Young says in his 'Autobiography,' first published at the beginning of 1898, that his แ great plea of a horse militia produced immediately three volunteer corps of cavalry, which multiplied rapidly through the kingdom." His health was the first toast given for being the origin of those corps which, when assembled, had this opportunity of publicly declaring their opinion" (Autobiography,' p. 204). At a dinner given by the Duke of Bedford at Woburn, Young was told "by a gentleman of great property, captain of a troop of Yeomanry, that whenever his troop met he always drank my [Young's] health after the King's, for being the undisputed origin of all the Yeomanry corps in the kingdom" (p. 206). It is significant that in Young's own personal copy of his 'Annals' the passages relating to his suggestions as to the Yeomanry are marked, apparently in his own hand. In his own county of Suffolk Young enrolled himself as a private in the ranks of a corps raised at his recommendation in the vicinity of Bury St. Edmunds, and commanded by Lord Broome, afterwards Marquis of Cornwallis (p. 205). In vol. xxvii. of the Annals of Agriculture' (1796), p. 537, Young prints a statement of the expense of equipping (with jacket, waistcoat, surtout, breeches, boots, gloves, cravat, &c.) a trooper in the Suffolk corps of Yeomanry Cavalry -which, under the title of the Loyal Suffolk Hussars, now (1900) has as its Honorary Colonel H.R.H. the Duke of York-and he even prints a song, obviously written by himself, commencing "Hear ye not the din from afar?" and winding up with these unexceptionable if rather tritely expressed sentiments: Strange delays, still unexpected, Seems the task that lies undone. And are dwindled to a span; To complete the cherished plan. In an indolent repose? Hastens onward to its close. Still to follow on the trace; Such as lifts the human race. Truth is one! To grasp it wholly Lies in One, its Author, solely; And the mind of man can master But a fragment of the plan; Every scheme, howe'er extensive, Though it seem all-comprehensive, Is a portion of a portion Fitting life's allotted span. Death is near; and then-what matter Thou laboriously didst raise? If a single brick abideth That thine honest toil provideth, Thy success hath proved sufficient, Thou shalt win the Master's praise. WALTER W. SKEAT. [The poem has already appeared in print.] SPECIAL LITERATURE WRITTEN FOR SOLDIERS. -Since our soldiers form a great topic of conversation just now, brief allusion to some books written for them when on active service may not be out of place. From the nature of the case, they are few in number. A soldier's first duty is to fight, and he is not supposed to have any leisure to read, except the scanty correspondence he may be fortunate to receive from friends at home. However, in our great Civil War there were some curious little manuals and treatises written for him, now very scarce and interesting historically. Their dates lie between 1640 and 1649-that is, between the election of the Long Parliament and the king's execution. The Parliament had not long been in power when it began to be clearly seen by those who looked into the near future that on the army would eventually hang the destinies of both opposing parties, that the common soldiers had to be reckoned with as important elements in the contest, and that their politics and religion should therefore be carefully coached and tutored, and, above all, any religious scruples especially cleared and directed. This will appear from the following curious literature, of which but few copies have escaped to our days: 1. A Spirituall Snapsacke for the Parliament Souldiers, containing Cordiall Encouragements unto the Successfull Prosecution of this Present Cause. Lond., 1643, 4to. 2. The Christian Souldier; or, Preparation for Battaile. Lond., 1642, 4to. Composed in an easy 3. The Christian Souldiers Magazine of Spirituall Weapons. Lond., 1644, 8vo. 4. The Rebells Catechism. and familiar way. 1643, 4to. 5. The Souldiers Language; or, a Discourse between Two Souldiers, shewing how the Warres go on. 1644, 4to. 7. The Mercenary Souldier. Both broadsheets, c. 1646. 8. The Souldier's Pocket Bible. Lond., 1643, 12mo. And a second edition, Lond., 1644. 