pied (from pedem), fiel (from fel), bien (from bene), and in a great many other instances. And so in Italian and Spanish, though by no means always in the same words as in French. Thus the Fr. membre is in Span. miembre, the Fr. merle is in Span. mierla. And so again the Fr. flamme is the It. fiamma, where the i does not, in my opinion, result from the change of the l.

In English we find this auxiliary sound likewise, though it is commonly not written at all, and when written, not as i nor y. The sound occurs in mule (=myoole), refuse (cf. the It. rifiuto), rebuke, duke, &c., but is not written. In pew (O. Fr. poi, pui, or puy hill, as in Puy-de-Dôme, from Lat. podium), the sound is expressed by e, and so, perhaps, also in new (cf. Germ. neu), and in few (cf. Swed. fa, Dan. faa).

In French again it is heard, but not written, after ll, when they are mouillées, and in their place, when they are pronounced like y. In Ital. the i is written after gl. In Span. Il, and in Port. lh, are pronounced as if a y followed them. And so gn in Fr. and Ital., as in agneau, agnello, n in Span. as in año (year), and nh in Port., as in anho (lamb). In Dutch I find it, as in nieuw (=new). In Swed. it occurs also, especially after k, when followed by soft vowels, and in Irish it is much heard (though as in Swed. not written) after consonants followed by soft vowels. In German, which is a robuster language, it scarcely seems to occur, though I seem to detect a little of the sound in ch soft, as in milch, ich. But what need to multiply examples? This i or y is, doubtless, to be seen or heard in nearly all languages. Sydenham Hill.

F. CHANCE.

THE FIRST WORK OF THE BALLANTYNE PRESS.

The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border is, upon the authority of Sir Walter Scott, universally believed to be the first work which issued from the famous Ballantyne press, and, as far as the general public is concerned, there can be no question that this belief is founded on fact. But the readers of Lockhart's Life of Scott must have observed that a volume printed for private circulation by James Ballantyne preceded the Minstrelsy by three years. At p. 316 (first edition), Mr. Lockhart relates a conversation which took place in December, 1799, between Scott and Ballantyne relative to the latter's trying to get some bookseller's work. Ballantyne said

"That such an idea had not occurred to him; that he had no acquaintance with the Edinburgh 'trade'; but,

* In Ital. and Span. u is sometimes used with the same view of softening and preparing the way, as e. g., buono, bueno, from bonus.

if he had, his types were good, and he thought he could afford to work more cheaply than town printers."

Scott, with his good-humoured smile, said— "You had better try what you can do. You have been praising my little ballads; suppose you print off a dozen copies or so of as many as will make a pamphlet, sufficient to let my Edinburgh acquaintances judge of my skill for themselves."

Ballantyne assented; and, I believe, exactly twelve copies of "William and Helen," "The Fire King," "The Chase," and a few more of these pieces, were thrown off accordingly, with the title (alluding to the long delay of Lewis's collection) of Apology for Tales of Terror, 1799. This first specimen of a press afterwards so celebrated pleased Scott, and then follows the projection of the Minstrelsy.

As the Apology is, perhaps, one of the rarest works of a celebrated author, and more especially as Lockhart does not seem to have seen a copy himself, a brief description of the volume may be of some interest to your readers. In the firstplace, then, it is something more than a pamphlet," being a quarto volume of 60 pp., and bound (at least my copy is so) in strong boards, the name "Poems" being stamped on the back. The title-page is as follows:

66

William "

Of the six ballads which compose the book, however, only three-"The Erl-King," "The Chase," and "" William and Helen "-are to be found in Scott's works. The other three are 66 The WaterKing: a Danish Ballad" (quære, who is the author?), "Lord William," and "Poor Mary, the Maid of the Inn." The last-named is stated to be by Mr. Southey, but his authorship of "Lord is not acknowledged, and the others are likewise printed without the name of the writer. "Lord William," and, I presume, also "Poor Mary," were written for Lewis's Tales of Wonder; and, as that work was not published till 1801, these the Apology. Scott's "Fire-King" is not conballads must have made their first appearance in tained in the volume. It would be interesting to know the reason why Scott departed from his first intention, and included in the Apology other

ballads than his own.

