A. S. T. The line is from Prior:

"Fine by degrees and beautifully less."

T. M. G. (Worcester) is thanked. As the entire document would not occupy any great space, we shall be obliged by the opportunity of inserting it.

NOTES ON OLD LONDON have only been thrust aside. They are intended for early insertion.

M. B. C. We fear this cannot be avoided. The only consolation is, the additional interest with which the volumes will be regarded a century hence.

N. C. L., who writes respecting Shaw's Stafford MSS., is requested to say how a communication may be forwarded to him. A READER, who writes respecting the “Arnold Family," the

same.

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F. W. If the bath of nitrate of silver produces the semi-opaque appearance upon the collodion, in all probability there is no hyposulphite of soda in the bath: three or four drops of tincture of iodine added to each ounce of the solution of nitrate of silver in the bath, often acts very beneficially. All doubtful solutions of nitrate of silver it is wel to precipitate by means of common salt, collect the chloride, and reduce it again to its metallic state. The paper process described by DR. DIAMOND in our 166th Number is calculated both for positives and negatives.

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Predictions of the Fire and Plague of London, No. 1.,
by T. Sternberg
Notes and Queries on Bacon's Essays, No. II., by P. J. F.
Gantillon, B. A.

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81

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BLACKGUARD.

In some of the earlier numbers of "N. & Q.," there occur disquisitions as to the origin of the term blackguard, and the time at which it came into use in England in its present sense. But the communications of your correspondents have not been satisfactory upon either point they have not shown the period at which the word came to be 83 accepted in its present sense; and their quotations all apply to its use in a much more simple meaning, and one totally different from that which we now attach to it.

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One class of these quotations (Vol. ii., pp. 171. 285.), such as the passages from BUTLER and FULLER, refer obviously to a popular superstition, during an age when the belief in witchcraft and hobgoblins was universal; and when such creatures of fancy were assigned as Black Guards to his Satanic majesty. "Who can conceive," says FULLER in the paragraph extracted, "but that such a Prince-principal of Darkness must be pro88 portionally attended by a Black Guard of monstrous opinions?" (Church History, b. ix. c. xvi.) And in the verses of BUTLER referred to, Hudibras, when deceived by Ralpho counterfeiting a ghost in the dark,—

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"Believed it was some drolling sprite
That staid upon the guard at night :"

and thereupon in his trepidation discourses with the Squire as follows:

"Thought he, How does the Devil know

What 'twas that I design'd to do?

His office of intelligence,

His oracles, are ceas'd long since;

And he knows nothing of the Saints,

But what some treach'rous spy acquaints.
This is some petty-fogging fiend,

Some under door-keeper's friend's friend,
That undertakes to understand,
And juggles at the second hand:
And now would pass for spirit Po,
And all men's dark concerns foreknow.
I think I need not fear him for 't;

These rallying devils do not hurt.

With that he roused his drooping heart,
And hastily cry'd out, What art?.

A wretch, quoth he, whom want of grace
Has brought to this unhappy place.

I do believe thee, quoth the knight;
Thus far I'm sure thou'rt in the right,
And know what 'tis that troubles thee,
Better than thou hast guess'd of me.
Thou art some paltry, blackguard sprite,
Condemn'd to drudg'ry in the night;
Thou hast no work to do in th' house,
Nor half penny to drop in shoes;
Without the raising of which sum
You dare not be so troublesome;
To pinch the slatterns black and blue,
For leaving you their work to do.
This is your business, good Pug Robin,
And your diversion, dull dry bobbing."

Hudibras, Part III. Canto 1. line 1385, &c.

memorial: and it is explained in SIR WALTER SCOTT's notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, as his justification for introducing the goblin page Gilpin Horner amongst the domestics of Branksome Hall. Perhaps, from the association of these elves with the lower household duties, but more probably from a more obvious cause, came at a later period the practice described by GIFFORD in his note on BEN JONSON, as quoted by your correspondent (Vol. ii., p. 170.), by which

"in all great houses, but particularly in the Royal Residences, there were a number of mean dirty dependents, whose office it was to attend the wool-yard, sculleries, &c. Of these, the most forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, &c. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, the people, in derision, gave the name of the black guards."

The Black Guard of Satan was supposed to perform the domestic drudgery of the kitchen and servants' hall, in the infernal household. The extract from HOBBES (Vol. ii., p. 134.) refers to this:

"Since my Lady's decay, I am degraded from a cook; and I fear the Devil himself will entertain me but for one of his black guard, and he shall be sure to have his roast burnt."

Hence came the popular superstition that these goblin scullions, on their visits to the upper world, confined themselves to the servants' apartments of the houses which they favoured with their presence, and which at night they swept and garnished; pinching those of the maids in their sleep who, by their laziness, had imposed such toil on their elfin assistants; but slipping money into the shoes of the more tidy and industrious servants, whose attention to their own duties before going to rest had spared the goblins the task of performing their share of the drudgery. Hudibras apostrophises the ghost as

some paltry blackguard sprite Condemn'd to drudgery in the night; Thou hast no work to do in th' house Nor half-penny to drop in shoes;"

66

from the black guard To the grim Sir in office, there are few Hold other tenets: "

meaning from the lowest domestic to the highest functionary of a household. This too explains the force of the allusion, in Jardine's Criminal Trials, to the apartments of Euston House being "far unmeet for her Highness, but fitter for the Black Guard"-that is, for the scullions and lowest servants of an establishment. SWIFT employs the word in this sense when he says, in the extract quoted by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary in illustration of the meaning of blackguard,—

"Let a black-guard boy be always about the house to send on your errands, and go to market for you on rainy days."

It will thus be seen, that of the six authors quoted in "N. & Q." no one makes use of the term black

guard in an opprobrious sense such as attaches to the more modern word "blackguard;" and that they all wrote within the first fifty years of the seventeenth century. It must therefore be subsequent not only to that date, but to the reign of Queen Anne, that we are to look for its general acceptance in its present contumelious sense. And I believe that its introduction may be traced to a recent period, and to a much more simple derivation than that investigated by your correspondents. I apprehend that the present term, "a blackguard," is of French origin; and that its importation into our language was subsequent to the Restoration of Charles II., A.D. 1660. There is a corresponding term in French, blague, which, like our English adaptation, is not admissible in good society. It is defined by Bescherelles, in his great Dictionnaire National, to mean "fanfaronnade, hâblerie, mensonge; bourde, gasconade:" and to