I should like to point out that though Johnson seemed to know the word " pig "The editor (Alexander Dyce) adds the followonly as meaning the young of a swine, he ing foot-note: "A short poem printed for himself appears to have used the word in Ridgeway, 1806, 4to." "Ulin and Trafalgar' the wider sense which DR. MURRAY is look- has been reprinted during the present year. ing for. R. L. MORETON.

"THE DEATH OF NELSON' (10th S. iv. 365, 412). The following advertisement, which appeared in The Observer of 17 November, 1805, at the moment all England was ringing with the glorious yet tragic news of Trafalgar, should be of importance in this connexion :"MUSIC.-Published yesterday, LORD NELSON'S VICTORY AND DEATH, sung and composed by Mr. Braham, at the Theatre Royal, Drury-lane, in the Melo-Dramatic Piece, written by R. Cumberland, Esq., price 1s. 6d. Lord Nelson's Elegy, as spoken by Mr. Wroughton, and written by the same Author, by D. Corri, 1s. 'Love and Glory,' for the Piano-forte, by ditto,

66

'Itin.' respecting the peere at that place. He also gives at the same place a quotation from a memorial presented to Henry VIII. about 1545, referring to the maintenance of the peyr at Whitby.

Charlton, in his 'History,' p. 289, also gives the same quotation, but dates it about A. H. ARKLE.

May not the Old Dutch word bere, a batterafter ing ram, so called, like the Latin aper, the animal, and modern Dutch beer, as an architectural term, applied to a mole or bank made of bricks, or large stones, to break the violence of the sea, perhaps throw light upon the obscure history of pier, and its earlier spelling pere or peere, as pointed out by DR. MURRAY? As for the initial p, its supposed connexion with Old French piere and Latin petra might have influenced and altered the spelling peere, pere, instead of bere. For the Old Dutch word bere, cf. 'MiddelNederlandsch Woordenboek,' by Verwijs and Verdam, vol. i. p. 914 ('s Gravenhage, 1882).

H. KREBS.

a discussion of his claims by MM. Arago and Biot; but no mention of "photography." At the meeting of 4 March, M. Biot read the substance of a letter from Talbot, in which the "photogenic drawings" of the latter are rendered by dessins photogéniques"; on 8 April Talbot's process is termed by a Frenchman " procédé photo-1541. génique," and in the numerous articles from that date to the end of June Talbot's term becomes common. Herschel read his epochmaking paper before the Royal Society on 14 March, and the echo of it appears at length in the Comptes Rendus of 6 May, p. 714, in the expression art photographique. But this seems to be merely a casual instance, for the word photographie does not appear in the index to the volume, and even Photogénie appears merely with a cross-reference to Chambre obscure and Papier sensitif. under which all the photographic articles are classed. "Photography" was thus not recognized by the Académie up to the end of June; but on 3 July M. Arago made his great report to the Chamber of Deputies, recommending the proposal of a pension to KINGSWAY AND ALDWYCH (10th S. iv. 361, Daguerre for his discovery, and in this he 410, 433).-MR. ABRAHAMS somewhat arbiadopts Herschel's nomenclature of photo- trarily, though ambiguously, finds fault with graphie for the subject generally, and his my contribution as containing " report abounds in such expressions as and inaccurate deductions." This charge is recherches photographiques, copie photogra- not easily digested. It was not my intention phique, dessins photographiques, méthode to write a precise or perfect relation of what photographique, image photographique, &c. had been done during my long acquaintance Needless to say that in volume ix. of the with London in the widening of streets and Comptes Rendus the index has Photographie, the opening of spaces. But if MR. ABRAHAMS and that from the date of Arago's speech in can cite no truer example of error than that the Chamber the word rapidly became as which he imputes to my reference to Northgenerally adopted in French as it already umberland House, I shall be content with was in English. The suggestion, then, that what I have written. For surely it is fact Herschel probably adopted the term from that the old mansion was found [to be] Arago is exactly the converse of the fact. "" an obstacle to forming communication Heliographie and Daguerreotype were in-between Charing Cross and the Embankvented in France, but photogeny and photo- ment, and therefore was cleared away. The graphy may be seen in the act of passing fact might, perhaps, have been more prefrom English into French in the Comples cisely expressed; but is it the expression Rendus of 1839. J. A. H. MURRAY. only that the critic finds "altogether impossible," so convincingly "impossible" that he thinks" no further comment necessary"? These terms are ambiguous, but can scarcely be read as complimentary. W. L. RUTTON.

I think it would be well to ask Sir J. W. Swan, F.R.S., who was a scientific pioneer of the art. DAGUERRE.

A search in 'N. & Q.,' indexed as 'Silver Lustre Ware' or 'Photography, its Origin,' might be of service to DR. MURRAY.