Perhaps it was from modesty, which was not the least prominent characteristic of the author of Waverley. The translations from Bürger appear in the Apology in their original form, i.e., with all the false rhymes and Scotticisms pointed out by Lewis, and which were corrected before the ballads were printed in

SHAKSPEARE'S NAME (5th S. ii. 2.)-I think that we may go too far in giving to every name the derivation that seems most natural. Waghorn, for instance, may be derived from Wigorn, and Shakspeare, like "Fewtarspeare," from some Norman name denoting a very different origin to that we should accord it in English. I do not at all disagree with MR. BARDSLEY'S note, but insist on exceptions. Many also who acquired these nickname surnames were not only servants, but the sons and kinsmen of feudal lords; and whatever the origin of Shakspeare's name, as quite as probable as its origin would be the supposition that the first who bore it was kinsman to some feudal lord. Men of Shakspeare's appearance, in the days of our more uncouth ancestors and "wild Irishmen," did not usually spring from a medieval residuum. True, his mother was an Arden; but from specimens of various animals one may study even in these better days (when all classes are more mixed), I do not think the coarse grain would be very greatly improved by only one descent; at all events, not so much as to turn the rude, brutal-looking features of the agricultural classes of Elizabeth's day into the refined and noble features of a Shakspeare. Still, it must be borne in mind that long before Shakspeare's time the descendants (even younger sons occasionally) of feudal lords took to agriculture, as husbandmen, and married those whose origin was serfish, so that it may be inferred the mixture of classes was very considerable in Elizabeth's time, and the lower agriculturist was not the gross, brutal, or weird-looking animal of, say, King John's time. On the whole, however, whatever the origin of Shakspeare's name, I decidedly believe, with many others, that two or three hundred years before his day his male ancestors were more likely to be of gentle than of villain blood.

Not to adopt the Darwinian belief, animals in this respect are much the same, whether biped or quadruped; and every one knows that when an obscure outsider beats the whole field in a race, it is usually found, on one side or another (usually on both sides), that, however far back, he comes of "a good stock." But the accomplishments of the horse are not those of the man. Nevertheless, the end is still the same-the development of the animal breed, whether the race is animal or intellectual, or one that engenders habits conducive to the formation of more perfect forms of head, face, and body, particularly of the fine-bred tapering man or horse. A great deal more might be said

on these matters, for either horse or man may have (however well-bred the dam) quite a yokel-bred issue, and these again a really fine breed, because some strain" or other, imported, perhaps, in remote times, occasionally "crops up." On all these grounds (and I could prove that there is nothing invidious in them), I say Shakspeare's appearance points to a far better origin than that which the bias and vanity of not a few would assign to him. X. Y, Z.

Wagstaff and Waghorn are without doubt local surnames. Staff is from sted, a place. Conf. Eavestaff, Bickerstaff. Horn is a winding stream. Gray's Inn.

R. S. CHARNOCK.

IS SHAKSPEARE RIGHT? (5th S. i. 485.)—It appears to me that Shakspeare is right; that the meaning of the lines in question is easily understood, and the grammar correct. The lines are"Osric. How is 't, Laertes?

Laertes. Why, as a woodcock to* mine own springe, Osric;

am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.”

Hamlet, v. 2.

I First, as to the grammar in "How is 't, Laertes?" "with you " is omitted; the complete expression would be, "How is 't with you, Laertes?" Osric says this, and Laertes answers, "It is with me (in relation) to my own springe or treachery, as it is with a woodcock (in relation) to his own springe."

Now as to the meaning: a woodcock is trained to decoy other birds into a springe; first, the fowler places him just outside the springe; then, while strutting about just outside the springe, and calling, and by various arts alluring other birds, the woodcock incautiously places his foot in or on the springe, and so is caught. The springe is termed the woodcock's "own" springe, not because the woodcock contrived it, as ZOILUS jocularly suggests, but because he stands in a certain relation to it, .e., struts round it, with the view of decoying The comparison seems to me perfect: the woodcock is treacherous towards other birds, and is caught himself; Laertes is treacherous towards Hamlet, and is caught himself. F. J. V.

other birds into it.

