DIAL INSCRIPTIONS
(Vol. iv., p. 507. Vol. v., p. 155., &c.)
In the churchyard of Areley-Kings, Worcestershire (where is the singular memorial to Sir Harry Coningsby, which I mentioned at Vol. vi., p. 406.), is a curious dial, the pillar supporting which has its four sides carved with figures of Time and Death, &c., and the following inscriptions.
On the south side, where is the figure of Time:
Consider
"Aspice—ut aspicias."
"Time's glass and scythe
Thy life and death declare,
Spend well thy time, and
For thy end prepare."
"O man, now or never
While there is time, turn unto the Lord,
And put not off from day to day."
On the north side, where is the figure of Death standing upon a dead body, with his dart, hour-glass, and spade:
"Three things there be in very deede,
Which make my heart in grief to bleede:
The first doth vex my very heart,
In that from hence I must departe;
The second grieves me now and then,
That I must die, but know not when;
The third with tears bedews my face,
That I must die, nor know the place.
I. W.fecit, Anno Dmi.1687."
"Behold my killing dart and delving spade;
Prepare for death before thy grave be made;
for
After death there's no hope."
"If a man die he shall live again.
All the days of my appointed time
Will I wait till my days come."—Job xiv. 14.
"The death of saints is precious,
And miserable is the death of sinners."
The east side of the pillar has the following:
"Si vis ingredi in vitam,
Serve mandata."
"Judgments are prepared for sinners."—Prov. xiv. 9.
And on the west:
"Sol non occidat
Super iracundiam vestram."
"Whatsoever ye would that men
Should do unto you,
Do ye even so unto them."
I subjoin a few other dial inscriptions, copied from churches in Worcestershire.
Kidderminster (parish church):
"None but a villain will deface me."
Himbleton (over the porch):
"Via Vitæ."
Bromsgrove:
"We shall –" (i.e. we shall die-all).
Shrawley:
"Ab hoc nomento pendet æternitas."
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
THE "SALTPETER MAKER."
(Vol. vii., pp. 377. 433. 460. 530.)
The following humble petition will give an idea of the arbitrary power exercised by the "Saltpeter maker" in the days of Good Queen Bess; and of the useful monopoly that functionary contrived to make of his employment, in defiance of county government:
"Righte honorable, our humble dewties to yor good Lordshippe premised, maye it please the same to be advertised, that at the Quarter sessions holden at Newarke within this countie of Nottingham, There was a generall Complaynte made unto us by the Whole Countrie, that one John Ffoxe, saltpeter maker, had charged the Whole Countrie by his precepts for the Caryinge of Cole from Selsonn, in the Countie of Nottingham, unto the towne of Newarke wthin the same countie; beinge sixteene myles distante for the makeinge of saltpeter, some townes wth five Cariages and some wth lesse, or els to geve him foure shillinges for everie Loade, whereof he hath Recyved a great parte. Uppon wch Complaynte we called the same Ffoxe before some of us at Newarke at the Sessions, there to answere the premisses, and also to make us a propcīon what Loades of Coales would serve to make a thowsand of saltpeter, To thend we might have sett some order for the preparing of the same: But the said Ffoxe will not sett downe anie rate what would serve for the makeinge of a Thowsande. Therefore we have thoughte good to advertise your good Lordshippe of the premisses, and have appoynted the clarke of the peace of this countie of Nottingham to attend yor good Lordshippe to know yor Lordshippes pleasure about the same, who can further informe yor good Lordshippe of the particularities thereof, if it shall please yor good Lordshippe to geve him hearings, And so most humblie take our Leaves, Newarke, the viijth of Octobr, 1589.
"Your Lpp most humblie to Comaunde,Ro. Markham,William Sutton,Rauf Barton, 1589,Nihs Roos,Brian Lassels,John Thornhagh."
The document is addressed on the back "To the Right Honorable our verie good Lord the Lord Burghley, Lord Heighe Threasoror of England, yeve theis;" and is numbered LXI. 72. among the Lansdowne MSS., B. M.
The proposal quoted below has no date attached, but probably belongs to the former part of the seventeenth century:
"The Service
"1. To make 500 Tunne of refined Saltpetre within his Maties dominions yearely, and continually, and cheaper.
