The Rastell here mentioned was doubtless he whom More (Works, p. 355.) calls his “brother” (i.e. his sister’s husband), joining him with Rochester (i.e.  Bp.  Fisher), as in this passage, on account of his great zeal in checking the progress of the earlier Reformation; but what is the allusion in the phrase “with his bloudye bishoppe christen catte,” &c., I am unable to divine.  Neither in the Supplicacion of Soules, nor in the reply to the “nameles heretike,” have I discovered the slightest clue to its meaning.

C.H.

St. Catherine’s Hall, Cambridge.

[It would seem from a Query from the Rev. Henry Walter, in No. 7. p. 109., on the subject of the name “Christen Cat,” where the forgoing passage is quoted from Day’s edition of Tyndale’s Works, that this tract was by Tyndale, and not by Crowley.]

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WHAT IS A CHAPEL?

What is the most approved derivation of the word Chapel?—­Capella, from the goat-skin covering of what was at first a movable tabernacle? capa, a cape worn by capellanus, the chaplain? capsa, a chest for sacred relics? kaba Eli (Heb.), the house of God? or what other and better etymon?

Is it not invariably the purpose of a Chapel to supply the absence or incommodiousness of the parish church?

At what period of ecclesiastical history was the {334} word Chapel first introduced?  If there be any truth in the legend that St. Martin’s hat was carried before the kings of France in their expeditions, and that the pavilion in which it was lodged originated the term, it is probably a very old word, as the Saint is stated to have died A.D. 397.  Yet the word in not acknowledged by Bingham.

Is Chapel a legal description of the houses of religious meeting, which are used by those who dissent from the Church of England?

Was the adoption of the word Chapel by dissenters, or their submission to it, indicative of an idea of assistance, rather than of rivalry or opposition, to the Church?

Any answer to these inquiries, which are proposed only for the sake of information, by one whose means of reference and investigation are limited, will be very acceptable.

Alfred Gatty.

Ecclesfield, March 5. 1850.

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WHO TRANSLATED THE “TURKISH SPY?”

Is it known who really translated that clever work, Letters writ by a Turkish Spy?  The work was originally written in Italian, by John Paul Marana, a Genoese; but the English translation has been attributed to several individuals.