9. The Souldier's Catechism, composed for the Parliaments Army, in two parts, wherein are chiefly taught: (1) The Justification, (2) The Qualification, of our Soldiers, written for the encouragement and instruction of all that have taken up arms in the cause of God and His People, especially the Common Soldier. Lond., 1644, 12mo. The last two are associated with the name of Cromwell, as having been issued according to the wish and instruction of his rising and influential party. Both are extremely scarce, only two copies each being known of the originals. The 'Pocket Bible' is well known, having been frequently reprinted, and is mainly a collection of Scripture texts suitable for soldiers with appropriate headings. But the 'Soldier's Catechism' is by far the most remarkable and interesting book ever issued for a soldier's breast-pocket, and, as is acknowledged, was a powerful instrument in determining the king's execution. It would be interesting to know who drew it up, and how it is we know so little about it. No bibliographers, no historians, even mention it. NE QUID NIMIS. "BOER."-It may be of interest to note that the word boer, pronounced as a dissyllable booer, is in common use in this part of Scotland (Galloway), although it is not to be found in Jamieson's 'Dictionary.' It is used to denote the person, usually a peasant, to whom a farmer lets his dairy cows for the season. Perhaps I should have said that this The "Henderson, Kentucky, Friday.-Two sisters, five years respectively, while playing hide-and seek named Laura and Jennie Melton, aged seven and with three other children at their father's house, hid inside a big trunk in the cellar. Two others hid in a bed upstairs. The fifth child found the latter two, but could not find the others. parents were away visiting a neighbour, and did not come back for three hours, but, on learning the two children were missing, at once began to search for them. After an investigation lasting an hour, the father remembered the trunk, and on opening it discovered the two girls lying dead in each other's arms. The lid of the trunk fastened with a springlock, and when the children were once in the box, they were unable to open it, and were slowly suffocated.-Dalziel." The incident, if truly such, lends itself to poetry on the lines of 'Lucy Gray'; but any writer so utilizing it would, of course, be thought to be simply imitating Rogers. Bath. C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. "QUAGGA" AND "ZEBRA."-The names of these two nearly allied animals have never been satisfactorily traced to their sources. Taking Prof. Skeat's 'Dictionary' and the 'Century' as the two best authorities, I find in the former, "Quagga, said to be Hottentot"; in the latter, Quagga, apparently South African." The word is South African. It is not Hottentot, but Xosa-Kaffir. As early as 1812, Lichtenstein, in his 'Travels,' gives it as such in a vocabulary of Xosa words; and in the 'Dictionary of the Kaffir Language,' by the Rev. W. J. Davis (London, 1872), I find it again. Davis spells it iqwara, but his r represents a "deep guttural sound," hence the European forms quagga and quacha (pronounced kwokka). As to zebra, the nearest approach to an etymology of it is due to Littré, who calls it "mot éthiopien." Prof. Skeat quotes this only to express doubt of its accuracy, though he has nothing with which to replace it. The Century' vaguely guesses the word to be "African." Yet there are plenty of dictionaries which would have decided its origin. I turn to the Dictionary of the Amharic Language,' by the Rev. C. W. Isenberg (London, 1841, p. 157), and I find that zebra is Ethiopian, Amharic being, I need hardly say, the court and official language of Abyssinia. Isenberg prints it in Ethiopic characters, which cannot be reproduced here. The transliteration is zěběra. The short e's, corresponding to the Hebrew sheva, are practically silent in pronunciation, and the stress should be upon the last syllable. JAMES PLATT, Jun. [See 1st S. x. 448; 6th S. ii. 386; 7th S. xii. 442, 493; 8th S. i. 197, 238. See also under Wroth Money."] EDGAR A. POE'S 'HOP-FROG.'-The original of this gruesome story may be found in Barckley's 'Felicitie of Man,' 1631, pp. 63-4, and may, no doubt, be traced further back : A PASTILLE-BURNER.