HAROLD MALET, Colonel.

DOVER PIER (10th S. iv. 387).-Possibly the under-noted references may be of some use to DR. MURRAY respecting the early use of the word pier.

In Young's History of Whitby,' vol. ii. p. 530, there is a quotation from Leland's

66

many errors

VIRGIL OR VERGIL? (10th S. iv. 248, 309.)— It is strange that this controversy should be revived in our day. If Politian's arguments were so overwhelming at the close of the fifteenth century, why was the second spelling of the poet's name not at once adopted? For this reason: Politian had as his antagonist Pierius, who showed that there were numerous lapidary inscriptions in favour

Ver ago perpetuum, hic primo ver tempore mon

strans,

Unde tenet nomen Vergiliana domus,
Quæ tam immota diu casuraque tempore nullo
Stabit, quam viridi fronde perennis ero."

of the ordinary spelling, which was therefore earnest, as any one can see from the lines I retained. The Greek language does not help quote:us much. PROF. STRONG, quoting Teuffel, says that Bepyíλtos is "almost invariably" Βεργίλιος found. But Suidas has Ovepyíltos, and "Stephanus scribit in dictione Mantuana Bipyilios," as Carolus Ruæus, the learned editor of the Delphin edition of the poet's works, tells us, from whom I borrow these details. The same writer agrees with Pierius that the vowels e and i were often interchanged by the ancients. Quintilian informs us that Deana is found for Diana, Menerva for Minerva, "leber" and "magester for liber and magister. Just as we have Verginius for Virginius in some codices, so Vergilius is occasionally used for Virgilius. But in all these instances the i at length prevailed.*

went

I think this derivation is comparable with that of Ménage, satirized by a French epigrammatist in the following quatrain :— Alphana vient d'equus, sans doute, Mais il faut avouer aussi Qu'en venant de là jusqu'ici Il a bien changé sur la route. Textor's Officina,' а book which through numerous editions in the sixteenth century, has everywhere Virgilius. See, especially, the chapter 'De Poetis Græcis et Latinis' (vol. ii. p. 251, ed. 1574). Cornelius The derivation of the name is not known. Schrevelius, in his edition of the poet's Some fancy it comes from a laurel branch Opera Omnia, cum Notis Selectissimis (virga laurea), which his mother saw in a Variorum' (Lugd. Batav., 1666), has a note dream during her pregnancy; others that it Verthe first page which runs thus: arose from his maiden-like bashfulness (virgilium et non Virgilium scribendum esse, ex ginalis verecundia), in consequence of which monumentis veterum, Angelus Politianus, he was at Naples surnamed Parthenias, from "Hapeévos, virgo," which legend does not imply that his mother was one, as a correspondent seems to think (ante, p. 309). The attempt to connect the name with ver, the spring, has no better foundation, it would

appear.

Notwithstanding the fact that "Vergilius" occurs "in the oldest Medicean MSS., and in the Vatican MS." (Roman Literature,' edited by Rev. H. Thompson, p. 66; see also E. M. Thompson's Handbook of Greek and Latin Palæography,' pp. 185-88-89, in which facsimiles are given which show how slight was the difference between e and i), and in spite of the arguments of Politian, the spelling of the poet's name, which he tried to change and which was therefore the usual one before his time, has been Virgilius, with few exceptions, up to our own days.

Polydore Vergil is one of the writers who accepted the teaching of Politian, for he spells not only the poet's name but his own with an e in his volumes De Rerum Inventoribus' and 'De Prodigiis.' He claimed descent from the "ancient and noble Vergilian family," whose crest was a laurel with two lizards. In the third book of the first work he has a poem in praise of the laurel, which, being sempervirent, enjoys a perpetual spring (ver), and is therefore a fitting emblem of his illustrious house, about which I can find no information. He is quite in

See Peile's 'Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology,' p. 264, third ed. London, 1875.

on

Misc. C. 77, ostendit." He, however, adheres to the ordinary spelling with nearly all editors both before and after his time. In his 'Testimonia de Virgilio et ejus Scriptis,' prefixed to the volume, he makes no reference to Horace, who mentions his friend's name ten times in his works. Some of the authors quoted by Schrevelius merely refer to the poet's Eneid'; others speak of him as Maro; but among those who call him Virgilius are Velleius, Macrobius, Quintilian, Tacitus, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Lactantius, and a writer in the fifth book of the Anthology,' who has Buoyidios.

