YA~t*t* V THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE LIBRARY. The Gentleman's Magazine Library Dialect, Proverbs and Word-Lore A Classified Collection of the Chief Contents of " The Gentleman's Magazine " from 1731-1868 Edited by George Laurence Gomme London Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row 1886 PREFACE. T UST at the time when all students are welcoming the first part J of that colossal work, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, brought out by the Clarendon Press under the care of Dr. Murray, I venture to think that the contributions to the old Gentleman's Magazine, collected and reprinted in this volume, will form an acceptable addition to the word-books already on the shelves of most libraries. I am anxious to impress upon the mind of readers that this volume, like its predecessor on " Manners and Customs," does not pretend to be anything more than a collection of material for future use a brick towards the building up of the great English word-book ; it does not pretend to be complete, except so far as its original authors have made it, and its accuracy is depen- dent upon the varied skill and learning of the writers who have contributed to the pages of the famous old magazine. Its chief merit, if I mistake not, will be found to consist in the local know- ledge and information which is so abundantly shown throughout its pages, and which is now so rapidly becoming impossible for the modern student to attain. The eighteenth century scholars, not so skilful as those who have lived in the times of comparative philology, have still done some good work in recognising the value of the material that was to hand ; and it is not a little remarkable that so vi Preface. popular a magazine as the Gentleman s undoubtedly was should have found room for those specimens of dialect which we of this age so gladly reprint and re-edit. Another merit I trust I may claim for this volume. The compilers of the New English Dictionary, and all researchers into the word-history of the English language, will doubt- less have thought it necessary to examine the Gentleman's Magazine, and this lengthy task may be lightened by the possession of this volume of collected reprints. Again, the early pioneers of the English Dialect Society examined the volumes of the original to gather together the references to Dialect, and besides having these communications printed here in extenso, there will be found much more information than they had been able to note. It is a part of the scheme for this collection from the Gentleman's Magazine to keep the reprinted articles as far as possible intact and unaltered. All editorial additions are inserted between square brackets, and such notes as are thought advisable, either for the elucidation of the text, or as showing what has since been done, are placed at the end of the book. All the articles are printed as they stand in the original, with the exception of those on Signs of Inns. That portion of this series signed by " Hinyboro," and originally printed in 1818-19, * nave curtailed, because the author wandered off into dissertations which, while entertaining of themselves, took up too much space for their real value. Sometimes, when an article has not appeared to me to be of sufficient importance to print in the text, I have either printed it in extenso, or summarised it, iii the notes. In the notes I do lay claim to have exhausted the references to any of the subjects treated of. As a collection of materials for future use, it is not necessary to add more to the original text than will be sufficient to correct errors or supply such bibliographical or other information as will enable readers to pursue the subject for themselves. To the more general text-books on the subjects treated Preface. vii of I have but seldom i i . consult the pages of Notes and Queries, i I . />' uf Archaic Words, Nares' Glossary, \\ aJy.wGod's Oil J.-.H ^ii^ii j-'.fj'nt'ju'gy, Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, for any additional facts they wish to obtain. On the subject of Diaiect there are of course the valuable publications of the English Dialect Society and some volumes issued by the Philological Society to consult. On the subject of Proverbs I may refer to Hazlitt's Collection of English Proverbs and Prover- bial Phrases, re-issued in a second edition in 1882; Bonn's English Proverbs and Polyglot of Proverbs. On Names of Persons and Places, a subject long of interest to students and scholars, the Rev. Isaac Taylor's Words and Places, R. C. Hope's Dialectal Place Nomen- clature^ Edmunds' Names of Places, Ferguson's River Names of Europe, English Surnames, Teutonic Name System, and Surnames as a Science, Leo's Rectitudines Singularum Persona-nun, Bardsley's English Surnames, Bowditch's Suffolk Surnames, and Captain R. C. Temple's Proper Names of the Panjabis, should be consulted. On the Signs of Inns Notes and Queries has long devoted much atten- tion, and there is Larwood and Hotten's History of Signboards. In travelling over such a vast quantity of printed matter it is pos- sible I may have missed some small items of interest, though every available precaution against this has been taken. The following items are not included in the volume because they are not of sufficient value to preserve in their present form, though a reference to them here may be useful : PROVERBS. Sent to Coventry, 1791, Part II, pp. 622, 623. He that fights and runs away, 1835, Part L, pp. 338, 562. WORD-LISTS. Glossary to Sir Walter Scott's Sir Tristrem, 1833, Part II., p. 307; 1834, Part L, pp. 167-170. via Preface A Persic Glossary of Mercantile Terns, 1769, pp. 391, 392. Origin of the term Druid, 1833, Part I, p. 328. Use of the word Great, 177!) pp. 115, 116. LANGUAGE. Use of the articles A and AN, Vulgar corruptions, 1790, Part II., p. 617. Petition of C. G. and J., 1758, pp. 79, So. Phrases borrowed from the Latin, 1783, Part I, p. 232. Remarks on the language of Biscay and Ireland, 1759, pp. 378-380. Language of North and South Wales, 1769, p. 127 ; 1770, pp. 152, 210, 211, 292, 293. NAMES. Name of Mill, 1788, Part II., p. 1154. On the origin of Proper Names, 1830, Part I., pp. 298-300. It now remains to say a word or two about the contributors. With the exception of M. Green and Paul Gemsage, or Gemsege, all are different from those whose names appeared in the volume on Manners and Customs. Paul Gemsage, as we already know, was Dr. Samuel Pegge, and besides this anagramatic nom-de-plume we have him also appearing under the signature of T. Row. There are a great many papers signed by only initials, or some still less distinguishable a sign, and for the purpose of identifying these writers I am very kindly pro- mised some help by Dr. Brushfield, of Budleigh Salterton, who for- tunately possesses a copy of the Gentleman! s Magazine, once belonging to Mr. Nichols, and which contains manuscript notes on all the authors. Of the other names the most distinguished is that of John Mitchell Kemble, the Anglo-Saxon scholar, well known as the author of Saxons in England, and editor of the Codex Diplomaticus Preface. ix Saxonici. Mr. Kemble's books are known to all lovers of Saxon England, and his memory is not yet lost to the students of this age. Talking some time ago to Mr. Thorns, he told me of a visit he once made to Mr. Kemble at, I think, Crouch End. Driving from the station to his residence, Mr. Kemble described to his friend the historic value of the village green they passed on their way, and pointed out the evidences of the mark system still extant. This episode occurred before Saxons in England was published, and Mr. Thorns told me he well remembered the fire and enthusiasm of his brilliant host. There are only two other names of importance. Davies Gilbert was born in 1767 and died in 1837. He was D.C.L., F.R.S., and F.S.A. In 1804 he was elected M.P. for Helston, and in 1806 for Bodmin, for which town he sat till 1832. His real name was Giddy, which he altered in 1817 to Gilbert. For three years he was President of the Royal Society. Among his contributions to literature may be mentioned Christmas Carols, 1823 ; Mount Calvary, written in Cornish and interpreted in the English tongue by John Keignin, gent., in 1682, 1826 ; Creation of the World, written in Cornish in 1611,1827; Parochial History of Cornwall, 4 vols., 1837-8. Mr. John Trotter Brockett is well known as an antiquary. He was an attorney at Carlisle, born 1788, died 1842. James Hall, who writes in 1809 (see p. 73), was perhaps Sir James Hall, eminent for geology and chemical science, but who wrote an Essay on the Origin, Principles and History of Gothic Architecture, born 1761, died 1832, The cele- brated Dorset antiquary, the Rev. W. Barnes, contributed to this section of the Gentleman 's Magazine. Mr. Barnes is still living at his rectory of Winterbourne, to which he was instituted in 1862. Some of Mr. Barnes's contributions to Dorset Dialect are enume- rated in a note (p. 341). Another living contributor is Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, the well-known Lancashire antiquary, and joint author, with the late Mr. Harland, of Legends and Traditions of Lancashire. The other names are D. A. Briton, J. Dowland, J. Gordon, William x Preface. Humphries, T. Norworth, William A. Part, H. Philipps, John Wilson, Edward J. Wood. The signatures J. Ray and James Howell in 1748 (pp. 70, 71) are no doubt adaptations from those well-known authorities on proverbs, Ray having lived 1627-1704 and Howell 1594-1666. G. L. GOMME. CASTELNAU, BARNES, S.W. April, 1884. CONTENTS. PREFACE LISTS OK LOCAL WORDS AND SPECIMENS OF DIALECT Grose's Provincial Dialect ... Provincial Glossaries The North Country Dialect Northumberland Dialect Provincial Words from Newcastle Local Words used in Northumberland - Vocabulary of the Lancashire Dialect Spenser and the East Lancashire Dialect A List of Local Expressions Letters in the Dialect of the Shetland Islands Glossary to the Zetland Dialect Anglo-Saxon Words preserved in Devonshire Saxon Dialect of Dorsetshire - Exmoor Courtship - An Exmoor Vocabulary Popular Names of Natural Objects PROVERBS : Witty and Seasonable Proverbs Anglo-Saxon Proverb Greek Proverbs for Absurd Actions English Proverb explained An old Proverb illustrated from a Play in MS. Soon Ripe soon Rotten .