-We have a china ornament, that has been in existence upwards of sixty years, in the form of a cottage, four by five by three inches, and that, in spite of its preposterous floral embellishment, in-apparell, and disguised his face like a Lion, annointdicates a purpose in its construction. The base is recessed, and pierced, as it were through the floor, in four places. At the sides and back of this base there are three inlets, measuring three-quarters of an inch each, apparently for air. The doorway at the back is ample and unobstructed by a door. There are six window-spaces at the front, also open; and the flues of the two chimneys connect with the interior. This is doubtless one of the old pastille-burners, the pastilles being placed in the chimneys, and obtaining by means of these various contrivances sufficient air for their free combustion. ARTHUR MAYALL. HENRY CAVENDISH.-The notice in the 'Encycl. Brit.' of this celebrated chemist states that he was educated at Newcombe's school at Hackney. This seems to have been a notable seminary in the middle of last century. It would be interesting to glean some facts about its exact site, &c., and respecting any scholars who were contemporaries of Cavendish, and made their mark in science, letters, or arms. M. L. BRESLAR, "WROTH SILVER."-The following, from the Liverpool Echo for 13 November, 1899, may be of interest : "At sunrise on Saturday morning the ancient custom of collecting wroth silver' on the Duke of Buccleuch's Warwickshire estate was observed at Knightlow Hill, a short distance from Rugby. The duke has rights over the common lands in a number of parishes, and he therefore claims to take dues from those parishes. One group is called upon to pay ld. each, another lot ltd., and so on to 2s. 3d. A large number of people go out at sunrise and follow the Buccleuch agent into a field where stands. the cross at which tribute is paid. As a rule the money is forthcoming, not from the official coffers "The French King Charles the Sixth, his mind being distempered, committed the governement of his Realme to others, and gave himselfe to pastimes there chanced a marriage to bee solemnized in his Court, where the King was disposed to make himselfe and others merrie, he put off all his ing his body with pitch, and fastned flaxe so artificially to it, that he represented a monster, rough, and covered with haire. When he was thus attired, and five others as wise as himselfe, they came into the chamber among the Lords and Ladies, dauncing and singing in a strange tune, all the Court beholding them. The Duke of Orleance, whether that hee might better see, or for some other toy, snatched a torch out of a mans hand, and held it so neare the King, that a spark falling upon him set them all on a flaming fire; two of the five companions were miserably burnt in the place, crying, and howling most pitifully without any remedie; other two dyed in great torment two daies after; the fifth running speedily into a place where was water and wine, to wash himselfe, was saved; the King having more helpe than the rest, before the flanie had compassed his body round about, was saved by a Lady that cast her traine and gowne about him, and quenched the fire." RICHARD H. THORNTON. Portland, Oregon. "" "WOUND FOR "WINDED."-It is rather to be regretted that in the 'H.E.D.' under Horn, Scott's line ('Lady of the Lake,' I. xvii.) But scarce again his horn he wound should be quoted without comment. It would have been more in place under "wind," as an instance of a false past tense. C. C. B. THE PRINCE OF WALES AS DUKE OF CORNWALL. (See 7th S. xii. 362.)-I would supplement this note which illustrated the fact that for nearly the first month of his life the present heir-apparent bore only the title of Duke of Cornwall, to which he had the right by birth, and that it was not until 4 December, 1841, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester-by a reference to the phrase used by Henry VI. in 1455 in reference to his unfortunate son Edward, and to be found in the Rolls of Parliament jacket, and so an appropriate Kinnui (vernacular (vol. v. p. 293), "His best belovyd first form) of Jacob." begotten sonne, tyme of his birth is Duke of Cornewayle." It is separately entered that the King, "by his Letters Patentes under his grete Seall, hath creat Edward his moost entierly belovyd firstbegottyn sonne and heir apparaunt, Prince of Wales, and Erle of the Counte Palatyne of Chestre" (ibid., p. 290). The birth had taken place on 13 October, 1453; the creation here noted on 15 March, 1454. