EDWARD BENSLY.. [Replies also acknowledged from MR. JOHN HODGKIN and MR. TOM JONES.] 'RAPE OF PROSERPINE,' BY PAUL VERON-when under examination made a point of ESE (11 S. i. 328, 398).-I have compiled, translating every Greek or Latin name for a but not yet published, a classified list of bird by siskin, and every name for a tree Italian pictures (earlier than 1580) with (or plant ?) by galingale. subjects relating to ancient mythology and history; so I am able to assert that Paul Veronese never painted The Rape of Proserpine. The subject occurs in the School of Lionardo, and was also treated by Dosso Dossi (Mells Park), Padovanino (Venice Academy), and Jacopo Bassano (Doria Panfili Gallery). A beginner may have taken the last-named picture (photographed by Anderson, No. 5363) for a Paul Veronese. S. REINACH. Paris, 4, Rue de Traktir. LONDON CHILDREN'S OUTDOOR GAMES (11 S. i. 483).-From PRINCIPAL SALMON'S list I miss the following 1. Woggle, a game on the principle of cricket, but played with a short piece of wood instead of a ball, and holes instead of wickets. 2. Tip-cat, which I saw played a few days ago in a City lane. 3. Prisoners' base. 22. ARABIS : "THLASPI 22 Wм. H. PEET. (11 S. i. 406).— "Arabis " is presumably the Greek 'Apaßis. It could not be for " [in] Arabis locis,' though strange things have happened before now in botanical nomenclature. Olάonis (or láort) is explained by Pape and Liddell and Scott as a kind of cress, the seeds of which were crushed and used as mustard. They offer a derivation from láw (crush). Liddell and Scott give as a further suggestion "shepherd's purse." Bishop Cooper, Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ, 1573, has, s.v. Thlaspi (which is there spelt Thlapsi), An herbe called also Nasturcium tectorum, Capsella, and Scandulacium. It hath the smacke of mustarde seede, and therefore it is called Sinapi rusticum." Bailey's 'Forcellini' calls thlaspi "mithridate mustard." Drabe" is described in Faber's Thesaurus' as nasturtium orientale." To determine the precise equivalents in modern scientific classification to the terms employed by Greeks and Romans to describe their own fauna and flora is a very difficult business. An interesting work in this line is Prof. D'Arcy Thompson's Glossary of Greek Birds,' published some years ago by the Clarendon Press. But one may sympathize with the practical method said to have been followed as an undergraduate by a distinguished Cambridge classical scholar, who, as the legend runs, 66 22 TEART (11 S. i. 466, 497).-This word is in use in North Wiltshire at the present time (I have heard it several times recently) with the significance of something "sharp." It is described in A Glossary of Words used in the County of Wiltshire,' by Y. E. Dartnell and the Rev. E. H. Goddard : 1, painfully tender-sore, as & wound 2, stinging, as a blister; 3, tart, as beer turning sour. See also Aubrey, 'Nat. Hist. Wilts,' p. 22, "it is so cold and tort," applied to a river, and "it is so acrimonious," p. 28. T. S. M. but I have met with the word teart in Gloucestershire, where it means something that smarts or is painful. If any one is suffering from a wound or a sore spot, the question there will be, not "Does it hurt? ?? Is it teart?" as an expression of symJ. BAGNALL. pathy. Is not this word the adjective "teart "? used as a substantive? The word (pronounced teert ") used to be continually heard in Gloucestershire when I lived in the Cotswold district, and can hardly have become obsolete yet. A painful cut, boil, or wound, too tender to be touched, was always described as "terrible teart." The stinging sensation inflicted by severe cold would often draw forth some such greeting as Zharp this marnin', zur, yent it? I d'vind it main teart to the vengers." CHARLES GILLMAN. about ten o'clock in blue and buff uniforms..... Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale,' D. 870, After supper Captain Morrice was placed in the we find the plural burghes; and in Lydchair, and sang the 'Baby and Nurse in his very best stile, and the Fair Assembly chorussed gate's Minor Poems, p. 210, we find the with the most heartfelt spirit. The Ladies then plural bourghes. The modern pronunciation drank his health, and cheered him three times is no sure guide, because in a large number with true festive glee; upon which Captain M., of instances it has been affected by the after thanking the fair company for the honour of insinuating influence of the usual spelling. their charming approbation, gave as a toast Buff and Blue, and Mrs. Crew; which Mrs. Crew very smartly returned in a glass with Buff and Blue, and all of you." "after supper concluded a speech sparkling Buff and Blue, To which the lady merrily replied: Buff and Blue, And all of you." Any one who desires further information will find it in Ellis's great work on 'English Pronunciation'; he convincingly shows that the Anglo-Saxon u was replaced by the Norman ou in hundreds of instances, chiefly in the thirteenth century or later. WALTER W. SKEAT. 