"FAVOUR" (5th S. ii. 64.)—“ Favour" is still used in its old sense in Lancashire, though pronounced favvor. Thus, when a son resembles his father in look, or gesture, it will be said, "He favvors his father." "Hard-favoured" and "wellfavoured" are expressions common enough in the North of England. The cattle in Pharaoh's dream were "well-favoured" and "ill-favoured."

E. L. BLENKINSOPP.

This word is in common use here as an expres

The quarto of 1676 reads "in" for "to," but "to seems to me, at least, far preferable.

Knowing that "contemporary writers," with the single exception of Meres, do not refer at all to Shakespeare's Sonnets, I turned with some curiosity to Mr. Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, 1848, pp. 158-9, which is the foot-reference in Fraser. I found there the sentence quoted in Fraser, with the exception of the parenthesis; and in Halliwell, the pronoun them refers to Shakespeare's Poems (Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece), which are, in fact, the topic of this and the preceding sentence.

Seeing that this sentence is employed by the writer in Fraser to discredit the poems and plays as the work of Shakespeare, by showing that the Sonnets are referred to by Shakespeare's contemporaries much oftener than the plays (nothing in this place being said of the poems), I think it but fair to expose this extraordinary mistake.

I note also that the actual assertion in Mr. Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare is not correct. Shakespeare's contemporaries mention or refer to his plays much more frequently than to his poems. JABEZ.

Athenæum Club.

BUNYAN'S COMPEERS AND PREDECESSORS. Deutsch, on the Talmud, says :

"We shall devote the brief space that remains to this Haggadah, and for a general picture of it we shall refer to Bunyan, who, speaking of his own book, which— mutatis mutandis-is very Haggadistic, unknowingly describes the Haggadah as accurately as can be."Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch, p. 47. Deutsch then gives the poetry of Bunyan prefatory to his Pilgrim's Progress, as explanatory of the contents of the Haggadah to be found in the work

of Bunyan. Bunsen, in his second work on Hippolytus, compares the author of the Pastor of Hermas to Bunyan and his Pilgrim's Progress.

In the use of allegory there is a similarity between The Pastor of Hermas and The Pilgrim's Progress; and there may be between the Haggadah such an authority on the Talmud, may trace beand The Pilgrim's Progress, which Mr. Deutsch, tween them. There are but few, however, acquainted with the Haggadah or Talmud. Bunsen compares The Shepherd of Hermas to the trilogy of Dante as well as The Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan. He appears to put on an equality of merit the three authors and their works. It may be asked whether Bunyan could have been ac quainted with Haggadah or Talmud, Shepherd of Hermas or Dante and his poem, or whether, which appears most probable, he only wrote the same on the same subject, as all write, without knowing or following in the footsteps of each other?

The judgments of celebrated writers on the works of others have been recently given, and not only that, but variations of their own opinions at different times on the same authors and their compositions.

Irenæus, against heresies, at one time quotes Hermas with approbation, when he supports his views, and on another occasion condemns him and his works, when contrary to him.

Tertullian, on prayer, assumes the Scriptural dignity of the book called The Shepherd of Hermas; yet in another, De Pudicitia, when the text is against him, he treats the same work as impure, apocryphal, and scouted by all the churches.

It is curious after so many ages Bunsen should follow the same course as his predecessors in his criticism of the same work. Bunsen, in his first book on Hippolytus, says The Shepherd of Hermas is an absurd composition; and only in his second book on Hippolytus, he says Hermas with his shepherd is equal to Dante and his poem, to Bunyan and his Pilgrim's Progress. The Shepherd of Hermas seems to have been a most popular work in the first ages of Christianity. Eusebius says it was used by the earliest churches as a book of elementary instruction.-E. H., b. III. ch. iii.

And not only this may be said to be the place of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, but it may be said to have kept it in popular estimation. The Pastor of Hermas, from being bound up with the New Testament, accounted Scripture, and read in churches, fell into entire disuse. Lately, from three translations of it into English, there may be thought to be a revival of interest in its favour. W. J. BIRCH.