-- Cuckoo Proverb PAGE V 13 15 17 21 24 28 37 39 4i 43 58 65 69 71 72 74 76 78 78 xi i Contents. PAGE PROVERBS continued. Weather Proverbs - 79 Local Proverb - .... So Season Proverbs - So Round about Revess - - - - 82 Northern Proverbs - - 83 A Peck of March Dust is worth a King's Ransom - 84 Lancashire Proverb - - - 86 PROVERBIAL PHRASES: An't Please the Pigs - - 89 Bear the Bell - 90 Cat in the Pan - - 9 Cock's Stride - 101 Cunning as Crowd cr - - - 102 Dab at Anything - - 104 Drunk as David's Sow ... 105 Eyes draw Straws - - -105 Keeling the Pot - - 106 Month's mind to it - - - icg Nine of Diamonds the Curse of Scotland - no Old Maids leading Apes in Hell 112 Old Nick - -112 Ploughing with Dogs - 113 Running a Muck - - 114 Sixes and Sevens - - 117 Spick and Span - - 117 Thief in a Candle - - liS Topsy-Turvy 119 Trelawny And shall Trelawny Die - - - - 119 U. P. K. spells Goslings - 120 Wake - - 121 Wine of one Ear - - - 121 As the Devil loves Apple Dumplings - - 122 Proverbial Rhyme - ... 122 SPECIAL WORDS : Apple of the Eye - - - 125 Aroint - - - 125 Contents. xiii J-AGE SPECIAL WORDS continued. Assassin - - 129 Beauty - -129 Bast 130 Bam fiddle 130 Cockney - 131 Cock loft - .... - 140 Country Dance - - 140 Curries ..... 140 Dandy and Dandiprat - - - 141 Drunkenness Words and Expressions for - 142 Earing - . - 146 Form ....... 147 Foy > ... 148 Gallop ..... - 149 Gore .... 149 Hitch - 150 Hunting Words 153 Lady > 154 Lurdanes - . - 155 Moise ..... - 155 Nunchion - ... - 156 Prick or Pryk - 1 58 Punishment, Words used for - 159 Puss and Grimalkin - - - 161 Spurring ... 162 Stump Pie - 163 Tarring and Feathering - 163 Corrupted Words - 164 Of Names retained when their Origin is disused - 170 Explanation of certain Antiquated Words ... 178 Ancient Words used by Sternhold and Hopkins - 193 Yorkshire Words similar to the German - - 194 Words and Phrases of the Eighteenth Century - - 196 Compounds in the English Language - 198 Terms used at Cards Particular Adjectives used with single Substantives 205 xiv Contents. PAGB SPECIAL WORDS continued. Uncommon Words Describee! - - 205 Betar ... ... 206 Jew's Harp - - - - . . 207 Oreste ... ... 207 Tontine ... ... 2 c8 NAMES OF PERSONS AND PLACES : Observations on Surnnmes - - - 213 Christian Names ... . 230 Ancient Surnames .... . 238 Surnames terminating in -cock ... - 239 New Names to Old Streets - - 241 Resemblance of the names of British Rivers 242 SIGNS OF INNS, ETC. : On Sign Posts ... . 249 Signs of Inns - - 251 Remarks on the Devices of Tradesmen's Shops - - 312 On Ancient House Signs - -313 Old Signs in Norwich - 316 NOTES - - 325 INDEX - - 344 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. LISTS OF LOCAL WORDS AND SPECI- MENS OF DIALECT. Grose's " Provincial Glossary." [1790, Part /., /. 26.] TURNING over Capt. Grose's " Provincial Glossary " some time ago, and observing it to be far from perfect, I have since occasionally amused myself with setting down, as they occurred to me, some provincial terms and phrases, which I found that gentle- man had overlooked ; and the district in which I am mostly resident abounds so much with these peculiarities, that, if Mr. Grose should ever think fit to give the world another edition of his " Glossary," I believe I could furnish him with near two hundred Somersetisms (and to these perhaps as many more might be added), which he has not noticed. I am likewise inclined to think, that persons versed in the dialect of other parts of the kingdom will find the number of their provincial words equally deficient. I imagine, also, that with the help of Saxon and French dictionaries (and perhaps a few other books) Mr. Grose might have given the etymology of more words than he has at present done. This is not meant as any disparagement of the ingenious Captain's performance: he deserves much credit for the undertaking; and, all things considered, he has succeeded very well ; he has shewn himself in this, as in the rest of his publications, no less a diligent and in- dustrious antiquary, than a pleasant and lively writer ; but it is next to impossible for the first attempt at a work of this kind to be any- thing like complete. In his Preface, Mr. Grose justly observes, that " the utility of a Provincial Glossary, to all persons desirous of understanding our ancient poets, is so universally acknowledged, that to enter into a proof of it would be entirely a work of supererogation." However, it would perhaps be an improvement of his plan, to subjoin to the several words, of which any could be found, examples of their being 4 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. used by our elder authors, both poets and prose-writers. Shakspeare alone will afford many such instances. I fancy too, that the collection of " Local Proverbs," though cer- tainly superior to those of Fuller and Ray, might still be consider- ably enlarged. In Somersetshire I have met with two, which have escaped him. One of them, being illustrative of family history, I will here set down: " Homer, Popharn, Wyndham, and Thynne, "When th' Abbot went out, then they came in." [See Note i.] D. L. Provincial Glossaries. [1829, Part II., pp. 315, 316.] To the judicious remarks upon Mr. Brockett's "North-Country Vocabulary" (reviewed, vol. xcix. pt. ii. p. 142), I beg to add a few observations in proof of their correctness. The critic's assertion that "the use of the Welsh tongue still restrains the inhabitants from cordial fraternization with the English," may receive support from the follow- ing trifling anecdote. A certain eminent lawyer, native of Wales, travelling once through the Principality on horseback, arrived at the bank of a rapid stream, as to the depth of which he felt some mis- givings ; so, perceiving a peasant at work hard by, he called to him in English " Hallo, my friend, can I cross here safely, do you think?" "Oh! ay," was the reply, "you may cross there well enough." "Thank you, friend," returned the lawyer, in Welsh, and was proceeding, when the fellow eagerly exclaimed, "Stop ! stop ! if you attempt to cross, you are sure to be drowned : / thought you -were a Saxon." Equally true is the observation that judges, counsel, and others, often fall into strange mistakes, from a want of acquaintance with many of the local words which country people, when produced as witnesses, make use of. A story in point occurs to me, which is so current at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, that I am rather surprised Mr. Trotter has missed it. In that town of fire and smoke, the word chare means street, and foot is used for bottom. A native of the place, giving evidence at the Northumberland Assizes, asserted that as he was standing on the bridge, he saw two men come out of a chare foot. "The fellow's a fool !" exclaimed the Judge, and would have pronounced him an incompetent witness, had not the apparent absurdity been explained to him. Two further instances of this kind have recently occurred in my own neighbourhood. At the Staffordshire Translation Sessions, 1827, a shoemaker, who was witness in some cause, while under cross-examination by Mr. Evans, made use of the good old English word insense (viz., to inform or impart knowledge), which led the Provincial Glossaries. " learned " counsel to be extremely witty at honest Crispin's expense. The shoemaker, however, was justified, and the lawyer shewn his error, by a correspondent of the Staffordshire Advertiser, who quoted the following and other passages from Shakspeare, the meaning of which has been clean mistaken by the commentators : "I have Insens'd the lords o* the council that he is A most arch heretic." Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. I. The lower classes in this part of the country often use the word understanding to express the sense of hearing. At the Staffordshire Summer Assizes, 1827, an elderly person applied to Mr. Baron Garrow to be excused serving as a juryman, on the ground that he was " rather thick of understanding." The learned judge, taking the expression in its London acceptation, complimented him on his singular modesty, and said that he considered himself bound to comply with a request founded on such a plea, though the applicant had no doubt under-rated his powers of intellect. As to what the reviewer says of the terms wench, maid, etc., I may observe that among the common people in Staffordshire the words boy and girl seem even now to be scarcely known, or at least are never used, lad and wench being the universal substitutes. Young women also are called wenches, without any offensive meaning, though in many parts, and especially in the metropolis, the appella- tion has become one of vulgar contempt Hence I have heard that line in Othello, " O ill-starr'd wench, pale as thy smock !" thus softened down to suit the fastidious ears of a London audience, " O ill-starr'd wretch, pale as thy sheets /" Shakspeare, with all the writers of his age, used the term wench in its pristine acceptation of young woman ; and it occurs in this sense in 2nd Samuel, chap. xvii. ver. 1 7 ; but that it had sometimes a de- rogatory meaning, or was rarely applied to the higher classes, may be gathered from a line in the " Canterbury Tales" : " I am a gentil woman, and no wench." Merchant's Tale, 10076. See also the " Manciple's Tale," ver. 17169, Tyrwhitt's edit. To shew that maid* once meant simply a young woman, chaste or unchaste as the case might be, numberless proofs could be adduced ; but modern usage seems to have so restricted the sense of the word, that it is now held to be synonymous with virgin intacta puella ; and much dull pleasantry has been expended upon those writers who have ventured to use it in its original signification. Among others, * Bailey thus explains the word : " A Woman, also a GirL A scornful name for a girl or maid. A crack or w e." 6 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Mr. T. Dibdin, one of whose songs in the opera of the " Cabinet," has this passage : "His wish obtain'd the lover blest, Then left the maid to die." Mr. T. Moore, also, has been charged by ignoramuses with com- mitting a bull, because in the well-known