2 DUNCAN LIDDEL AND JO. POTINIUS (11 S. i. 447). Dr. Irving, in a brief sketch of Duncan Liddel contained in his 'Lives of Scottish Writers, implies that he wrote various mathematical and astronomical treatises as well as the medical publications which generally appear after But it is easy, of course, to see how a tale of his name. The Propositiones Astronomica' this kind grows with gossip. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. FLAX BOURTON (11 S. i. 389, 438, 497).The explanation of a place-name does not depend upon whether it is acceptable or not. It depends solely upon evidence. The guess that Bourton is short for Bournton is idle; for if this were the case, such a spelling could be found. And there would then be evidence, and speculation would cease. Meanwhile, we know that the name is not uncommon. There is a Bourton in Berkshire, and another in Gloucestershire, both found in Anglo-Saxon charters. In Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum,' i. 516, in a charter dated 821, we find Scriuenham, Burgtun," &c. This refers to Bourton near Shrivenham, Berkshire, in which Bourstands for burg, another spelling of burh, which is now spelt borough. It therefore means borough-town." 66 In the same, iii. 37, we find " to burhtune"; where burhtune is the dative of burhtun, as above. The reference is to Bourton-onthe-Water in Gloucestershire. Hence this likewise means 'borough-town." These two independent examples at once establish the probability that the same explanation is applicable to other cases. The spelling with ou proves nothing at all; Burton is a form that arose in the thirteenth century, and Bourton is a later form, commoner in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This is easily verified by referring to the 'N.E.D.' or to Stratmann, In WALL-PAPERS (11 S. i. 268, 350).-The printing of paper for wall coverings seems to have become an established industry in England at the close of the seventeenth century. Houghton, 'A Collection for Improvement of Industry and Trade,' 30 June, 1699, states: "The next in course is printing, which is said to be known in China and other eastern countries long before it was known in Europe: But their printing was cutting their letters upon blocks in whole pages or forms, as among us our wooden pictures are cut: And a great deal of paper is now-a-days so printed to be pasted upon walls, to serve instead of hangings; and truly if all parts of the sheet be well and close pasted on, it is very pretty, clean, and will last with tolerable care a great while; but there are some other done by rolls in long sheets of thick paper made for the purpose, whose sheets are pasted together to be so long as the height of a room; and they are managed like woollen hangings; and there is a great variety with curious cuts which are cheap, and if kept from wet, very lasting." In 1702 wall-paper is advertised in The Postman : "At the Blue Paper Warehouse in Aldermanbury (and nowhere else) in London, are sold the true sorts of figur'd Paper Hangings, some in pieces of 12 yards long, others after the manner of real Tapistry, others in imitation of Irish stitch, flower'd Damasks, &c." In 1752 The Covent states : Garden Journal "Our printed paper is scarcely distinguished from the finest silk, and there is scarcely a modern house which hath not one or more rooms lined with this furniture." 22 RHYS JENKINS. SHAKESPEARE : 66 MONTJOY ET ST. DENNIS (11 S. i. 447).-At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, when a certain knight of France hurled himself and his horsemen upon the English archers, his battle-cry, was Montjoie! St. Denis!" This incident, derived from contemporary chroniclers, and related in several popular English histories, proves that the French war-cry must have been in use long before Shakespeare's day; See Brewer's 'Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 856. According to Brewer, even the kings of England had as their war-cry "Montjoie St. George." W. S. S. "WORTH 22 IN PLACE-NAMES (11 S. i. 389, 458).-A more probable derivation of the word is that from O.E. weorthan, pre served in Scott's "Woe worth the chase," &c. It thus corresponds to the Norfolk a Being, familiar to readers of ' David Copper field, and more satisfactorily explains such words as Padworth, Tadworth, the place of toads or frogs. Cp. Molesworth? H. P. L. 66 92 LONDON TAVERNS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: "THE COCK TAVERN" (10 S. xii. 127, 190, 254, 414; 11 S. i. 190, 472).There is, I think, a slight error in MR. UDAL'S interesting reminiscences of The Cock in Fleet Street. He says that the gilt effigy " (claimed to be of Grinling Gibbons's carving) "reappeared in its old place over the doorway of the premises occupied on the south side of Fleet Street, which were built in the place of the old tavern on the north side. The Cock sign, however, outside 22, Fleet Street, is, I believe, but a facsimile of the original, now in the grill-room. This I learnt from personal inquiries some ten years ago, and I was informed that a portion of the original bird had been cut away, for the purpose of more conveniently fixing it in its place. A few years before the reign of the "plump head waiter," a pleasant picture of the tavern is afforded by a peep into 'The Epicure's Almanack 2 of 1815 : or "How we came to think of the Cock at Temple It has the best Bar, by daylight, we cannot tell. porter in London, fine poached eggs and other light things seldom called for before seven eight in the evening. There are two good reasons for this: 1stly, the room at Mid-day is almost as dark as Erebus, so that the blazing-faced Bar dolph himself would hardly be able to quaff a tankard by the light of his own countenance. 