2. Without digging of homes or charging of carts, or any other charge to the subject whatsoever.
3. To performe the whole service at our owne cost.
4. Not to hinder any man in his owne way of makeing saltpetre, nor importation from forreine parts."
The following memorandum is underwritten:
"Mr. Speaker hath our Bill; Be pleased to-morrow to call for it."
The original draft of the above disinterested offer may be seen Harl. CLVIII. fol. 272.
Furvus.
St. James's.
TSAR
(Vol. viii., p. 150.)
The difficulty in investigating the origin of this word is that the letter c, "the most wonderful of all letters," says Eichhoff (Vergleichung der Sprachen, p. 55.), sounds like k before the vowels a, o, u, but before e, i, in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, as s, in Italian as tsh, in German as ts. It is always ts in Polish and Bohemian. In Russian it is represented by a special letter ц, tsi; but in Celtic it is always k. Conformably with this principle, the Russians, like the Germans, Poles, and Bohemians, pronounce the Latin c as ts. So Cicero in these languages is pronounced Tsitsero, very differently from the Greeks, who called him Kikero. The letter tsi is a supplementary one in Russian, having no corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet, from which the Russian was formed in the ninth century by St. Cyril. The word to be sought then amongst cognate languages as the counterpart of tsar (or as the Germans write it czar) is car, as pronounced in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. The most probable etymological connection that I can discover is with the Sanscrit 
car, to move, to advance; the root of the Greek κάῤῥον, in English car, Latin curro, French cours. So Sanscrit caras, carat, movable, nimble; Greek χράων, Latin currens. And Sanscrit câras, motion, Greek χόρος, Latin currus, cursus, French char, English car, cart, &c. The early Russians were doubtless wanderers, an off-shoot of the people known to the Greeks as Scythians, and to the Hebrews and Arabians as Gog and Magog, who travelled in cars, occupying first one territory with their flocks, but not cultivating the land, then leaving it to nature and taking up another resting-place. It is certain that the Russians have many Asiatic words in their vocabulary, which must necessarily have occurred from their being for more than two centuries sometimes under Tatar, and sometimes under Mongol domination; and the origin of this word tsar or car may leave to be sought on the plateaus of North-east Asia. In the Shemitic tongues (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, &c.) no connexion of sound or meaning, so probable as the above Indo-European one, is to be found. The popular derivations of Nabupolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, &c., are not to be trusted. It is remarkable, however, that these names are significant in Russian. (See "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., pp. 432, 433, note.) The cuneatic inscriptions may yet throw light on these Assyrian names. In Russian the kingdom is Tsarstvo, the king Tsar, his queen Tsarina, his son is Tsarevitch, and his daughter Tsarevna. The word is probably pure Russian or Slavic. The Russian tsar used about two hundred years ago to be styled duke by foreign courts, but he has advanced in the nomenclature of royalty to be an emperor. The Russians use the word imperatore for emperor, Kesar for Cæsar, and samodershetse for sovereign.
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
In Voltaire's History of the Russian Empire, it is stated that the title of Czar may possibly be derived front the Tzars or Tchars of the kingdom of Casan. When John, or Ivan Basilides, Grand Prince of Russia, had completed the reduction of this kingdom, he assumed this title, and it has since continued to his successors. Before the reign of John Basilides, the sovereigns of Russia bore the name of Velike Knez, that is, great prince, great lord, great chief, which in Christian countries was afterwards rendered by that of great duke. The Czar Michael Federovitz, on occasion of the Holstein embassy, assumed the titles of Great Knez and Great Lord, Conservator of all the Russias, Prince of Wolodimir, Moscow, Novogorod, &c., Tzar of Casan, Tzar of Astracan, Tzar of Siberia. The name of Tzar was therefore the title of those Oriental princes, and therefore it is more probable for it to have been derived from the Tshas of Persia than from the Roman Cæsars, whose name very likely never reached the ears of the Siberian Tzars on the banks of the Oby. In another part of Voltaire's History, when giving an account of the celebrated battle of Narva, where Charles XII., with nine thousand men and ten pieces of cannon, defeated "the Russian army with eighty thousand fighting men, supported by one hundred and forty-five pieces of cannon," he says, "Among the captives was the son of a King of Georgia, whom Charles sent to Stockholm; his name was Mittelesky Czarowitz, or Czar's Son, which is farther proof that the title of Czar or Tzar was not originally derived from the Roman Cæsars." To the above slightly abbreviated description may not be uninterestingly added the language of Voltaire, which immediately follows the first reference:
"No title, how great soever, is of any signification, unless they who bear it are great and powerful of themselves. The word emperor, which denoted only the general of an army, became the title of the sovereigns of Rome and it is now conferred on the supreme governor of all the Russias."