ditty, commencing " You remember Ellen," after saying that " William had made her his bride," he adds in a line or two below, " Not much was the maiden's heart at ease !" So easy is it for small wits to be mighty smart in their own conceit, upon matters which they do not understand. At what period the word began to be confined to its present limited signification, I cannot precisely determine, but it probably was subsequent to the appearance of Pope's " Iliad," since in the ist, Briseis is termed a maid, after she has been torn from the arms of Agamemnon, and the probability mentioned that in her old age she may be " doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy'd." [Bk. i. line 44.] Leaving the point to be determined by more skilful linguists, I shall close this gossiping paper with two or three passages from old writers of various dates, shewing beyond dispute that to whatever meaning the word may now be restricted, its signification was once as comprehensive as I have asserted. In the comedy called " How a Man may choose a Good Wife from a Bad," 1602, Mistress Arthur says : " O father, be more patient ; if you wrong My honest husband, all the blame be mine, Because you do it only for my sake : I am his handmaid" In Ravenscroft's "Titus Andronicus," 1687, after Lavinia's hus- band has been murdered, Demetrius seizes her, and exclaims : "Now further off let's bear this trembling maid" But perhaps a more apt instance could not possibly be adduced, than the following passage from Whetstone's " Promos and Cas- sandra," 1578 : " Enter Polina, the mayde that Andrugio lov'd. " Polina curst, what dame alyve Hath cause of griefe lyke thee, "NVho (wonne by love) hath yeeld tlie spoyle Of thy virginity ?" The North-Country Dialect. [1836, Part I., pp. 499, 500.] Yorkshire has at last found a champion to rescue her emphatic dialect from disrepute, and every North Riding man must feel him- self raised in the scale of civilized talkers, when he reads the amusing paper on English Dialects in the last Number of the Quarterly. [See The North-Coimtry Dialect. Note 2.] There are several curious notices of the modes of conjugating verbs in the northern districts ; but on one point, the imperative plural, the writer does not appear fully informed. He gives Chaucer's dialogue between the Yorkshire Scholars and the Miller of Trampington, from an uncollated MS. : one of the clerks is made to say, " I pray you spedes us liethen that ye may ;" and on the fourth word the Reviewer remarks, " apparently a lapsus calami for spede" This, however, is a correct North-country form of the imperative plural. The Northumbrian gloss on the Durham Gospels, Mark i. v. 3, gives the warning of John the Baptist, " Gearuas Drihtnes woeg ;" the common A.S. version is " Gegear- wiath Drihtnes weg." At v. 15, our Saviour says, " Hreowiges and gelefes to th' godspell ;" in the A.S. " Doth daedbote and gelyfath tham godspelle." The religious antiquary will not fail to observe the difference between the heart-repentance inculcated by the Northern version, and the external religion substituted for it by the Southern. To cite a more modern authority : in the " Towneley Mystery, or Miracle Play, of the Adoration of the Shepherds," Mak the Sheep- stealers, endeavours, when first introduced, to pass himself off as a Southern yeoman, and in his assumed character addresses the Shep- herds in the Southern imperative, " Fyon you, goythe hence, Out of my presence, I must have reverence." But after he finds himself recognised by them, he reverts to his mother tongue, and calmly says, Good, spekes soft Over a seeke woman's heede ;" and presses his hospitality on them with " Sirs, drynkes" Then we have King Herod, the favourite hero of the miracle plays, dismissing his military attendants to make way for the juris-consults. 11 Coys hence, I have matters to melle With my prevey counselle." And after the slaughter of the Innocents, he concludes with a piece of characteristic advice to the audience : " Sirs, this is my counselle, Bese not too cruelle." The " Towneley Mysteries " are now in the press, and will shortly be published under the auspices of the Surtees Society [see Note 3], accompanied by a preface from the pen of a gentleman well acquainted 8 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. with the topography of the north of England. The language appears, according to the Reviewer's nomenclature, to be a mixture of the Northumbrian and North- Anglian dialects, though the latter is, perhaps, most apparent in the speeches of the low-lived characters, such as Cain and his ploughboy. Yours, etc., J. GORDON. Northumberland Dialect. [See Note 4.] [1836, Part /., pp. 606-608.] In an article on Provincial Dialects ( Quarterly Review, No. no), an extract from Wageby's " Skyll-Kay of Knawinge "* is given as a sample of the Northumbrian dialect. When the article was written, I only knew the poem from the account and the specimens furnished by Mr. [W. J.] Walker ; and though I had reason to think that the worthy monk of Fountains Abbey was greatly indebted to Hampole's " Pricke of Conscience," I had not then the means of verifying my suspicions. Having since had an opportunity of inspecting two MSS. of the latter poem, preserved in the library of Lichfield Cathedral, I am enabled to state that the " Skyll-Kay of Knawynge," is nothing more than a Northumbrian rifacciamento of Hampole's poem, curtailed and inter- polated ad libitum, but still the same work in substance. This pro- cess appears to have been carried on pretty extensively in the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries, insomuch that we are never sure of having a poem of that period in its original form, unless we are so fortunate as to possess the author's autograph. It has occurred to me that the knowledge of this circumstance may help to illustrate a point at present involved in a good deal of uncertainty. It appears that the transcribers of those works not only interpolated them with fresh matter, but in many instances accom- modated them to their own dialect. As the " Pricke of Conscience " is one of our most common MSS., a comparison of many different copies, especially when the date and place of transcription can be ascertained, may greatly enlarge our knowledge of the limits and dis- tinguishing characteristics of the provincial dialects of this country, as they existed in the fourteenth and following centuries. I shall therefore give a brief account of the copies which have come under my notice, and shall feel obliged to any of your readers who will communicate such information as they possess on the subject. I have no data for fixing the precise age of the two Lichfield MSS. ; I conjecture the older to be of the beginning of the fifteenth century ; the other, forty or fifty years later. The one which I call, for the * " An account of a manuscript of ancient English poetry, entitled ' Clavis Scientiae, or Bretayne's Skyll-Kay of Knawing,' by John de Wageby, Monk of Foun- tains Abbey." 8vo., Lond., 1816, pp. 17 (only 50 copies printed). [See Note 5.] Northumberland Dialect. sake of distinction, MS. A. is in the form of a small quarto, and consists at present of 109 folios, the concluding one having been cut out. It is on vellum, in a small but distinct character, with few con- tractions, and rubricated titles and initials. The second, or MS. ., is bound up together with some tracks of St. Anselm, and occupies 155 leaves. It is elaborately written, in a large bold hand, greatly resembling the black letter of our early typographers, and appears to be perfect. No author's name is given in either ; but in the perora- tion of both we are told " Prickke of conscience yis* bok is i-hote." I subjoin an extract from each, which your readers may compare with the corresponding passage given by Warton from the Ashmole MS. with which, as Mr. Price observes, the Lansdowne substantially agrees : MS. A. Fol. 2 : For of alle yat god made bothe more and lesse Man is most pryncipal and schal alle othre passe ; As zet schul here afterward sone, Yat al yat he made wes for man a lone. God to mannys kynde adde gret delyt, Qwan he ordenyt for mannys profyt, Hevene and erthe and al ye word a brod, And al other thyng, and man to laste ende a bod, And hym in his liknesse in cely stature, As hym yat was most worthy creature, Over alle other bestes qweche haven kynde, And zaf hem wyth resoun and mende, Evere for to knowyn boye god and ille, And yar to god zaf hem with yat wille, Bothen for to chese and for to holde Good or evel, qweder yey wolde. And also god ordenyt man for to dwelle And for [to] leve in erthe, in flesch and felle, And for to knowe hese werkys and hym to honoure, And hese hestes for to kepen in everyche owre, And if he to god buxum be come, To ye blisse of hevene he schal be nome. MS. B. fol. 2 : [JMannes kynde is to folowe godes wylle, And hys comandementes to fulfylle.] * The character y, in this and similar cases, is to be considered as equivalent to the Saxon h, th. f The letter z represents the Saxon j. J Omitted in MS. A. io Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. For of alle y l god made eyer mor or lasse, Man most woryy creature ysse. All y l he made was for man y-done, As ze schal here aftur warde sone. God to mannes kynde hath grete love, Whan he ordynede to mannes by hove Hevene and erthe and all the worlde brode, And, of alle thynges, man laste he made To hys lyknes [in] semely stature ; And made hym most worthy creature Of other creatures of alle kynde, And zaf hym w l skyle and mynde. For to knowe both gowd and evelle, And ther w l he zaf hyme a fre wylle. For to chese and for to holde Goude other evelle, wether he wolde. And also he ordynede man to dwelle And lyve in erthe, bothe w 1 flech and felle, And knowe his werkys and hym werchepe, And his comandementes to kepe ; And zyfe he be to hym goud and boxome, To endeles blysse atte laste to come. On comparing the above with each other and with the passage given by Warton, it will appear that the Lichfield MS. A. exhibits the most ancient text. The poetry is more rude and inartificial, and the orthography and diction more antiquated. In B. the lines are fre- quently recast, and the archaisms replaced by more familiar ex- pressions. There is also a considerable number of interpolations, amounting in some instances to twenty lines in the hundred, or a full fifth part. The Ashmole MS. appears to correspond with B. line for line in substance, but differs materially in expression, and is evidently the most modern of the three. There is internal evidence that the text of B. was formed from that of A., or one greatly resembling it. A portion of the former (fol. 83 to 92) is transcribed in a different hand, and in an ortho- graphy approximating to that of the latter. Qwat, qweche, qware : qwanne are employed instead of what, whuche, etc. ; en, or the some- what uncommon form //, is substituted for the usual plural in th : e. gr. 3rd pers. pi. shullen, or shuln, havit, dwellit, dredit, etc. The phraseology also more closely resembles that of A. ; in short, all this portion appears to have been copied by one less ambitious of im- proving upon his original, than his fellow-transcriber. Warton observes that the Bodleian MSS. exhibit an older text than the Ashmolean. The extracts which he gives agree pretty closely with the corresponding passages in A. ; the discrepancies being chiefly Northumberland Dialect. 