phrase occurs is at p. 6 of the address of Democritus to the reader in my Burton's 'Anatomie' (Oxford, 1632), and runs thus:

"Concerning my selfe, I can peradventure affirme with Marius in Salust, that which others heare or read of, I felt and practised my selfe, they get their knowledge by Bookes, I mine by melancholizing, Experto

crede Roberto.'"

JAMES HOOPER.

Oak Cottage, Streatham Place, S.W. "Experto credite" occurs in Vergil's Æneid,' xi. 283, and Ovid's 'Ars Amantis,' iii. 511; "Crede experto" in 'Silius Italicus, Punica,' vii. 395. Antonius de Arena (died 1544) wrote "Experto crede Roberto," Robertus standing for a plain man who had no title to exceptional wisdom. Arena gave the phrase currency in France, Italy, and Germany, many Germans using Ruperto, with an allusion to Knecht Rupert, for Roberto. The phrase is an intentional travesty.

C. W. ERNST.

298, Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Mass., U.S. PARISH REGISTERS (7th S. ii. 368, 431).-I would suggest to MR. ELLIS that he should procure Dr. Geo. W. Marshall's printed copy of the register of Perlethorpe, Notts., 1528-1813, the proof of which I saw last week. It is an admirable specimen of what a printed copy should be-page for page, line for line, letter for letter, with notes

CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH THE PLAGUE (7th S. ii. 229, 374).-Will you allow me to note a further discovery in connexion with the bearing of rods or wands in the time of plague. It is a much earlier instance than either of those before noted. On April 28, 1518, during the prevalence of the sweating sickness in England, the Dean of the Chapel Royal, John Clerk, D.D., wrote to Wolsey from Woodstock as follows:

"Master More has certified the King from Oxford, that three children are dead of the sickness, but none others. He has charged the mayor and the commissary that be and shall be infected, shall keep in, put out in the King's name, that the inhabitants of those houses wispes, and bear white rods, according as your grace devised for Londoners" (see Calendars of State Papers of Hen. VIII.).

Clearly the custom was an ancient one, and I should be very glad if any of your readers would help me to trace it to its source. On what date were Wolsey's orders to the Londoners issued? H. R. PLOMER.

In 1573 the plague was raging in the town of Southampton, and recourse was had to the expedient of painting a cross on the house doors of infected persons; such persons were obliged to carry white rods in their hands "to knowe the syke from the whole "; and the town employed six men and women as "keepers and bearers" of the sick people, at one shilling per week each. See Davies's History of Southampton,' 1883, p. 480. J. S. ATTWOOD.

Exeter.

SUICIDE OF ANimals (6th S. xi. 227, 354; xii. 295, 454; 7th S. i. 59, 112, 155, 178).—I am dis

inclined to believe in deliberate intention of suicide in so-called "animals," for one reason, among others, because I think if they were capable of entertaining the idea they would take advantage of it so often, to be rid of the miseries the human animal inflicts on them, that the present doubt would not exist. Would not half the cab-horses crawl into the Thames, and would not high-spirited mongrels devise means of being beforehand with the policeman's truncheon? Nevertheless, I have just been credibly informed of an authentic instance, which has so much more appearance of a deliberate act of the kind than any I have met

SOCIAL POSITION OF THE CLERGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (7th S. ii. 241, 313, 377). -There can, I conceive, be little doubt but that Macaulay had in his mind's eye the well-known 'Directions to Servants' by Dean Swift. In those "To the Waiting Maid" he advises (in a certain contingency), "You must take up with the chaplain." The passage is too gross for the chaste columns of N. & Q.' AS HERMENTRUDE mentions, the social position of ladies' maids was then higher than now. Indeed, so recently as the first quarter of the present century they are styled "gentlewomen" in works of fiction. C. S. K.

Miscellaneous.

By J. W.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. Cavalier Lyrics: For Church and Crown. Ebsworth, M.A., F.S.A. (Privately printed.) So antiquarian in feeling, in character, and in expression are these Cavalier lyrics of our old contributor the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, that the rule prohibiting N. & Q.' from dealing with modern verse may now for once be set on one side. If ever there was a soul born a couple of centuries too late it is that of the Vicar of Molash. To the general reader he is known by his admirable service to letters in reprinting in a handsome form the Drolleries' of the Restoration period and by his constant, loyal, zealous, and wholly gratuitous labours in editing for the Ballad Society the precious series of Bagford and Roxburghe ballads. A smaller circle recognizes him as the author of 'Karl's Legacy,' published in two volumes in 1868, and of various spirited poems written on occasional subjects. In these various books we are shown a man whose nature is “subdued"