"RELATION OF ENGLAND."-A Relation with this title was written about A.D. 1500, by some noble Venetian in the suite of the Ambassador from Venice to the Court of England. A translation

of this curious document, with the text at foot, was published by the Camden Society in 1847. It is very interesting, and written by a man of good sense and observation. Amongst many interesting matters, he starts one question that perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." can settle, viz., that Julius Cæsar sets the three sides of England at 2,000 miles, whilst Bede makes it 3,600. Who is right? The rivers abound, he says, in every species of Italian fish, "except carp, tench, and perch" ("ma no però carponi, o temoli, ne persici"). As to the carp, it seems there is a distich in Baker's Chronicle:

"Hops and turkeys, carps and beer,

Came into England all in a year.' Now Rondelet (born 1507) says of the perch that it abounds more in the Po and in England than anywhere else. It is strange that before the middle of the century it should have been abundant if unknown at the commencement. Leonard Mascal, or Marshall, of Sussex, is said to have introduced the carp about 1514.

Cæsar says we had abundance of trees, but

neither beech nor fir.

Vines, too, were cultivated; and Bede mentions vineyards. The Vale of Gloucester was very favourable to the vine, and Richard II. made wine in the little park, Windsor. It is supposed that when the English had possession of Gascony the cheapness of wine thence imported destroyed the home manufacture; but I have read that the cutting down of the forests so changed the climate that the vine would no longer thrive. Disafforesting lowers greatly the temperature of a district.

The Italian makes a curious remark that the horns of English oxen are much larger than the Italian, which proves the mildness of the climate, as horns will not bear excessive cold ("imperò che

il corno no tollera freddo eccessivo").

There are many more points to which attention may be drawn if any of these lead to the establishment of facts touching any of them. The simple observations of keen observers are more pregnant than the theories of half the philosophers; and these publications of the Camden Society have never been, I think, duly searched for the marrow they contain. They teem with facts physical, social, and political; and if a man could bring such a faculty as that of Lord Bacon or Buffon to bear upon them, marshalling all that is of value in them into one book, I, for one, should value the work as of higher price by far than all the semihistorical, quasi-philosophical disquisitions of Hume's so-called History of England. C. A. WARD.

Mayfair.

WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE-Mr. John Camden Hotten opens the "Preliminary" to his edition (1872) with the statement that "the pre

sent edition is more complete than any yet published in this country." It may be worth while to inform English readers that this edition is, nevertheless, far from complete. In fact, no complete collection of Poe's writings has yet been published even in America. Mr. Hotten's edition wants at least one-half of the matter contained in the editions of Redfield and Widdleton (New York), which contain, I believe, all of Poe's known writings, excepting his two series of papers on "Autography and Cryptography" (published in Graham's Magazine, 1841), and perhaps some minor reviews. Mr. Hotten, probably, means to claim that his edition contains more of Poe's writings (a thing cannot be either more or less complete) than any edition previously published in England (or Britain); and this claim may be fully justified by the facts. But he follows this with a statement that is not thus justifiable. tion, he says, "gives the whole of the poems and stories which have been left us by this fine genius," &c. This statement is so far from true, that there are just nineteen stories contained in the American

This edi

editions which are not contained in Mr. Hotten's. Among them are, the "Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," which is by far the most lengthy of Poe's tales, and, in some respects, the most remarkable; and "The Fall of the House of Usher," which has been pointed out by each of his three literary biographers in this country (U.S.A.) as the most characteristic production of Poe's peculiar genius, and the best example of his highest powers in the department of prose.

I will only add that of this author's essays and criticisms Mr. Hotten's edition contains but a fragment, and that the one essay which has called forth the most unqualified praise of his crities, viz., "Eureka," is omitted.

Greenville, Ala.

G. L. H.

"STREEL."-There is one word in common use in Ireland I do not find noticed in "N. & Q.," v. l.g the word streel. It is not in Webster nor in the Slang Dictionary, although its derivation, perhaps, from the Latin stratum, or the same root as the English strew, may be plain enough. It signifies generally to drag along the ground in a careless manner, as the following quotations of Dublin slang will show :—

"He streeled his coat all over the fair, but could get no one to tread on it."