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. I " was Readers of Jewish history are familiar with such curious forms as Rambam, Rashbam, and Rashi, which respectively stand for Rabbi Maimun ben Maimun (Maimonides), Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, and Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac. Borrow, in his celebrated eulogy on prizefighting ('Lavengro,' ch. xxvi.), says, "The Jews may have Rambams in plenty, but never a Fielding nor a Shakespeare." The ordinary Hebrew names Berachyah, Isaiah, Eleazar, are converted into Benedict, A PASQUIL. From a rare and curious pamphlet in Latin and Italian of the fifteenth Deulesalt, and Deusaie (or Deus adjuvet), and so forth; and the common form Hyams is century which I have before me, it appears vulgarized Hebrew for Chaim (life), also that pasquils or pasquinades were not always found in the forms Vives, Vivard, Vivelot, synonymous with lampoons or libels, but &c. The same may be said of other common might be applied to any written or printed Jewish names, as Myers, Bear, Ursel, and so news and report of exciting interest. They forth. Some Jews cast off their Hebrew were probably at first stuck upon pillars (cp. patronymics altogether, and, if I remember the columna of Horace's 'Ars Poetica') at Rome, and afterwards in other large cities of had extensive premises in Aldgate, when he rightly, the well-known clothier Moses, who Italy, where the public could read them. retired from business and occupied a WestNow the pasquinade, which is not mentioned End mansion, called himself Beddington, in Brunet'sManuel' (where nine earlier and under that name left a large fortune. pieces of a similar character, printed 15121526 in Rome, are described), and may Kinnui. But it seems that the Jews not suppose "Barney Barnato deserve a brief record, bears the title Car- only confuse their names while alert in mina apposita ad Pasquillum in personam business, but as a last resource, to cheat Victorie [sic] MDXXXIII. It is a pamphlet of Azrael, change them when dying, for Mr. 12mo. size, without place and date, but most Jacobs tells us that "it is a Jewish custom probably printed at Rome in 1533, the year after the eventful victory to which its title refers, comprising twenty-four pages. The title-page is adorned with the large woodcut figure of a woman, and the text with four woodcut medals representing the goddess Victoria. The Latin text is followed by four pages of Italian 'Pasquini,' and the whole work concludes with a curious Latin song of six lines in hexameters, each word of which begins with the letter p. Considering its subject, this pasquil is evidently not satirical, but really an historical poem or hymn, which purposed to glorify the famous victory gained by the Emperor Charles V.'s captain Sebastian Schertlin over the Turks near Vienna on 19 September, A.D. 1532, when the Papal see was held by the Roman Pontiff Clemens VII., who reigned 1523-34. Oxford. H. KREBS. KINNUI: JEWISH EKE-NAMES. In Mr. Joseph Jacobs's 'Jews of Angevin England' (1893, p. 370), in a dissertation on old AngloJewish names, it is stated that English is indeed conspicuous by its absence in the list, except for Alfild, among the ladies, and Jurnet (Jornet), among the men, if the latter be, as has been suggested, derived from jornet, a jerkin or pure to change a man's name when in articulo mortis, in the hope that the Angel of Death will not recognize him under the altered name." Surely a very strange superstition. JAMES HOOPER. Norwich. "WAITS "" AND "GAITAS."-Talking a few days ago in Berlin to Don Pedro de Muxica, Professor of Castilian in the Oriental Seminabsence of etymologies which he criticizes so ary there, about the false etymologies and justly in the Dictionary of the Royal Academy at Madrid, I suggested that gaita, the name of a kind of bagpipes used in some from a word meaning wind, as it is eminently parts of Spain, might be of Keltic origin, a wind instrument. Gustav Korting, in his 'Lateinisch-Romanisches Wörterbuch (Paderborn, 1891), explains the word as little as the Castilian Academy. The choice of an etymon seems to confine itself to the tribe to which English gay, Basque jai, Manx gaih ('A Dictionary of the Manks Language,' by A. Cregeen, Douglas, 1835), belong, or to the wind-words represented by Manx geay, gheay. Prof. Muxica, however, is inclined to connect it with English waits. In discussing this word Prof. W. W. Skeat makes no allusion favourite haunt -a potter's workshop, under the to the Iberian instrument. But Spanish