1 1 dialectical and orthographical. To place the matter in a clearer light, I subjoin a tetraplar version of the description of the heavenly Jerusalem. Bodleian text, ap. Warton : This citie is y-set on an hei hille, That no synful man may therto tille ; The whuche ich likne to beril clene, Ac so fayr berel may non be y-sene. Thulke hyl is nougt elles to understondynge, But holi thugt and desyr brennynge, The whuche holi men hadde heer to that place, Whiles hi hadde on eorthe here lyves space ; And i likne, as y-may ymagene in my thougt, The walles of hevene to walles that were y-wrougt Of all maner preciouse stones, y-set y-fere, And y-semented with gold brigt and clere ; Bot so brigt gold ne non so clene Was in this worlde never y-sene. Lichfield MS. A. fol. 107-8 : This cete is set on an hey hille, Yat no synful man may cum yer tille ; The qweche i likned to berel clene, But so fayr berel may non be sene. Yat hil is not else to understonge, (sic) But holy yout and desyr brennynge, Ye queche holy men han her had to yt place, Whyl yei haddyn on erde here lytel space, And i likne as i may ymagen in my thout, Ye walls of hevene to the walls that weryn wrougt Of all maner precyous stonys set in fere, And symentid with gold bryt and clere ; But so bryt gold ne non so clene In all this werd is no qwer sene. MS. B. fol. 1 86 : Yis cyte is yset on an hye hulle, Yt no synful man may yerto telle ; Ye wuch I lykne to beryl clene, And so fayr beral may non be sene. Yulke hulle ys nouzt elles to understonde (sic) Bote holy youzt and desyr brennyng. Ye wuch holy men hadde her to y* place Whyles hy hadde on erth here lyve space. And I lykene as I ymagyne in my thouzt Ye walles of hevene y l (sic) to walles y l were y-wrouzt 12 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Of alle manere precyous stones yset yfere, And ysemented wt gold bryzt and clere ; Bot so bryzt gold ne non so clene Was never in ys wordle [sic] ysene. John de Wageby, ap. Walker : This cyte es sett on swa heghe a hyll, That na synfull man may wynne thartill ; Swa clene here was never seen to syght, The whylk sail seme all of beryl bryghL That hyll may be, to my understandyng, Holy thoght and byrnande yhernyng, That haly men. hade to that stede, While they luffed here by, for thar dede. All the walles are of stanes sere, Sementyde with gold bryght and clere ; Bot swa bryght gold and swa clene Was never nane in this werlde sene. The language of the last extract seems to be of the fifteenth century : its decided Northern character needs not to be pointed out more particularly. Of the others, it may be observed that Warton's Bodleian MSS. and Lichfield MS. B. strongly resemble each other in orthography and dialectical forms. Both exhibit something of a Western character; though less strongly marked than Robert of Gloucester. The Lansdowne text is evidently modernised, but still preserves traces of a Mercian origin. The Lichfield MS. A. differs considerably in verbal forms from the others, though it exhibits substantially the same text as the Bodleian copies. The infinitives and plurals in en, may be regarded as Mercian ; in other respects it appears to be tinctured with Middle Anglian. I conceive it might be written in Derbyshire or West Leicestershire ; but I would not undertake to pronounce positively respecting this matter without further evidence than I can at present command. Yours, etc., EBORACENSIS. P.S. I beg to thank Mr. Gordon (p. 499) for his valuable remarks on the ancient Northumbrian form of the imperative plural in es. I had observed its occurence in Havelok ; but at that time supposed it to belong to the Midland dialect. I have since met with several examples of its use in Northumbrian compositions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and have not the least doubt of its being a genuine form. All who take an interest in this branch of our litera- ture will be rejoiced to see the Towneley Mysteries. For my part, I Provincial Words from Newcastle. 13 am fully convinced that neither the grammar nor the etymology of our language will be thoroughly understood till all existing monuments of this class have been carefully analysed. Provincial Words from Newcastle. [1794, Part I., pp. 13, 14.] Some years ago, when the plan of Mr. Croft's Dictionary was laid before the public in your magazine [see Note 6], I thought it might be enriched with many unpublished words which are in daily circulation in the town where I was born. At that time I began a vocabulary, which I now send you, and have no doubt but that I could have made con- siderable additions to it if I had been still resident at Newcastle-upon- Tyne. The peculiar pronunciation of that place is said to have been derived from the Danes, who settled there before the Conquest. That the natives of Northumberland, in many of their words, and in the method of pronouncing them, bear a strong resemblance to the present natives of Denmark and Norway, needs no other argument but com- parison. Professor Thorkelin, of Copenhagen, has given a vocabulary of words common to the Scotch, Icelanders, and Danes.* From these I have selected such as are common also to the natives of Newcastle, and added them to my own list. Though I send the words, I do not pretend to point out their derivation ; but apprehend that they will all, or the greater part of them, be found in the ancient Saxon, or in the languages of the present Northern kingdoms. Professor Thorkelin's words are marked in the following list with a star. Cranks, two or more rows of iron crooks in a frame, used as a toaster. Pant, a fountain. Chare, a narrow street or alley. Prog, to prick. Clarty, wet, slippery, and dirty. Clag, to stick. Yetlin, a small iron pan with a bow handle and three feet. Grozer, a gooseberry. Girdle, a round iron plate with a bow handle, for baking. Click, to catch hold of. Canny, an epithet of approbation. Caller, fresh and cool. Vennel, a kennel or watercourse. Snech, a latch to a door. - f See [A.] Swinton's Travels [into Norway, Denmark, and Russia in the years 1788-1791. London : 1792 : see Appendix, pp. 497-506.]. 14 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Mun, Sir ! probably for, Man ! Cracker, a small baking dish, Smasher, a small raised fruit pie. Spelk, a splinter of wood. Dean, a dale or valley. Weeze, a wisp of straw or soft wool to put under a weight on the head. Skeel, a wooden pail. Grime, black, sooty. Dother, to tremble. Staith, a storehouse for coals where ships are loaded. Keel, a coal-barge or boat. Puy, a pole to push forward a keel. Swape, a long oar instead of a rudder to a keel. Lum, chimney of a cottage. Lum-sweepers, chimney-sweepers. Father, a cart of coals, containing bushels. Waits, a band of musicians. Houglur, the public whipper, etc., of criminals. Beatment, a measure. Kenting, ditto. Corf, a wicker basket for coals at the colliery. Marrow, a companion. Cou'p, to overturn, to exchange. Smash, to break in pieces. Stramp, to tread or stamp upon. A gad, a fishing-rod. Sweel, when the tallow of a candle runs. Swill, a round wicker basket. Broach, a breast-buckle, spire of a church. * Bairn, barn, a child. *Bawk, balk, a beam. *Bit, little ; Dan. bitte smaa ; Phrase, a little bit. Bicker, a tumbler glass. *Becker, a wooden dish. * Blather, bladder. *Burn, a rivulet. *Fell, a more, gateshead fell. * 'Flicker, flitter, to vibrate like the wings of small birds. *Fur, a furrow, rig and fur. *Gar, Iceland. Germ, to force one to do any thing. * Gimmes, an ewe from one to two years old. Hag, a mist. *Hag, a sink or mire in mosses or moors. *Loup, to leap ; Iceland, hluap and laup. *Nowie, horned cattle ; Iceland, naut ; Dan. noet and noot. Provincial Words from Newcastle. 1 5 *Reek, or rack, smoke. Racking-crook, a crane or crook over the fire. *Sark, shirt * Smack, to kiss, to taste ; Iceland, ee smacki ; Dan. smaga. Stour, dust *Smoored, Dan. smored, anointed, smeared. Smoored, smothered, suffocated. *Slot, a young bullock ; Dan. an stoud. *Swinge, to beat, to whip. Swinging, large, a swinging fellow. *Toom, teum, or fume, empty. Tote, whole ; the whole tote, phrase. * Wair, to lay out money, expend. * Wyte, to blame ; to lay the whole wyte on you, phrase. Yule, Christmas ; a yule cake, a Christmas cake. In Mr. Brand's History of Newcastle, amongst other places, he mentious the Stock-bridge ; and, in a note, enquires, Quaere, Whether the name be derived from selling stock-fish there ? I should think myself obliged to any of your ingenious correspondents if they would inform me whether the word stock, or stoke, be not derived from the Saxon, and signifies town or village. There are many places in this kingdom which have this syllable in the beginning of their names, as Stockport, Stockton, Stockbridge ; and, again, Stokenchurch, Stoke-upon- Trent, etc. ; I should, therefore, suppose, that the stock-bridge was so called from the houses or town which were placed near the bridge. A SON OF THE TYNE. Local Words used in Northumberland. [1794, Part L, p. 216.] A Son of the Tyne favoured your readers with a vocabulary of words used by the natives of Northumberland ; in some of which, I think, he has mistaken the meaning. I therefore take the liberty of sending my explication of them ; and also, of adding a few more words in the Son of the Tyne's vocabulary : Pant, a fountain. No. Pant signifies the cistern, which receives the waste-water falling therefrom. Snech, a latch to the door. It should be wrote sneck, being pro- nounced hard. Smasher, a small raised fruit-pie. No. It signifies any thing larger than common. If there were two or three pies upon a table, of different sizes, the largest of them would be called a smasher. 