A Hermit at Hampstead.
I beg to inform J. S. A. that the right word is Tsar, and that it is the Russian word answering to our king or lord, the Latin Rex, the Persian Shah, &c. There may be terms in other languages that have an affinity with it, but I believe we should seek in vain for a derivation.
T. K.
"LAND OF GREEN GINGER."
(Vol. viii., p. 160.)
I wish that R. W. Elliot of Clifton, whom I recognise as a former inhabitant of Hull, had given the authority on which he states, that "It is so called from the sale of ginger having been chiefly carried on there in early times." The name of this street has much puzzled the local antiquaries; and having been for several years engaged on a work relative to the derivations, &c., of the names of the streets of Hull, I have spared no pains to ascertain the history and derivation of the singular name of this street.
I offer then a conjecture as to its derivation as follows:—The ground on which this street stands was originally the property of De la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, on which he had built his stately manor-house. On the attainder of the family it was seized by the king; and Henry VIII. several times held his court here, on one of his visits having presented his sword to the corporation. It was then, 1538, called Old Beverley Street, as seen in the survey made of the estates of Sir William Sydney, Kt. In a romance called Piraute el Blanco, it is stated "The morning collation at the English Court was green ginger with good Malmsey, which was their custom, because of the coldness of the land." And in the Fœdera, vii. 233., it is stated that, among other things, the cargo of a Genoese ship, which was driven ashore at Dunster, in Somersetshire, in 1380, consisted of green ginger (ginger cured with lemon-juice). In Hollar's Map of Hull, 1640, the street is there laid out as built upon, but without any name attached to it. No other plans of Hull are at present known to exist from the time of Hollar, 1640, to Gent, 1735. In Gent's plan of Hull, it is there called "The Land of Green Ginger;" so that probably, between the years 1640 and 1735, it received its peculiar name.
I therefore conjecture that, as Henry VIII. kept his Court here with his usual regal magnificence, green ginger would be one of the luxuries of his table; that this portion of his royal property being laid out as a garden, was peculiarly suitable for the growth of ginger—the same as Pontefract was for the growth of the liquorice plant; and that, upon the property being built upon, the remembrance of this spot being so suitable for the growth of ginger for the Court, would eventually give the peculiar name, in the same way that the adjoining street of Bowl-Alley-Lane received its title from the bowling-green near to it.
John Richardson.
13. Savile Street, Hull.
This has long been a puzzle to the Hull antiquaries. I have often inquired of old persons likely to know the origin of such names of places at that sea-port as "The Land of Green Ginger," "Pig Alley," "Mucky-south-end," and "Rotten Herring Staith;" and I have come to the conclusion, that "The Land of Green Ginger" was a very dirty place where horses were kept: a mews, in short, which none of the Muses, not even with Homer as an exponent, could exalt ("Ἔπεα πτεροέντα ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι") into the regions of poesy.
Ginger has been cultivated in this country as a stove exotic for about two hundred and fifty years. In one of the histories of Hull, ginger is supposed to have grown in this street, where, to a recent period, the stables of the George Inn, and those of a person named Foster opposite, occupied the principal portion of the short lane called "Land of Green Ginger." It is hardly possible that the true zingiber can have grown here, even in the manure heaps; but a plant of the same order (Zingiberaceæ) may have been mistaken for it. Some of the old women or marine school-boys of the Trinity House, in the adjoining lane named from that guild, or some druggist, may have dropped, either accidentally or experimentally, a root, if not of the ginger, yet of some kindred plant. The magnificent Fuchsia was first noticed in the possession of a seaman's wife by Fuchs in 1501, a century prior to the introduction of the ginger plant into England.