2ndly, the situation of the Cock is just half way between the heart of the city and the purlieus of Covent Garden and Drury Lane.. ....One box at the end of the room is occupied by a knot of sages who admit strangers into their fraternity on being presented with a crown bowl of punch. Mine host used to smoke his pipe among them nightly. Marsh, the oyster-man, attends here Pyfleets: he hath the constancy of the swallow, the whole season with his Natives, Miltons and and in the opening of the shells the dexterity of the squirrel.' But some considerable time before Tennyson patronized the chops and steaks and the port of the old tavern, to say nothing of its oysters, and long before the poet jocularly resented on a certain occasion the omnibus conductor's remark "Full inside as he entered the vehicle after a meal in which the flavour of the meat was quite independent been known to habitués of the place. A of sauces, William the head waiter had writer in The Sportsman's Magazine of, I think, the year 1857 (p. 104), says that he Cock stout from the glass....William knew our "had, like others, no thought superior to the ways, and Charles was getting into them. We are inclined, however, to give our more particular directions to James. We think the Cock chops superior to the steaks," &c. Charles, who for twenty years had been well known to a large circle of barristers and journalists who dined daily at "The Cock," and whose real name was Edward Thorogood, died in July, 1905, having been the successor, as head waiter, of Tennyson's "William.' J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. Wroxton Grange, Folkestone. KEMPESFELD, HAMPSTEAD (11 S. i. 409, 478).-PROF. SKEAT and the 'N.E.D." had already been consulted, and it is accepted that A.-S. cempa became Middle English kempe, meaning a fighter, a warrior; but one desires to find out whether in some cases land named from association with the words owes its origin to having been occupied or owned by a warrior of the local manor, soldiers provided by the manorial lord, or from the ownership of one having Kemp for his surname. Of course after the fifteenth century places newly named "Kemp's field" would denote such designation to be due to possession or holding; but when the field-name dates from a much earlier period, it would seem likely that the land was attached to an official post rather than to an individual. For instance, Parker's Field and Parkershouse would be the official holding of the parker or park-keeper. The point is one upon which the late Prof. Copinger might have thrown the light of historical facts. Camping fields were what might now be termed " sport-grounds or recreation fields," not, as might be supposed, places where warriors pitched their tents. It should also be borne in mind that many of the place-names now beginning with Kemp, Kem, or Ken were certainly not named from association with a Kempe, the earlier spellings being such as Kemys or Chenys. 66 22. 66 22 In the absence of evidence of a manorial warrior holding his field, like a knight, by virtue of his fighting services, I would note that in 1205 Kempe the Bowmaker had a grant of a small holding until the King could provide for him by marriage. In this case the lands were to be worth 50 shillings annually, and were worth 57. 108. 6d. in 1277, by which time they belonged to the burgesses of Newcastle, Northumberland. This Kempe seems to have been so named from actually being a warrior, acquiring his lands by both using his bow and making bows for other royal archers. FRED. HITCHIN-KEMP. 51, Vancouver Road, Forest Hill, S.E. The other notable example of the form is in the second chapter of 'A Legend of Montrose,' where Dugald Dalgetty, discussing the religious difficulties he encountered on the Continent, states his dissatisfaction with the Dutch pastor who reminded him that Naaman, an honourable cavalier of Syria, had followed his master into the house of Rimmon. The redoubtable captain proceeds with his sturdy apologia as follows : "But neither was this answer satisfactory to me, both because there was an unco difference between an anointed King of Syria and our Spanish colonel, whom I could have blown away like the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly because I could not find the thing was required of me by any of the articles of war; neither was I proffered any consideration, either in perquisite or pay, for the wrong I might thereby do to my conscience." In the 'Scottish Dictionary' 2 Jamieson ingowne from the gives the variant MS. Registers of the Council of Aberdeen,' Requirit v. 16, his entry standing thus: to tak out the ingownis quhilk ves in the schip in poynt of tynasle,' i.e., on the very THOMAS BAYNE. point of being lost." 22 22 .. 