1 6 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Skeel, a wooden pail. With this difference, the diameter of a skeel at the top and bottom are the same. Staith, a storehouse for coals. No. Staith, wharf. Reek, smoke. Racking-crook, a crane or crook over the fire. It should be reeking- crook, as hanging in the reek or smoke. ADDITIONAL WORDS. Slot, a bolt of a door. Pigg* n > a small wooden milk measure, holding near a pint. Laggins, staves. ffuck, a crook, a sickle for cutting corn. Aud, old. Stahan, stone. Huph, a measure for corn, or any dry goods. Poke, sack. Yaad, a horse. Why, a yearling cow. Gulley, a knife. Jack-a-legs, a clasp-knife. Lonnen, a bye-road or lane. Shinney, a stick rounding at one end, to strike a small wooden bowl with. Shinney-hab, a game so called. Futher, a large cart of coals. Cope, to change one thing for another. If I were to hazard my opinion, Mr. Urban, upon the query in Mr. Brand's " History of Newcastle," viz., whether the name (Stock- bridge) be derived from selling stock-fish there, it would be, that it certainly derived its name from a matter of greater consequence. I rather suppose the bridge took its name from the stock or castle, which passed over it to the market near thereto, appropriated for that purpose. A SON OF THE WERE. Newcastle Dialect. [1794, Part I., p. 529.] In your Magazine for January you inserted a letter of mine, con- taining a vocabulary of local words used in and about Newcastle- upon-Tyne. A correspondent, signing himself A Son of the Were, thinks that I have mistaken the meaning of some of them. As I do not think myself infallible, I shall not defend all my definitions, but Local Words used in Northumberland. 17 only remark, that some of his corrections relate principally to errors of the press ; such as the word sneck, etc. With respect to the word smasher, whoever has been a pupil of the worthy Mr. Moises, at the head-school, Newcastle, during the life-time of Nancy Larmer, of pie-Jwuse memory, will need no other definition than that I have given in my vocabulary. The additional words mentioned by the Son of the Were are more in use upon the banks of his river than of mine ; a very few of them only can be called peculiar to New- castle, though the whole number may be understood in different parts of the Northern counties. I may remark, farther, that there is an essential difference in the dialect between Newcastle and other parts of Northumberland. A stranger perhaps, may not be sensible of this ; but a native will soon perceive that both words and pronunciation differ. The Scotch accent and expression pervade those parts which border upon Scot- land ; but, though the language of both is guttural, that of Newcastle alone is purely Danish. A correspondent in your Magazine for March mentions the custom of decorating wells ; and enquires whether there are any other wells, besides those in his account, which are accustomed to be so orna- mented. Near Newcastle, on the road to Benton, in my younger years, I have often observed a well with rags and tattered pieces of cloth hung upon the bushes around it. It is known, I presume, still, by the name of The Rag-well. For the origin of this custom, as well as for a farther account of the rag-well, I refer your correspondent to Brand's " Popular Antiquities," p. 85. While my pen is in my hand, I feel an inclination to add one solu- tion more to the many you have already given us of the proverb of dining with Dttke Humphrey. When I resided in Oxford, it was gene- rally understood to have this meaning : Every Oxford-man, at least, knows that the Bodleian Library was originally founded by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. When a student continued in the library during the hours of dinner, at which times it was, and is, usual to be shut up, he was said to dine with Duke Humphrey. A SON OF THE TYNE. Vocabulary of the Lancashire Dialect. [See Note 7.] [1746, pp. 527,528.] We have received a DIALOGUE, in the Lancashire Dialect, but as the peculiarity of it consists chiefly in a corrupt pronunciation of known words with few originals, and as the subject is dry and un- entertaining, we shall only give a Vocabulary of all the provincial real words, with some of the corruptions, as a specimen ; and add a few lines of the performance. [See Note 8.J 2 1 8 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Feggur, fairer, or free from rain. fettle, dress, case, condition. Feersu?is-een, shrovetide. Firrups, a kind of imprecation. Flaight, a kind of light turf. Flay'd, frighted. Foo-goud, a bauble, plaything. Fussock, a fat or idle person. Gaight, gave it. Gaunt, empty-bellied, lean. Gawby, a dunce, or fool. Gawmblt, play'd the fool. Gawm, understand, comprehend. Gawmless, senseless, stupid. Geh, give. Gin, given, or gave. Glooar, stare. Gonnor, gander. Gooa, go. Greadley, well, handsomely. Greawnd, ground. Greeofor greeof-by, right, or very near right. Greumt, grey-hound. Gurd ' ou - Purrd, kicked. Pynots, magpyes. Rachdaw, Rochdale. Rank, wrong. Rick, to gingle, or make a noise. Rindle, mriggot, channel or gutter. Rook, an heap. Rotfn, a rat. Rush-berring, a country wake. Sark, a shirt. Saiigh, a kind of willow. Sau'f, salt. Sconce, a lantern. Scrawming, climbing awkwardly. Seech, seek. Seete owey, set out. Seign, seven. SclFn, self. Sen, say. Seroh, Sarah. Shad, over-did, excell'd. Shipfin, a cow-house. Shooder, \ , , , t . 7 ., , ' > shoulder. Shildiir, \ Shoo, shovel or spade. Shoon, shoes. 2O Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Shuntut, moved, stirred. Sic /i, such. Sin, since. Singlet, a waistcoat. Size, six. Skrike d dey, break of day. Slifter, a crevice. Slop, a pocket. Sniff, a moment, very quickly. Snig, an eel. Sope, a sup, very little. Sowd, sold. Soyn, soon. Sper^d, enquired. Stark, extream, stift. Staivturt, reeled. Steels, stiles. Steigh, a ladder. Sfoo, a stool. Stoop, a stump of a tree. Stoar, value. Stoart, valued. Stouni, stolen. Strackt, quite mad, thorowly. Strey, straw. Strushon, destruction, waste. Suse, six. Swop, exchange. Sy'd, rained fast. Sye, to put milk, etc., thro' a sieve; also to be exceeding wet. Ta, to a. Tat, that. Team, they were. Teaw'r, thou were. 7>, thy, they, the. Thearn, they were. TJieawst, thou shall 77, than. ThinKn, think. Threave, twenty-four. Throtteen, thirteen. Thoos'n, those will. Thwittle, a sort of knive [sic]. J 1 //, a horse, or mare. Tite, as well, or handsome. Tizeday, Tuesday. Tone, the one. Too-Too, exceeding. Tow'd, told. Toyne, shut. Toynt, is shut. Tummus d Ruchat d Margit d RoapJts, q. Thomas of Richard's of Margaret of Ralph's. Used to distinguish persons, where there are many of the same name in the same neighbour- hood. Tup, a ram. Tuppence, two-pence. * Twur, it were. Tyney, diminutive. Unbethowt, remembered. Uphowd-teh, uphold it thee. Uphowd o\ uphold it you. Wanfn, want. Warcht, ach'd. Ward, world. Waughish, qualmish. Weaughing, barking. Ween, we have. Weet, wet, with it. Weh, with. Welly, wel-nigh. Welkin, the sky. Wetur-tawms, water-qualms, sick- fits. Whackert, quaked, trembled. Whau, why, well, an interjection. IVheawtit, whistled. Whick, quick, alive. Whinnit, neighed. Whoavt, covered over. WJioam, home. Wimmey, with me, Win, will. Winnaiv, will not. Wonst, once. Woo, wool. Wooans, lives, dwells. Vocabulary of the Lancashire Dialect. 1 1 Woode, mad. Y earth, earth. Wry?wt, to shead wrynot, is to Yigh, yea, yes. outdo the devil. Yo, you. Wudyid'n, wish you wou'd. Yoan, you will. Wur, was. YoacTn, you wou'd. Yeasing, eave of a house. K?r/, a yard. Yeat, a gate. SPECIMEN OF THE LANCASHIRE DIALECT. M. Odds- fish ! boh that wur breve 1 wou'd I'd bin eh yore Kele. T. Whau, whau, boh theawst hear It wur o dree wey too-to; heawe'er I geet there be suse o'clock, on before eh opp'nt dur, I covert Nip with th' cleawt, ot eh droy meh nese weh, t'let him see heaw I stoart her : Then I opp'nt dur ; on what te dule dust think, boh three little tyney Bandyheivits coom weaughing os if th' little ewals wou'd o worrit me, on after that swallut me whick : Boh presontly there coom o fine wummon ; on I took her for a hoo jus- tice, hoor so meety fine : For I heard Ruchott o 1 Jack's tell meh meastor, that hoo justices awlus did th' mooast o'th' wark : Heawe'er I axt hur if Mr. justice wur o whoam ; hoo cou'd na\v opp'n hur meawth t' sey eigh, or now ; boh simpurt on sed iss (the dikkons iss hur on him too) Sed I, I wuddid'n tell him I'd sene speyk to him. Spenser and the East Lancashire Dialect. [1867, Fart /., pp. 207, 208.] The biographers of Edmund Spenser state that after he had taken his degree at Cambridge, he retired for some time into the North of England, and resided with his friends. During this sojourn he com- posed his " Shepheardes Calendar," and tradition says that this was done at what is now a farm-house, near Hurstwood, once the residence of a branch of the Towneleys. The dialect of this part of East Lancashire is somewhat peculiar ; inasmuch as it contains a large admixture of words derived from the Danes and Northmen, who conquered and colonised this portion of the county of Lancashire. I therefore examined the " Calendar" with a view of ascertaining whether any peculiarities of the dialect could be detected, and I soon found abundant proof that Spenser's countrymen and shepherds made a liberal use of the East Lancashire dialect. A somewhat hasty perusal furnished the following list ; only two or three of the terms in which are to be found in the South Lancashire dialect as given by Collier (Tim Bobbin), Bamford, Heywood and Picton. [See Note 9.] List of words at present in use in East Lancashire, all of which occur in Spenser's "Shepheardes Calendar": 22 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. T. Brag= to boast; "he'sallusbraggin." N.B. The Lancashire dialect has no final g, when pronounced by natives. 