In Lowndes's 'Manual' there is a long list of editions and translations of Virgil's dif ferent poems, which extends from about the middle of the sixteenth century until 1834 (Pickering's ed.); but there is only one mentioned (p. 1873), a version in Greek of the second book of the 'Eneid' " per Georgivm Etherigevm. Oxoniensem, Medicum, Græcæ Linguæ Professorem. Lond. apud Regin. Wolfium. 1553," which has the instead of the i.

et

I have Heyne's edition. London, 1826, the Delphin, 1834, Anthon's, Young's, and others among which is the "Oxford Pocket Text," 1886, and in not one of these do I find Politian's spelling adopted. It was only in the latter part of the nineteenth century, nearly four hundred years after the Italian scholar's death, that some one was convinced

Ed. 1644, pp. 185-6, Lvgdvni Batavorvm, apud Franciscvm Hegervm.

200

by his arguments and, greatly daring, wrote Vergilius. The example was followed by the Cambridge University Press (see "Pitt Press Series ") in its edition of the poet by Mr. A. Sidgwick. In the catalogue appended to Bacon's Essays' in that series we find Vergil as the English form, while it is given as Virgil in the Index of Proper Names.' In that charming book F. St. John Thackeray's 'Anthologia Latina' (editio altera, 1869), I have never liked his heading 'Vergilius 'to his specimens of that poet. It has always been considered by me to be "affectations," to use Sir Hugh Evans's word. But when I found hiemps in Horace's ode beginning

Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni, I devoutly hoped he would not undertake a recension of the Vulgate, and especially that part of it entitled Canticum Canticorum,' where it is written: "Jam enim hiems transiit; imber abiit, et recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra, tempus putationis advenit; vox turturis audita est in terra nostra," and the rest of that beautiful poem, which only the cynicism of a Voltaire could vilely interpret.

when he was admonished, he said that hee now had vsed Mumpsimus thirtie yeares, and would not leaue his olde Mumpsimus for their new Sumpsimus."Ed. 1614, p. 286.

For more than fifty years I have known the poet as Virgilius in Latin and Virgil in English, and so shall I continue to name him while body and soul are in conjunction. there be any stronger epithet to apply to its "Vergilius" I look upon as pedantic, and if English equivalent I would use it.

JOHN T. CURRY.

HAIR-POWDERING CLOSETS (10th S. iv. 349, 417).-I have seen a hair-powdering closet at 43, Kensington Square, W., and I am told that many others of the old houses in that square contain a similar closet. C. MASON.

29, Emperor's Gate, S.W.

I also have two of the powder closets in my house, which was built during Anne's or George I.'s reign, and which remains almost in its original condition, with very fine oak staircase and panelled hall.

Town House, Haslemere.

term

GEORGE UNWIN.

So far as I gather, no fresh evidence has the Old English compound toll-setl, which "THOLSELS" (10th S. iv. 387).-This is from been discovered which adds strength to Politian's argument of four hundred years Matthew ix. 9, and may be defined as meanis used in the Anglo-Saxon version of ago when he tried to change what was the ing a custom-house. The first element is, of usual spelling of the poet's name. It is pleasant to learn that the great scholar who course, our word toll. Compare the Scotch iso often contributes to these Tolbooth," which originally meant a pages, and adorns them with his ripe learning, is now custom-house, though later employed in the convinced that the spelling of the poet's sense of prison. JAS. PLATT, Jun. name as he finds it in the works of our old writers, whose study has been the chief object of his laborious life, is the correct one in English. But those venerable founders of our literature took the name from the MSS. and books to which they had access, so I regard their testimony as a proof that Virgilius in Latin was the only spelling which they knew. If it could be shown that Politian was right in his contention, then, I think, we should spell the word as we pronounce it.

It is not, however, such a serious matter is that which Camden mentions in his Remaines,' where, in his chapter on 'Wise Speeches,' he says :—

"The same King Henry [VIII.], finding fault with the disagreenient of Preachers, would often ay: Some are too stiffe in their old Mumpsimus, nd other too busie and curious in their new Sumpimus.' Happely borrowing these phrases from hat which Master Pace his Secretarie reporteth in is booke 'De Fructu Doctrinæ,' of an olde Priest n that age, which alwaies read in his Portasse, Mumpsimus Domine, for Sumpsimus: whereof

This query must remind many readers of the quaint old "Tolsey " which adorns the wide and picturesque High Street of the ancient town of Burford, Oxfordshire. Would not "Tholsel," like the English "Tolsey" and the Scottish Tolbooth," be simply a place where dues and tolls-market and manorial-were paid, a toll-booth ?

Wimbledon.

G. L. APPERSON.

Sir John Gilbert says (' History of Dublin, vol. i. p. 162) that these buildings are styled in ancient records "tolcetum, le tholseys," but more generally "theolonium," and that the latter name was, in the case of the King against the city of Waterford, in 1608, declared to mean a toll or petty duty payable by purchasers in markets and fairs.

Dublin.

F. ELRINGTON BALL.

CIVIL WAR EARTHWORKS (10th S. iv. 328, 394).-Remains of earthworks exist both at Donnington Castle and Basing House. In