"She is a dirty sthreel (i. e., careless in her dress)." "He streeled me up the Coombe and up and down Francis Street till I thought I'd dhrop in my stannin." "Let us go out and take a streel (a stroll?) up and down the quay."

"And she went along streeling her dirty gownd in the gutter behind her."

It appears to be a very expressive word.*

H. H.

* Köhler gives the word in his German Dictionary,

BLOOD.-The want of precision in some popular ideas is often very perplexing. I refer chiefly to the pride of birth. In India, there is a strong prejudice against the offspring of a European father and a Hindustani mother, or, as they are called, Eurasians. There seems to be no really sound ethnological reason, however, for this objection, and the Eurasian is generally proud of his paternal origin. In England, on the contrary, Eurasians, especially of the gentler sex, are often very much admired. One of the most Highland of all Highlanders I ever met was a mulatto, the legitimate son of an Aberdeenshire gentleman by 2 negro mother. Unfortunately, he took very much after the latter, and, for this accidental circumstance, he was unable to enforce his pretensions in society, to be considered "an armiger" and representative of a good old family. His want of sufficient means, however, may have had a great deal to do with the cold water thrown on his just claims.*

But it does not require, after all, a bona fide Norman descent to make some men the "proudest of the proud." Some of the most fastidious men I have ever known were not aware that they had no descent whatever beyond that which is common to all; but their hallucination had the good effect of making them courteous and honourable.

Again, the common expression, aristocratic looking," is equally applicable to occasional individuals in all classes of society where actual want is not found, and the converse holds good. The "indecent clown" is not alone found in the fields. S.

PALINDROME.-I have met with the following one in Camden's Remaines. Camden says,—

"I will end with this of Odo, holding Master Doctour's mule, and Anne with her table-cloth, which cost the maker much foolish labour, for it is a perfect verse, and every word is the very same, both backward and forward. 'Odo tenet mulum, madidam mappam tenet Anna. Anna tenet mappam madidam, mulum tenet Odo."" FREDK. RULE.

DR. SOUTH AND THOMAS FULLER.-In one of South's speeches, as Terræ-filius, at the Oxford Commemoration of 1657, he mentions, among other droll exaggerations of Fuller's person and character, that he was once an unsuccessful candidate for a post as sub-librarian in the gift of the University of Oxford :

Was quench'd, the pulse still lingered in his heart." There is no plagiarism. I merely allude to the two writers to show a similarity of ideas. Shelley's conception is more sublime than that of Balzac; but we must bear in mind that one occurs in a poem, the other is found in a prose romance.

N. although he evidently does not know the Irish meaning of it, as he translates it "strahlen," to beam or irradiate. *There is a curious saying in the West Indies that you can always detect black blood by the gristle of a man's nose, . e., if he has black ancestry, the gristly

point of the nose has no division in it.

"Unum hoc superest notatu dignum, quod nuper vacante Inferioris Bibliothecarii loco, Academiæ nostræ supplicavit per literas, ut sibi illum conferret: sed ob hanc rationem, ne Bibliothecæ scripta sua ingereret!' What position is here referred to, and is the petition extant? One refuses to believe that the fact was made up by South. It is noteworthy that Heylyn twitted Fuller for this very speech, to whom the latter replied

"For the seventeen years I lived in Cambridge, I never heard any Prevaricator mention his senior [South was then only twenty-four years old, Fuller double the age] by name: we count such particularizing beneath an University. I regret not to be Anvile, for any ingenious Hammer to make pleasant musick on; but it seems my Traducer was not so happy."-The Appeal of Iniured Innocence, pt. i., p. 28. J. E. BAILEY.

"THE PICKWICK PAPERS."-During a recent visit to London, I remarked with satisfaction that tablets have been affixed to many notable houses; ex. gr., Franklin's house at South Kensington, Dryden's house in Gerrard Street, Soho, &c. Regarding this as a most praiseworthy act, I beg to suggest that one of these tablets should be put up on the wall of the house facing Wood's Hotel (the right-hand entrance), in Furnival's Inn, Holborn,