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE
Stereoscopic Angles.—The discussion in "N. & Q." relative to the best angle for stereoscopic pictures has gone far towards a satisfactory conclusion: there are, however, still a few points which may be beneficially considered.
In the first place, the kind of stereoscope to be used must tend to modify the mental impression; and secondly, the amount of reduction from the size of the original has a considerable influence on the final result.
If in viewing a stereoscopic pair of photographs, they are placed at the same distance from the eyes as the length of the focus of the lens used in producing them, then without doubt the distance between the eyes, viz. about two and a quarter inches, is the best difference between the two points of view to produce a perfectly natural result; and if the points of operation be more distant from one another, as I have before intimated, an effect is produced similar to what would be the case if the pictures were taken from a model of the object instead of the object itself.
When it is intended that the pictures taken are to be viewed by an instrument that requires their distance from the eyes to be less than the focal length of the lens used in their formation, what is the result? Why, that they subtend an angle larger than in nature, and are consequently apparently increased in bulk; and the obvious remedy is to increase the angle between the points of generation in the exact ratio as that by which the visual distance is to be lessened. There is one other consideration to which I would advert, viz. that as we judge of distance, &c. mainly by the degree of convergence of the optic axes of our two eyes, it cannot be so good to arrange the camera with its two positions quite parallel, especially for objects at a short or medium distance, as to let its centre radiate from the principal object to be delineated; and to accomplish this desideratum in the readiest way (for portraits especially), the ingenious contrivance of Mr. Latimer Clark, described in the Journal of the Photographic Society, appears to me the best adapted. It consists of a modification of the old parallel ruler arrangement on which the camera is placed; but one of the sides has an adjustment, so that within certain limits any degree of convergence is attainable. Now in the case of the pictures alluded to by Mr. H. Wilkinson in Vol. viii., p. 181., it is probable they were taken by a camera placed in two positions parallel to one another, and it is quite clear that only a portion of the two pictures could have been really stereoscopic. It is perfectly true that two indifferent negatives will often combine and form one good stereoscopic positive, but this is in consequence of one possessing that in which the other is deficient; and at any rate two good pictures will have a better effect; consequently, it is better that the two views should contain exactly the same range of vision.
Geo. Shadbolt.
Protonitrate of Iron.—"Being in the habit of using protonitrate of iron for developing collodion pictures, the following method of preparing that solution suggested itself to me, which appears to possess great advantages:—
Water 1 oz.
Protosulphate of iron 14 grs.
Nitrate of potash 10 grs.
Acetic acid ½ drm.
Nitric acid 2 drops.
In this mixture nitrate of potash is employed to convert the sulphate of iron into nitrate in place of nitrate of baryta in Dr. Diamond's formula, or nitrate of lead as recommended by Mr. Sisson; the advantage being that no filtering is required, as the sulphate of potash (produced by the double decomposition) is soluble in water, and does not interfere with the developing qualities of the solution.
"The above gives the bright deposit of silver so much admired in Dr. Diamond's pictures, and will be found to answer equally well either for positives or negatives. If the nitric acid be omitted, we obtain the effects of protonitrate of iron prepared in the usual way.—John Spiller."
(From the Photographic Journal.)
Photographs in natural Colours.—As "N. & Q." numbers among its correspondents many residents in the United States, I hope you will permit me to inquire through its columns whether there is really any foundation for the very startling announcement, in Professor Hunt's Photography, of Mr. Hill of New York having "obtained more than fifty pictures from nature in all the beauty of native coloration," or whether the statement is, as I conclude Professor Hunt is inclined to believe, one of those hoaxes in which many of our transatlantic friends take so much delight.
Matter-of-Fact.
Photographs by artificial Lights.—May I ask for references to any manuals of photography, or papers in scientific journals, in which are recorded any experiments that have been made with the view of obtaining photographs by means of artificial lights? This is, I have no doubt, a subject of interest to many who, like myself, are busily occupied during the day, and have only their evenings for scientific pursuits: while it is obvious, that if such a process can be successfully practised, there are many objects—such as prints, coins, seals, objects of natural history and antiquity—which might well be copied by it, even though artificial light should prove far slower in its action than solar light.
A Clerk.