2. Balk = to hinder ; " he balked him." 3. Brent = brunt = burnt, as by fire. 4. Carking= complaining, finding fault. 5. Chaffered = bargained ; " chaffered for it." 6. Conna = cannot. 7. Crank= lively, well; "as crank as ever." 8. <7=each one ; " I love thilk lass." 30. Theu bore. lek daful, like the fowl. ttou, through. sukkalegs, stockings without feet. fuag, hillock. meashee [meashie], net made of straw ropes. splunder, quite. Jiee, it, time : neuter gender but seldom used in Zetlandic. johnsmis, Johnsmas. bindi [biudie], basket made of the stalks of docks. blaand, whey of sour milk, much used as a beverage in Shetland. sloomin, at a sluggish, sauntering pace. lipnin, expecting. Sudderlan, Sutherland. klif \\fX\\\ hoof. no a krum at Hid itt kud a been a humblaband till a luhillie : i. e. not a bit in it could have been a humblaband to a small four-oared boat. A humblaband is a small piece of rope or a leather thong, which keeps the oar steady while the rower is pulling. veeraty [veevaly], distinctly, livelily. Mmm, dust. In Westmorland, saw-coom is saw-dust. i da ebb [elb], on the shore between high and low water-mark. fa so at da ela, to sow or scatter at the fishing-place. Limpets for this purpose are parboiled, chewed, and spirted from the mouth on the water, to invite the fish near the top. The hooks on the lines are, however, always baited. viandit, inclined. trist, twist. we [wee] breekbandit it [hit], I took him round the waist or trousers band. We is here used instead of f, a very common mode of speech in the North of England. gaat. hog or swine. smuks, brouges or shoes made of worsted rags. skuyk [skuyt], look. sholmit, whitefaced. (?) Sholmut. stramp, step : in the North of England a tramp is a long walk quickly performed, and a tramper a vagabond one who walks from place to place begging or selling trifles. Osla, Ursula. jopee [Joopee], worsted or woollen shirt. skrotte [skrottee], a brown dye from stone-rag or lichens gathered from the rocks, sefeeshint, sufficient. smuk, worsted shoe. riveleen [rivleen], ancient highland brouge or shoe. See Lady of the Lake, canto iii. note 9. Glossary to the Zetland Dialect. 39 virse, swine's hide. Saxt'e, a giant. The kettle, in which he boiled the ship, is a hollow in a rock in the Island of Uist. Through Shetland, rocks surrounded by water are called Saxie's stepping stones. bens [benz], bones. pushin, worthless. blett, bashful. Blaat, in Northumberland. moar az, more than. Geegarin meenz shiften aboot fer [fre] pies ta pies in the eage o' a tyme. This clause is wrong printed in the text : " and a eage o' a time," should be " in the eage," etc., that is, from time to time. veezable, anything. ferdamel [ferdamett], provision for the day. bindies [biudies], baskets. spaarls, puddings made of coarse beef. drap o' hey [key] bru in a iilie keg or hulke eddiran, literally drop of hay broth in an oil cag or barrel, either. In Shetland, as in the mountainous parts of the North of England, infusions of hay in water are given to calves instead of milk ; and to cows, to in- crease their quantity of milk. Decoctions of herbs, in Bartholomew, Turner, and other old writers, are very commonly called broths. Anglo-Saxon Words Preserved in Devonshire. [See Note 13.] [1839, part JL, pp. 238, 239.] It has often occurred to me, whilst taking a review of the present state of Anglo-Saxon literature, to endeavour, by means of inquiries in the Gentleman's Magazine, to ascertain if the Anglo-Saxon language was ever extinct in England. A few days ago, whilst looking over Hearne's " Glossary to Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle," I met with a " letter concerning a book printed at Tavistock in Devonshire," written by Hearne to John Bagford, who was then making collections (now in the Harleian Library) for a History of Printing. The allusion is to " The Boke of Comfort, called in Latyn Boecius de Consolatione Philosophic, enprented in the exempt Monastery of Tavestok, in Denshyre. By me Dan Thomas Rychard, Monke of the sayd Monastery, to the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon, Anno Domini MDXXV." [See Note 14.] On this work Hearne, who apparently had examined it, has the following conjecture : " I am of opinion that Robert Langdon mov'd him to print this Book not only out of a pious Design, but also for the advancing the Saxon Tongue, which was taught in this Abbey as well as in some other places of this Kingdom with success ; and there were Lectures 40 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. read in it constantly here, which continued some time after the Re- formation. Now this Translation of Boetius having variety of words agreeing with the Saxon, it might be reckoned by Mr. Langdon a very proper book for attaining to the knowledge of the Saxon Language, especially if compared with the Translation made by King Alfred ; and for that reason, if for none else, the Printer might be induced to set it forth. If so, perhaps, there were only just such a Number printed as would serve the Abbey for this end." Several authorities may be cited respecting the founding a Saxon lecture in the monastery of Tavistock. The first which I shall adduce is Camden in the "Britannia" (in Devonshire), who distinctly states that Saxon Lectures were read in Tavistock Monastery till or near to the time of its dissolution. In LTsle's " Saxon Monuments," Preface to the edition of 1623, allusion is made to it in the following words : " Thanks be to God that he that conquered the land could not so conquer the language, but that in Memory of our Fathers it hath been preserved in common Lectures," etc. Kennet, in his " Life of Somner," apparently following Camden, says : " In the Abbey of Tavistock, which had a Saxon founder about 691, there were solemn lectures in the Saxon tongue even to the time of our fathers, that the knowledge of it might not fail, as it has since well nigh done." In a sketch of the progress of Anglo-Saxon literature, published at Paris in 1836, there is an allusion to an Anglo-Saxon grammar, "Nous avons lu quelque part que les moines de Tavistock composerent et meme imprimerent une Grammaire Saxonne." And in a work on the same subject, published the following year, Mr. Kemble remarks, " It is said that the monks of Tavistock, before the dissolution of their monastery, not only revived the study of Saxon, but possessed a font of Saxon type, and printed Saxon books. Assuredly of any Saxon book which they did print (if ever they printed any), there is nothing remaining in any library in Europe." Without multiplying quotations on the subject, although it may be doubted whether any Saxon books were printed before the Saxon Homilies, in 1567, by John Daye, yet it appears reasonable to con- clude that a Saxon lecture was publicly read in the monastery of Tavistock till its dissolution, which a few years only preceded what has been called the revival of Saxon literature by Archbishop Parker, about the year 1566. But the Archbishop was not alone in the wish to promote the revival of the Saxon tongue, although from his elevated position the merit of much that others did was, probably, attributed to him. The labours of Nowell, and Josceline, and Lambarde, must not be forgotten: the former of whom, so early as 1557, compiled a Saxon vocabulary, said to be deposited in the Bodleian Library : so that his knowledge of the language, we may suppose, had been ac- quired before this period. Of Josceline but little is known ; some particulars of his life and labours are given in the " History of Lam- Anglo-Saxon Words Preserved in Devonshire. 41 beth Palace," and a portion of his collections is deposited in the Cotton Library. [See Note 15.] There is perhaps, no part of England in which so many Anglo- Saxon words are to be met with in general use, as amongst the common people of the counties of Devon and Somerset. For the purpose of illustration I subjoin a few words selected at random; the first column has the Anglo-Saxon form ; the second the western dialect ; the third is modern English. haer heer hair hselm, healm helm haulm hseth heaeth heath heorte hort heart heorot-berg hurt-berry whortleberry heorth herth hearth hairing yheering herring haesl heasel hazel hroc hroke rook hrof hrof roof hyran hier to hear hwar whaur where hwsetene hwaeten wheaten. Without a knowledge of the strong aspiration of the /t, by natives of the west, it is, perhaps, not so evident ; but with that knowledge it will appear plainly that their pronunciation of words which retain the Anglo-Saxon form, approaches very nearly to that which is elucidated by the rules given by philologers for our guidance in the Anglo-Saxon. With this in view, the accenting of hroc in any other way than by lengthening the open sound of o as in croak seems to be improper. The retention too of the Anglo-Saxon pronoun if, in the various forms of if, zch, iche, 'ch, etc., as well as the singular and plural dative, thissum, of the Anglo-Saxon pronoun t/ies, may be noticed as deserv- ing of attention. But the stronger evidence rests in the language itself as spoken in the remote districts into which the improvements of modern times have not hitherto found a way. In conclusion, it would afford me satisfaction if any of your readers can furnish distinct and positive evidence on the subject with which I commenced this letter. Yours, etc., PEDRIDAN. The Saxon Dialect of Dorsetshire. [See Note 16.] [1840, Part I., pp. 31-33.] The observations which your correspondent PEDRIDAN made in your Magazine for September on the Saxon character of the dialect of Devonshire, have induced me to send you a few on that of my native county, Dorsetshire. 