id="pgepubid00016">Inscription at Hardwicke Hall.

—The following inscription, from a banqueting-room in Hardwicke Hall, Derbyshire, may be worthy of a place by the side of those quoted by PROCURATOR (Vol. v., p. 8.):

H. T.

Queries.

JUNIUS QUERIES.

Junius Rumours.

—Some months since there was a story whispered in certain circles, or rather two stories, which, when taken together, went to show that this great mystery of modern times was on the eve of solution. The first stated that the Grenville Papers, about to be published by Murray, would prove the identity of Junius with the correspondent of Woodfall under one of the signatures Atticus or Brutus, whose letters had been already, and, as it would thereby appear, very properly, attributed to Junius himself. The second rumour was to the effect that an eminent bookseller, whose attention had been drawn to the Junius question by the circumstance of his having recently published an edition of the letters, &c., on being called in to estimate the value of certain historical papers for some legal purposes, was startled by discovering, in the course of his examination of them, who this Atticus or Brutus was—and, consequently, who Junius himself was. On the announcement of an article on Junius in the Quarterly Review, those who had heard these stories expected to find in the article in question the solution of what has been called the "great political enigma of the eighteenth century." As this hope has not been realised, may I ask, through the medium of "N. & Q.," whether there is any foundation for the rumours I have referred to; and, if so, how much of truth there is in both or either of them. Such information will be acceptable to every one of your readers who is not satisfied with any of the THIRTY-NINE theories on the subject which have been already propounded, and who is therefore like myself still a

JUNIUS QUERIST.

"To Commit" in the Sense used by Junius.

—On looking into Walker's Dictionary, a short time since, I found the following remark, which seems to have escaped every inquirer into the authorship of the letters of Junius:—

"To COMMIT.—This word was first used in Junius's letters in a sense unknown to our former English writers, namely, to expose, to venture, to hazard; this sense is borrowed from the French, and has been generally adopted by subsequent writers."

Can any of your readers produce an instance of the use of this word in the sense here applied to it, prior to the appearance of Junius? Such a parallel would carry more weight with it than the countless examples of verbal singularities with which almost every discoverer of Junius has encumbered his essay.

D. J.

Junius' letters to Wilkes.

—Would MR. HALLAM kindly inform your readers whether the Junius Letters, to which he refers in "N. & Q." Vol. iii., p. 241., were inserted in books or not? And in the former case, whether they were in a separate collection, or mixed with the other correspondence of Mr. Wilkes?

I. J. M.

WHAT IS THE DERIVATION OF "GARSECG?"

This Anglo-Saxon word is used in the poetry of Beowulf and Cædmon, and in the prose of Orosius and Bede, &c. The â in gâr is twice accented in Cædmon; and Mr. Kemble has always accented it in Beowulf. In the Lauderdale MS. of Orosius it is written garsæcg and garsecg; and in the Cotton MS. garsegc and garsecg, without any accent. Grimm, Kemble, and Ettmüller make the first past of the word to be gâr, a spear, javelin, the Goth., gairu; Ohd., kér; O. Sax., gér; O. Nor., geir: and the latter, secg, a soldier, man. Thus gârsecg would be literally "a spear-man," homo jaculo armatus. Mr. Kemble adds, it is "a name for the ocean, which is probably derived from some ancient myth, and is now quite unintelligible." Ettmüller gives it, "Gârsecg, es, m. Carex jaculorum, vel vir hastatus, i.e. oceanus.—Grymn's Mythol., p. xxvii."

Dahlmann, in his Forschungen der Geschichte, p. 414., divides the word thus: Gars-ecg, and says, gar is very expressive, and denotes "what is enclosed," and is allied to the Ger. garten, a garden, like the A.-S. geard, a garden, region, earth. Ecg, Icl. egg; Ger. egge, ecke, a border, an outward part; that is, what borders or encircles the earth, the ocean. What authority is there for dividing the word into gars-ecg, and for the meaning he gives to gar?

Barrington, in his edition of Orosius, p. xxiii., gives "M. H. The Patton MS." among the transcripts. I cannot find any Hatton MS. of Orosius. Can he refer to the transcript of Junius?

THROW.

Minor Queries.

Commemoration of Benefactors.

—I shall be glad to learn by what authority an office for the Commemoration of Founders and Benefactors is used in our college chapels, since this office in not found in our Book of Common Prayer. And, farther, whether the office is the same in all places, mutatis mutandis. In my own college (Queen's, Cambridge), the order of service was as follows:—The Lesson, Ecclus. xliv. (read by a scholar): the sermon: the list of foundresses and benefactors: Te Deum laudamus: proper Psalms, viz. cxlviii., cxlix., cl.: the following versicles and responses:

Then followed an appropriate collect, introduced by the words "Let us pray;" and the office was concluded by the Benediction.

W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.

Pedigree of Richard, Earl of Chepstow.

—At a recent meeting of the Kilkenny Archæological Society, there was exhibited, by permission of the Marquis of Ormonde, an original charter, under seal, of Richard, Earl of Chepstow, surnamed Strongbow, whereby he granted certain lands in his newly acquired territory of Leinster, to Adam de Hereford. The charter, which is beautifully and clearly written on a small piece of vellum, commences thus:

"Comes Ric' fil' com' Ric' Gisleb'ti omnibus amicis suis," &c.

As the usually given pedigrees (see Sir R. Colt Hoare's Tour in Ireland, Introd. p. lxxv.) make Richard Strongbow the son of Gilbert, the second son, and not Richard, the eldest son, of Gilbert de Tonbrige; query, Are we to supply "fil'" before "Gisleberti" in the charter, or are we to suppose that the second "Ric'" is a slip of the pen,—a thing, however, not likely to occur in a legal deed of so important a nature.

J