22 22 used onion Another pronunciation of am now close on sixty years. I recollect it as a child; to be "inguns. I In 'Gaieties and Gravities,' by James and Horace Smith, 1826, there is an amusing tale about the steamboat from London to Calais, and there you read these words of the young Cockney: "I've got a cold beefsteak and inguns in this here 'ankerchief." M.A. 2 22 GREY FAMILY (11 S. i. 469).-Under Kent in G. E. C.'s' Complete Peerage it is stated that Richard Grey, Earl of Kent, died 3 May, 1524, at his house in Lumberd Street, London, at the sign of the George." The next successor to the title, Sir Henry Grey, de jure Earl of Kent, died 24 September, 1562, at his house called Graye Hassetts in the Barbican." Would not the Inquisitions post mortem help MR. MCMURRAY? The Greys of Werke held property in Aldersgate Street in the seventeenth century. E. A. FRY. NOTTINGHAM EARTHENWARE TOMBSTONE : COADE AND ARTIFICIAL STONE (11 S. i. 189, 255, 312, 356, 409, 454).—This correspondence has diverged somewhat from the subject of my original inquiry, which thus far has not been answered. An earthenware headstone, of something like orthodox dimensions, exists in St. Mary's Churchyard, Nottingham, bearing inscriptions dated in 1707 and 1714, and I still anxiously await information as 39, Burford Road, Nottingham. A monument to Edward Wortley Montagu, made of Coade's Lithodipyra, is in the west walk of the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey. A. H. S. N. W. HILL. The term Literary Gossip " is surely sufficiently elastic to include "The State of Learning, a page of announcements and personal paragraphs contained in The History of the Works of the Learned or an Impartial Account of Books Lately Printed in all Parts of Europe. With a particular relation of the State of Learning in each country. The volume before me contains the twelve monthly parts of 1700, but it was first published January, 1699. Are not the following extracts "literary gossip" ? "The Abbot Fontanini, Library keeper to the Imperial Cardinal, is upon finishing his History of Aquileia,' which will contain a collection of the inscriptions of that city and of the adjacent parts, most of which were never before printed; History of Aquileia and all Friuli, in folio." together with the Profane and Ecclesiastical the Press, and will be published within two "All Mr. Dryden's Plays much corected, are in months in two volumes in folio." If it is not already familiar to them, "Claudius Clear,22 or the contributors who have discussed this matter, are welcome to the sight of this volume. ALECK ABRAHAMS, There is abundant evidence to support Mr. W. SCOTT's contention that not have been in use until the second half of the "Although as a heading Literary Gossip' may nineteenth century, it is clear that the information denoted by that title was common long before the century began." A very striking example can be afforded from a single issue of Mist's Weekly Journal, or Saturday's Post, which, at the time, was under the editorial control of Defoe. On 18 November, 1721, after opening its budget of London news and gossip with the lament, "The Town was never known to be so thin within the Memory of Man; not half of the Members are come up, and we see a Bill upon almost every Door," it gave inter alia the following items of literary intelligence : "Ambrose Philips, Esq., a Westminster Justice, has a new Tragedy upon the Stocks, to be launched the Town with the beautiful Translation of the this Winter. 'Twas this Gentleman who obliged has chosen another piece by the same author. Andromache, by Laurie, and we are in hopes he "Sir Richard Steele proposes to represent a Character upon the Stage this season, that was never seen there yet: This Gentleman has been two Years a dressing, and we wish he may make a good Appearance at last. The celebrated Mr. Pope is preparing a correct Edition of Shakespear's Works; that of the late Mr. Rowe being very faulty. "Our Muscovite Merchants have Advice that M. Servani, who some years ago had his Education in this City, and made very great Improvement in all polite Literature, is coming over hither with a Commission from his Czarish Majesty." There was also a literary flavour about these accompanying pieces of theatrical gossip: The "We hear that the Theatre in the Hay-Market where lately the French Strolers us'd to perform, will be opened in a little time, for the Diversion Actors, as well as the Plays, they say, will be of the City and Liberty of Westminster. entirely new, and the whole to be under the Management and Direction of that noted Proprietor, Aaron Hill, Esq. "The Company at Drury-Lane have reviv'd incomparable Tragedy of Phædra and Hippolytus.' four plays this Season, and design to raise up the ALFRED F. ROBBINS. |