Chapter Torquil of the Oak to Touchstone of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

is spoken of in 1300: “Laquelle touche passe tous les ors dont l’on œuvre en tous pays.” In 1597 two goldsmiths were sentenced to the pillory for making false plate and counterfeiting “her majesty’s touch.”

N.B.—The lapis Lydius or touchstone is touched by the gold, and leaves a mark behind, the colour of which indicates its purity.

Gold is tried by the touchstone, and men by gold.—Bacon.

Touchet [Too-shay]. When Charles IX. introduced Henri of Navarre to Marie Touchet, the witty Navarrese made this anagram on her name, Je charme tout.

Touchfaucet (Captain), in Picrochole’s army, taken captive by friar John. Being presented to Grangousier and asked the cause of his king’s invasion, he replied, “To avenge the injury done to the cake-bakers of Lernê” (ch. 25, 26). Grangousier commanded his treasurer to give the friar 62,000 saluts (£15,500) in reward, and to Touchfaucet he gave “an excellent sword of a Vienne blade, with a gold scabbard, and a collar of gold weighing 702,000 merks (576,000 ounces), garnished with precious stones, and valued at £16,000 sterling, by way of present.” Returning to king Picrochole, he advised him to capitulate, whereupon Rashcalf cried aloud, “Unhappy the prince who has traitors for his counsellors!” and Touchfaucet, drawing “his new sword,” ran him through the body. The king demanded who gave him the sword, and being told the truth, ordered his guards “to hew him in pieces.”—Rabelais: Gargantua, i. 45–47 (1533).

Touching for the King’s Evil. It is said that scrofulous diseases were at one time very prevalent in the island, and that Edward the Confessor, in answer to earnest prayer, was told it would be cured by the royal touch. Edward, being gifted with this miraculous power, transmitted it as an heir-loom to his successors Henry VII. presented each person touched with a small coin, called a touchpiece or touch- penny.

Charles II. of England, during his reign, touched as many as 92,107 persons; the smallest number (2983) being in the year 1669, and the largest number in 1684, when many were trampled to death (see Macaulay’s History of England, xiv.). In these “touchings,” John Brown, a royal surgeon, superintended the ceremony. (See Macbeth, act iv. sc. 3.)

Prince Charles Edward, who claimed to be prince of Wales, touched a female child for the disease in 1745.

The French kings claimed the same divine power from Anne of Clovis, A.D. 481. And on Easter Sunday, 1686, Louis XIV. touched 1600, using these words, Le roy te touche, Dieu te guerisse.

Dr. Johnson was the last person touched by an English king. The touchpiece given to him has on one side this legend, Soli Deo gloria, and on the other side, Anna. D: G. M. BR. F: et H. REG. (“Anne, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, queen”).

Our good Edward he, the Confessor and king…
That cancred evil cured, bred ’twixt the throat and jaws,
When physic could not find the remedy nor cause…
He of Almighty God obtained by earnest prayer,
This tumour by a king might curêd be alone,
Which he an heir-loom left unto the English throne.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xi. (1613).

Touching Glasses in drinking healths.

When prince Charles passed over into France, after the failure of the expedition in 1715, his supporters were beset with spies on every hand. It so happened that occasionally in society they were necessitated to drink the king’s health, but it was tacitly understood that “the king” was not king George, but “the king over the water.” To express this symbolically, one glass was passed over another, and later down, the foot of one glass was touched against the rim of another.—Notes and Queries of New York, October, 1859.