form of some earthen vessel. Thus the epitaph gaiteros wear gaiters, and are waiters upon Catharine Gray to abate their grief, since after a above mentioned advises the weeping friends of those who like gay music upon festive occa-run of years,' sions, no less than those ale-knights who wind up their notes before English homes at Yuletide. PALAMEDES. PARTRIDGE, THE ALMANAC-MAKER. In the accounts of John Partridge, the almanacmaker, and George Parker, the astrologer, given in the 'Dictionary of National Biography' (vol. xliii. pp. 428 and 234), their pamphlet warfare of 1697-9 is noted; but there is no reference to a legal action of 1700 which ensued upon it. Record of the commencement of this is to be found in the Post Boy of 7 May, 1700, in the following paragraph: "This Week commences a Tryal at Guild-Hall, between Partridge, the Almanack-maker, and Parker, the Astrologer; the first is Plaintiff: He brings an Action of a 1000l. against the other, for Printing in his Ephemeris this Year, That He's a Rebel in his Principles; An Enemy to Monarchy; Ungrateful to his Friend; A Scoundrel in his Conversation; A Malignant in his Writings; A Lyer in his Almanack; And a Fool of an Astrologer. Tho' they are great Men in the way of Predictions, they can't tell how the Cause will go. We hear the polite Gipsies, alias Judicial Fortune-tellers, lay great Wagers on both sides." But there is no mention of the result of the trial in such immediately succeeding issues as I have been able to search. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. In some tall pitcher, or broad pan, In a note Sir William refers to the "158 but also referring to 9, 66, 68, 79, 89, 103, 138, Rebáayát," mentioning particularly No. 111, and 146. These precise references will serve to show that Sir William Ouseley had an intimate acquaintance with the verses of Omar. WILLIAM E. A. AXON. several contributions to the literature of the war, From English hamlet, Irish hill, The poetic licence is great, but it does not cover OMAR KHAYYAM.-A place must be found for Sir William Ouseley in the list of the students of Omar Khayyam who preceded Edward FitzGerald. In some 'Observations on some Extraordinary Anecdotes concerning Alexander; and on the Eastern Origin of Several Fictions popular in Different Languages of Europe, which was read before the Royal Society of Literature, 15 Nov., 1826, and is printed in the Transactions (vol. i.'N. & Q.':part ii. pp. 5-23), Ouseley very judiciously says: R. M. SPENCE. ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, BASSISHAW.-As some one is certain sooner or later to inquire for the date of the demolition of this ancient church, the following cutting from a local paper of Saturday, 9 Dec., 1899, might usefully be transferred to the pages of "St. Michael's Church, Bassishaw, near the Guildhall, was put up for auction on Tuesday, the "It is not, however, my opinion that every coin- sale being conducted in the building itself. It is cidence of this kind must be pronounced an imita- about to be demolished under the Union of Benetion of some Eastern prototype; the resemblance fices Act, after a history that dates back to 1140. between parallel passages (of which different lan-Four churches have stood upon the site, the present guages furnish a multiplicity) must be, in several instances, regarded as merely accidental, notwithstanding a conformity both in sentiments and expressions." He enforces this caution by the following example : one, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, being the successor of the one destroyed by the Great Fire. The building has no claim to architectural beauty. There were few persons present at the unique gained was 1801. for all the lead covering to the auction on Tuesday, and the highest price steeple, flats, and gutters.' The weather vane was "I cannot for a moment suspect that the well- bought for 21. 15s., and eight ornamental coloured known epitaph on a celebrated vendor of earthen-glass lead lights brought 2. 58. Other articles were ware at Chester was borrowed from a Persian sold at a ridiculously low figure. Two lots, comtetrastich, composed in the twelfth century by prising the whole of the brick and stone work of the Omar Khayám, who calls for wine that he may church and tower, failed to find a purchaser. The banish care, expecting to be once more in his whole amount of bids accepted just exceeded 2007." |