42 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. This dialect, which is purer and more regular than that which has been adopted as the national speech, is, I think, with little variation, that of most of those western parts of England which were included in the kingdom of the West Saxons, and has come down by inde- pendent descent from the Saxon dialect which our forefathers, the followers of Cerdic and Cynric, Porta, Stuf, and Wihtgar, brought from the South of Denmark, and the Saxon islands Nordstrand, Busen, and Heligoland. It is a broad, bold, rustic shape of the English, as the Doric was of the Greek ; rich in humour, strong in raillery, powerful in hyperbole, and altogether as fit a vehicle of rustic feeling and thought as the Doric is found in the Idyllia of Theocritus. But to take up the subject of my letter its affinity with the Saxon. It is very remarkable as retaining in the perfect participle of verbs a syllabic augment which is found in Anglo-Saxon and German, though the English has lost it. In German this augment is ge, as GK-hangen, hung from hangen, to hang ; GE-sungen, sung from singen, to sing ; GK-sehen, seen from sehen, to see. In Saxon it is GE or A, the latte'r of which is that retained in Dorset- shire, as : He've A-lost his hatchet He has lost his ax. He've A.-vound his hoss. He has found his horse. A.-SAXON. Paulus GE-t>undenv?ea.rih GK-sendtQ Rome. Sax. Chr.A.D. 50. DORSET. Paul K-bound wer &-zent to Rome. A. -SAXON. Simon se apostle wses K-hangen. Sax. Chr. A.D. 90. DORSET. Simon the 'possle wer A.-hang'd. A.-SAXON. Cenwalhcing waes k-dryven of his rice. Sax. Chr. A.D. 645. DORSET. King Kenwalk wer &.-drove vrom his kingdom. The present tense indicative mood sing, of the verb to be is, DORSET. A. -SAXON. I be Ic beo Thou bist Thu byst He is He ys. Against is in the Dorset dialect and Anglo-Saxon agien. The demonstrative pronoun that is in the Dorset dialect thick, with the th soft, as in the ; and thick is clearly a corruption of the A.-Sax. thy ylca, in Scotch the ilk, meaning the same. A.-Saxon. Thyylcan%sxt hie gefuhton with Bryttas. Sax. Chr. A.D. 519. DORSET. Thick year tha fought with the Britons. The Saxon Dialect of Dorsetshire. 43 The pronoun this is in Dorset dialect thicz, in A. -Sax. tJieos him en hine a plough (aratrurn) a zul sul a woodpigeon a woodculver culfer, a dove. The word rather, as in the expression I would rather die than do such an action, means, sooner or earlier, and is the comparative degree of an adverb rathe, which is lost from national English, though in the vale of Blackmore natale solum meum the expression " I wer up rathe this marnen," for " I was up early this morning," is in common use. To drong is in Dorset to crowd or press, as drdngen is in German; and a hangen is the slope or side of a hill, which the Germans call abhang. Many verbs that are irregular in the national language are con- jugated regularly in the dialect of the West. The imperfect tenses of the verbs blow, build, catch, and crow, for examples ; being blowed builded, catched, and crowed. The Dorset dialect, in most cases, substitutes the diphthongal sound ia or ya for the long a, as that in tale, bake, cake, hate, late, making these words tiale, biake, kiake, Mate, Hate ; the very change which the Spanish language has made in the same sound, that of e in many Italian words, such as bene, certo, inverno, serra, tempo, and vento, which are in Spanish bien, cierto, invierno, sierra, tiempo, and viento ; and in like manner the o long of English words, such as bold, cold, fold, more, oak, and rope, is commonly preceded by u in our dialect, in which those words become buold, cuold, vuold, muore, woak, and mope ; a change of which we find examples in Italian in such words as buono, cuore, luogo, and uomo, from the Latin bonus, cor, locus, and homo, though in these cases the u is not sounded so strongly as it is in the Dorsetshire words. The initial f of English words is commonly rejected for its softer cognate v in the Dorset dialect, while in the Swedish language/ is pronounced as v at the end of words. The study of the provincial dialects would open to philologists much that is yet unknown of the structure of the English language, and most likely lead them nearer to the true pronunciation of the Anglo-Saxon. Yours, etc., W.' BARNES. Exmoor Courtship : Or, A Devonshire Dialogue. [See Note 17.] [1746, pp. 297-300.] There is no accounting for the sudden transition in the mind from one subject to another. 1 believe you will scarce see the least marks of connection, and yet I found several, between the pieces 44 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. mentioned in your entertaining account of the French Theatre, and the pastoral which I here inclose, and (pardon the liberty) recommend to a place in your magazine. The dramatic piece entitled a "Morality," ante p. 200 [See Note 18] which condemns extravagant Feasting, gave me so great pleasure, that I really think, a delightful Farce, or comi- tragic opera might be composed under this title. The trial and con- demnation of Sir John Feasting, and Humphry Gluttony, Esq., for the horrid murder of 17 lords, 5 bishops, 29 members of parliament, 123 liverymen, 606 free-holders and free-burgesses, besides a great number cruelly wounded, and disabled in their limbs, since the dis- solution of last parliament ; together with the humours of Sir Timothy Good-company, Roger I-drink-to-you, Harry Goodfellow, etc., Esquires ; especially, if a genius like Hogarth's was to dress these characters, with those of Mess. Remedy, Pill, Clyster, Dropsy, Quinsy, Jaundice, etc. This piece however contributed very little to the recollection of the inclosed, no further than that I fancy'd they might both be brought on some of our stages with success ; and probably from this hint, the manager of Goodman's fields may try one of them, when his run of Culloden fight is over. But to come to the point it was that passage, p. 199 B., of the cursed child who killed his father, hanged his mother, and at last went distracted, which fetch 'd back to my memory a like passage about the ballad, in the following dialogue, and caused me to peruse the whole again ; and as I had more than once read it before, and still with pleasure, I guess it will be entertaining to others. It was first written by a clergyman of Devonshire, near the forest of Exmoor ; but, I believe, has received some additions. I am your obliged monthly subscriber, H. OXON. P.S. If you please to insert this letter, I could wish you would add a request that your correspondents in other counties would favour the public by your means with as good and as copious a sample of their particular dialects, and that some of them would send us the mean- ing of the words, which I have marked with an asterism, for I cannot so much as guess at it. EXMOOR COURTSHIP: Or, A Suitoring Discourse, in the Devonshire Dialect and Mode, near the forest of Exmoor. THE PERSONS. ANDREW MOORMAN, a young farmer. MARGERY VAGWELL, his sweetheart. Old gammer NELL, gammer to MARGERY. TAMSIN, sister to MARGERY. Exmoor Courtship. 45 SCENE. Margery's House. To MARGERY enter ANDREW. And. How geeth et, Cozen Magery ? Mar. Hoh ! cozen Andra, how d'ye try ? A. Come, let's shake honds, thof kissing be-scarce. M. Kissing's plenty enow ; but chud zo leefe kiss tha back o' ma bond, as e'er a man in Challacomb, or eet in Paracomb ; no dispreise. A. Es don't believe thek, and eet es believe well too. (Zwop ! he kisses and smuggles her. ) M. Hemph ! Oh ! the vary vengeance out o' tha ! Tha hast a creem'd ma yearms, and a'morst a burst ma neck. Well, bet, vor oil, how dost try, ees zay, cozen Andra ? Ees hant a zee'd ye a gurt while. A. Why, fath, cozen Magery, nort marchantable, e'er zince es scor'st a tack or two wey Rager Trogwell, t'ather day. Bet, zugs ! es trem'd en, and vagg'd en zo, that he'll veel et vor wone while, chell warndy. M. How, cozen Andra ! Why ees thort ee couden a vort zo. A. Why, 'twas oil about t/iee, mun; vor es chan't hire an eel word o' tha. M. How ! about me .' why, why vore about me, good zweet now ? Of a ground ha can zay no harm by ma. A. Well, well, no matter. Es cou'den hire tha a run down, and a roilad upon zo, and zet still leke a mumchance, and net pritch en vor't. M. Why, whot, and be hang'd to en, cou'd a zey o' me, a gurt meazel ? A. Es begit tha words now ; bet ha roilad zo, that es cou'dent bear et Bet a deden't looze his labour, fath; vor es toz'd en, es lamb'd en, es lace'd en, es thong'd en, es drash'd en, es drumm'd en, es tann'd en to tha true *ben, fath. Bet stap ! cham avore ma story. Zes I, " Thee ! thee art a pretty vella !" Zes he, " Gar ! thee castn't make a pretty vella o' ma." "No, agar," zes I, "vor th'art too ugly to be made a pretty vella, that true enow." Gar, ha wos woundy mad than. " Chell try thek," zes he. " As zoon's tha wut," zes I. Zo up ha roze, and to't we went. Vurst ha geed ma a whister- poop under tha year, and vorewey ha geed ma a vulch in tha leer. Add, then ees rakad up, and tuck en be tha collar, and zo box'd en, and zlapp'd en, that es made hes kep *hoppy, and hes yead addle to en. M. Well, ees thank ye, cozen Andra, vor taking wone's peart zo. Bet cham *agest eel go vor a warrant vor ye, and take ye bevore tha cun-sabel; and then ye mey be bound over, and be vorst to gi'n t'Exeter to zizes ; and than ha mey zwear tha peace of es, you know. Es en et better to drenk vriends and make et up ? 46 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. A. Go vor a warrant ! Ad ! let 'en, let en go ; chell not bender en : Vor there's Tom Vuss can take hes cornoral oath thet he begun vurst. And if ha do's, chell ha' as good a warrant vor he as he can vor me, don't quesson't : Vor tha turney into Moulton knows me, good now, and has had zome zweet pounds o' veather bevore ha dy'd. And if he's a meended to go to la, es can spend vorty or vifty shillings as well's he. And zo let en go, and wipe whot ha zets upon a zindeys wi' hes warrant. Bet hang en, let's ha' nort more to zey about en ; vor chave better bezneze in hond a gurt deal. (He takes hold of her, and paddles in her neck and bosom.