To that it works in, like the dyer's hand, It is not a mere question of admiration and enthusiasm for the brave gentlemen who cast in their lot with the Stuart kings, melted their plate into money, armed their servants into companies, and gave up their estates and their lives, accepting ungrudgingly penury, exile, and death. Into the very soul of these men Mr. Ebsworth enters, leading, as it were, their lives, warmed by their loves, flushed with their hatreds, inspired by their scorns. The name of " crop-ear'd Puritan" is with him a phrase of burning significance, the health of King Charles is drunk by him unbonnetted and kneeling, with the resolution of enthusiasm and the fervency of prayer. For the Puritans of to-day, for those who would have no more cakes and ale, would take away from our country the name of Merry England, and substitute sour visages for happy faces, Mr. Ebsworth has unqualified contempt. It is, however, an old-world scorn. He is a not ungenerous foe. For "Old Noll," who "plays the right card, tho' he holds the wrong suit," he has an enforced admiration; and after the restoration of monarchy he

calls on Milton, who has fallen on "evil days" and
"evil tongues," and is "in darkness and with dangers
compass'd round," and shakes him by the hand.
Part I. deals with the period before the Restora-
tion. The first lyric of combat is sung in June,
1639, by a trooper of Sir John Suckling's regiment after
their dispersal by the Scots; a second is a wail over the
fate of Strafford. Then, after one or two others, is a
Nottingham. This is followed by Told in the Twilight,'
spirited song on the raising of the royal standard at
a love-ballad sung before Edgehill. So by Prince Rupert's
Last Charge,''Left on the Battle-field, Naseby,'' Væ Vic-
tis; Philiphaugh,' 'Short Shrift,'A Cavalier's Grave,'
&c., we arrive at The Thirty-first of January, 1648/9,'
a supremely touching poem, in which a girl whose
brothers have died in the war hesitates how to break to
her ruined father the news of the death of Charles.
Part II. opens out a brighter vista. We have now a
picture of the Restoration Court, with poems to La Belle
Stewart, glimpses of Nell Gwynne, Milton, &c.; but
with graver episodes, such as the murder of Archbishop
Sharp, and so on, until the true Cavalier, "Semper
Fidelis," once more accepts exile after the flight of
James II.-

From trickster Orange and those pliant knaves
Whom he had bribed to treachery accurst.

The volume thus constitutes a species of poetical and quasi-dramatic chronicle of fifty years of English history. It is written throughout with spirit and fervour, is printed as an édition de luxe, and is illustrated by designs reproduced by the author from the old ballads he has edited and from other sources. In its way this attractive volume, of which a very limited edition is imprinted, is, and is likely to remain, unique. Three Norfolk Armories. A Transcript made in 1753 of a MS. by Anthony Norris, Esq., of Barton Turf. Edited by Walter Rye. (Privately printed.) THIS is an interesting little volume on a special subject by one who is well known as a specialist on East Anglian heraldry and genealogy. The frequent references to older coats, can only cause regret in our minds that the monuments, painted glass, &c., as authority for the compiler of these armories did not mention the places where the monuments were then existing. It is probable that we should have a sad tale to tell of destruc tion, whether of marble, or brass, or of storied window.

Norfolk Armories' is that of Lymsey of Gunton, occur Among the rarer names which we notice in Mr. Rye's ring in his Codex C, and as to which the editor queries "Lynisey?" The name may have been sometimes so written, but the more ordinary forms are Limesie and Lymesie, and it is, as the late Earl of Crawford showed good reason for believing, the original form of the name of the "lightsome Lindsays" of Scottish history. Other famous names from the same history appear on Mr. Rye's pages, such as Kirkpatrick, Montgomery, &c. Old English local patronymics, such as Atte Cherche, Atwood, occur, and names such as Cressy, Everingham, Rydell, to which attention has from time to time been drawn by us. We hope that Mr. Rye will be encouraged to continue his good work, and print "all the Norfolk armorial MSS.," as he suggests in his prefatory note. Edgar Allan Poe: his Life, Letters, and Opinions. By John H. Ingram. (Allen & Co.) In a convenient and handsome volume, suitable in all respects for the shelves, is now issued Mr. Ingram's elaborate and successful biography of Poe. The service Mr. Ingram has rendered to the poet has long won recognition. In this biography the vindication of Poe is complete. It is pleasant to find that a new edition has