Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oct. 6. 1850.
_Paying through the Nose, and Etymology of Shilling_ (Vol. i., p.
335.).--Odin, they say, laid a nose-tax on ever Swede,--a penny a nose.
(Grimm, _Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer_, p. 299.) I think people not able to
pay forfeited "the prominence on the face, which is the organ of scent, and
emunctory of the brain," as good Walker says. It was according to the rule,
"Qui non habet in ære, luat in pelle." Still we "count" or "tell noses,"
when computing, for instance, how many persons of the company are to pay
the reckoning. The expression is used in England, if I am rightly informed,
as well as in Holland. {349}
Tax money was gathered into a brass shield, and the jingling (_schel_)
noise it produced, gave to the pieces of silver exacted the name of
_schellingen_ (shillings). Saxo-Grammaticus, lib viii. p. 267., citatus
apud Grimm, l. 1. p. 77. The reference is too curious not to note it
down:--
"Huic (Fresiæ) Gotricus nom tam arctam, quam inusitatam pensionem
imposuit, de cujus conditione et modo summatim referam. Primum itaque
ducentorum quadraginta pedum longitudinem habentis ædificii structura
disponitur, bis senis distincta spatiis, quorum quodlibet vicenorum
pedum intercapedine tenderetur, prædictæ quantitatis summam totalis
spatii dispendio reddente. In hujus itaque ædis capite regio considente
quæstore, sub extremam ejus partem _rotundus_ e regione _elipeus_
exhibetur. Fresonibus igitur tributum daturis mos erat singulos nummos
in hujus _scuti cavum_ conjicere, e quibus eos duntaxat in censum
regium ratio computantis eligeret, qui eminus exatoris aures clarioris
soni crepitaculo perstrinxissent quo evenit, ut id solum æs quæstor in
fiscum supputando colligeret, cujus casum remotiore auris indicio
persensisset, cujus vero obscurior sonus citra computantis defuisset
auditum, recipiebatur quidem in fiscum (!!!), sed nullum summæ
præstabat augmentum. Compluribus igitur nummorum jactibus quæstorias
aures nulla sensibili sonoritate pulsantibus, accidit, ut statam pro se
stipem erogaturi multam interdum æris partem inani pensione
consumerent, cujus tributi onere per Karolum postea liberati
produntur."