_Johnny Crapaud._--In one of Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe books is the
following entry of a trinket, devised at the period of the Duke of
Alençon's courting her Majesty:
"Item, one little Flower of gold, with a _Frog_ thereon; and
therein mounseer his physnomie, and a little Pearl pendant."
"'Query,' says Miss Strickland (_Queens_, vol. vi. p. 471., 1st
edit.), 'was this whimsical conceit a love-token, from the Duke of
Alençon to his royal _belle amie_, and the frog designed, not as a
ridiculous, but a sentimental allusion to his country?'"
To which Query I would add another: When was the term of _Johnny
Crapaud_ first applied to the French people, and on what occasion? I am
aware of the notion of its being on account of their said partiality for
eating frogs; which, by the bye, having tasted, I can pronounce to be
very good: _mais chacun à son goût_. Is the frog introduced in the arms
of Anjou or Alençon?