} M. Come, be quiet ; be quiet, ees zay, a grabbling o' wone's tetties. Ees won't ha' ma tetties a grabbled zo ; ner ees won't be zo mullad and foulad. Stand azide ; come, gi' o'er. A. Lock, lock ! How skittish we be now ! Yow weren't zo skittish wey Kester Hosegood up to Daraty Vuzz's up-zetting. No, no, yow weren't zo skittish than, ner zo squeamesh nether. He murt mully and foully tell ha wos weary. M. Ees believe the vary dowl's in voke vor leeing. A. How ! zure and zure, you won't deny et, wull ye, whan oil the voaken took noteze o' et ? M. Why, cozen Andra, thes wos the whole sump o' tha bezneze. Chaw'r in wey en to donee ; and whan tha donee was out, tha crowd cry'd " Squeak squeak, squeak squeak" (as ha uzeth to do, you know) and ha cort ma about tha neck, and wouden't be a zed bet ha woud kiss ma, in spite o' ma, do what ees coud to hender en. Es coud a borst tha crowd in shivers, and tha crowder too, a foul slave as ha wos, and hes veddlestick to tha bargen. A. Well, well, es b'ent angry mun. And zo let's kiss and vriends. (Kisses her,} Well, bet cozen Magery, oil thes while es han't a told tha my arrant ; and chave on* ever arrant to tha, mun. M. (Simpering) Good sweet now, whot arrant es et? Ees marl whot arrant ee can ha to me. A. Why, vath, chell tell tha. Whot zignavies et to mence the matter ? Tes these ; volus nolus wut ha' ma ? M. Jfa' ma ? Whot's thek ? Ees can't tell what ye me-an by thek. A. Why, than, chall tell tha vlat and plean. Yow know es kep Challacomb-moor in hond ; 'tes vull-statad* : Bet cham to chonge a live vor dree yallow-beels.* And than thare's tha lant up to Parracomb town ; and whan es be to Parracomb, es must ha' wone that es can trest to look arter thee *girred-teal'd meazels, and to zar tha ilt* and tha barra, and melk tha kee to Challacomb, and to look arter the thengs of tha houze. M. O varjuice ! Why, cozen Andra, a good steddy zarrant can do oil thes. A. Po, po, po ! chell trest no zarrants. And more an zo, than Exmoor Courtship. 47 they'll zey by me as they ded by geffer Hill t'ather day : They made two beds, and ded g'in to wone. No, no, es ban't zo mad nether. Well, bet, lock, dost zee, cozen Magery ; zo vur yore es tha wut ha ma, chell put thy live upon Parracomb-down. 'Tes wor twanty nobles a year, and a purse to put min in. M. O vile ! Whot, marry ? No ; chan't ha' tha best man in Challacomb, ner eet in Parracomb. Na, chell ne'er marry, vor ort's know. No, no, they zey thare be more a marry'd aready than can boil tha crock o' zendeys. No, no, cozen Andra, cud amorst zwear chudn't ha tha best squaer in oil Ingland. Bet, come ; prey, cozen Andra zet down a lit. Ees murst g'up in chamber, and speak a word or two wey zister Tamzin. Hare's darning up of old blankets, and rearting* tha peels, and snapping o' vleas. Ees'll come agen prezently. A. Well, do than ; bet make haste, d'ye zee. Mean time chell read o'er the new ballet chave in ma pocket. M. New ballet ! O good now, let's hire you zing it up. A. Zing ! No, no ; 'tes no zinging ballet, mun : bet 'tes a godly wone, good now. M. Why, whot's about, than ? A. Why, 'tes about a boy that kill'd hes veather ; and how hes veather went agen, in shape of a gurt voul theng, wi' a cloven voot, and vlashes o' vire, and troubled tha house zo, that the whotjecomb, tha whit-witch, was vorst to lay en in the Red-Zea ; and how tha boy repented, and went distracted, and was taen up, and was hang'd vor't, and zung saums, and zed hes prayers. 'Twull do your heart good to hire et, and make yowcry lick enny theng. Thare's tha picture o'en too, and the parson, and tha dowl, and tha ghost, and tha gallows. M. Bet es et true, bezure ? A. True ! O la ! yes, yes ; Es olweys look to that. Look's zee ; 'tes here in prent, lisserid according to order. That's olweys prented on what es true, mun. Es took care to zee that, whan es bort 'en. M. Well, well, read et ; and chell g'up to zester. SCENE the chamber. To TAMZEN enter MARGERY. M. Oh ; zester Tamzen ! Odd ! ee es a come along, and fath and trath hath a put vore the quesson to ma a ready. Ees very b'leive tha banes wull g' in next zindey. 'Tis oil es ho' vor. Bet es tell en, marry a-ketha ! and tell en downreert es chant marry tha best man in Sherwill-hunderd. Bet dest hire ma, zester Tamzen ? Don'tee be a labb o' tha tongue in what cham a going to zey, and than chell tell tha zometheng. The banes, cham a'most zure, wull g'in other a Zendey, or a Zendey-zenneert to vurdest. E's not abo' two and twenty ; 48 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. a spicy vella, and a vitty vella vor enny keendest theng. Thee know'st Jo Hosegood es reckon'd a vitty vella : Poo ! ees a zooterly vella to Andra ; thare's no compare. T. Go, ya wicked countervit ! why dost lee zo agenst tha meend ; and whan ha put vore tha quesson tell enthawudstn't marry ? Bezides, zo vur as know'st, ha murt take pip o', and meach off, and come no more anearst tha. M, Go, you alkitole ! yow gurt vullesh trapes ! Best thee thenk ee believead ma, whan ees zed chudn't marry? Eees net zo zart-a- baked nether. Vor why ? Ees wudn't be too vurword nether ; vor than ee murt dra back. No, no ; vor oil whot's zed, ees hope tha banes wull g'in, ees zey, next Zundey. And vath, nif s do vail over tha desk, 'twont *thir ma, ner borst ma bones. Bet nif they don't g'in by Zendey-zenneert, chell tell tha, in shoort company, es shall borst ma heart. Bet ees must go down to en ; vor he's by es zel oil thes while. SCENE the ground-room again. To ANDREW enter MARGERY. A. Well, cozen Magery ; cham glad you're come agen : vor thes ballet es so very good, thar et makes wone's heart troubled to read et. M. Why, put et up than while ees get a putcher o' zyder. Will ee eat a croust o' bread and cheeze, cozen Andra ? A. No, es thankee, cozen Magery ; vor es eat a crub as es came along; bezides es went to denner jest avore. Well, bet cozen Magery, whot onser do'st gi ma to tha quesson es put vore now- reert M. What quesson was et ? A. Why, zure, yow ar'n't zo vorgetvul. Why, the quesson es put a little rather. M. Ees don't know whot quesson ee mean ; ees begit what quesson 'twos. A. Why, to tell tha vlat and plane agen, 'twos thes : " Wut ha ma, ay or no ?" M. Whot ! marry to earteen ? Ees gee the zame onser ees gee'd avore, ees wudn't marry tha best man in oil Ingland. Ees cud amorst zwear chud ne'er marry at oil. No more chon't vor ort's know. And more an zo, cozen Andra, cham a told you keep company wey Tamzen Hosegood, thek gurt banging, thonging, muxy drawbreech, daggle-teal'd jade, a zower-sop'd, yerring, chockling trash, a buzzom- chuck'd haggaging moyle, a gurt fustilug. Hare's a trub. And nif you keep hare company, ees '11 ha no more to zey to tha. A. Ay, this is Jo Hosegood's flimflam. Oh tha vary vengeance out o'en. Exmoor Courtship. 49 M. No, no ; tes none of Jo Hosegood's flimflam ; bet 20 tha crime of tha country goeth. A. Ah, bet 'twos Jo Hosegood's zetting vore in tha vurst place. Ha wull lee a rope upreert. Whan ha hath a took a shord and a paddled, ha wull tell doil, and tell dildrams, and roily upon enny kesson zoul. Add ! nif es come athert en, chell gi' en a lick ; cheli lay en o'er the years ; chell plim en, chell toze en, chell cotten en, chell thong en, chell tann en ; chell gi' en a strat in tha chups ; chell vag en, chell trem en, chell drash en, chell curry hes coat vor en ; chell drub en, chell make hes kep hoppy. Add ! chell gi' en zutch a zwop ! chell gi' en a whapper, and a wherret, and a whisterpoop too : Add ! chell baste en to tha true benn. (Speaks in a great passion, and shews with his hands Jwiu he'll beat his adversary.} M. Lock, lock, lock ! cozen Andra ! vor why vore be ee in zitch a vustin fume ? Why, ees don't zey 'twos Jo Hosegood zes zo, bet only that zo tha crime o' tha country goeth. A. Well, well, cozen Magery, be't how twull, whot caree I ? And zo, good-buy, good-buy t'ye, cozen Magery. Nif voaken be jealous avore they be married, zo they mey arter. Ay ay, zo they mey arter. Zo good-buy, cozen Magery. Chell not trouble yow agen vor wone while, chell warndy. [Going. M. (calling after him}. Bet hearky, hearky a bit, cozen Andra ! Ees wudn't ha' ye go away angry nether. Zure and zure you won't deny to zee ma drenk, wull ye ? Why, you han't a tasted our zyder yet (A. returns.} Come, cozen Andra, here's tee. A. Na, vor that matter, es owe no illwill to enny kesson, net I. Bet es won't drenk, nether, except yow vurst kiss and vriends. (Kisses her.} M. Yow won't be a zed (he drinks} Well, bet hearkee, cozen Andra, won't ye g'up and zee grammer avore ye g'up to Challacomb ? 'Tes bet jest over tha paddack and along the park. A. Es caren't much nif's do go zee old ont Nell. And how do hare tare along ? M. Rub along, d'ye zey ? Oh ! grammer's wor vour hunderd pounds, reckon tha goods indoor and out a door. A. Cham glad to hire et : vor es olweys thort her to ha' be bare buckle and thongs. M. Oh ! no, no, mun : hare's mearty well to pass, and maketh gurt account of me, good now. A. Cham glad to hire o' thek too. Mey be, hare mey gi' tha a good stub. Come let's g'ender than. (Takes her arm under /it's, and leads her.) 50 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. SCENE Old Gammer NELL'S. To her enter ANDREW and MARGERY. A. Good den, good den, ount Nell. Well, how d'ye try ? How goeth et wi' ye ? Old Nell. Why, vath, cozen Andra, pritty, vitty, whot's chur. Chad a glam or two about ma. Chad a crick in ma back, and in ma niddick. Tho chawr a lamps 'd in wone o' ma yearms. Tho come to a heart- gun : vorewey struck out and came to a *barngun : tho come to an *allernbatch : and vorey veil in upon ma bones, and come to a bone- shave.* But e'er zince the old Jilian Vrinkle blessed vore, 'tes pritty vitty ; and cham come to ma meat-list agen. Well, but hearky, Cozen Andra : Ees hire yow lick a lit about ma cozen Magery, ay and have smeled about her a pritty while. Chawr a told that yow sim- mered upon wone t'ather up to Grace Vrogwell's bed-ale. Well, cozen Andra, 'twell do vary well vor both. No matter how zoon. Cham oil vore, and zo chaw'r zo zoon's ees hired o't. Hare's net as zome giglets, zome prenking mencing thengs be, oil vor gamboyling, rump- ing, steehopping, ragrouting, and gigletting ; bet a tyrant maid vor work, and tha stewardlest vittest wanch that comath on tha stones o' Moulton, no dispreise. M. (softly aside to her). Thenkee, grammer, thenkee keendly. And nif s shou'dn't ha' en, shou'd borst ma heart (aloud] Good grammer, don't tell me o' marrying. Chave a told cozen Andra ma meend aready, that chell ne'er marry, vor ort's know. Old Nell. Stap hather, cozen Magery, a lite, and tern these cheesen. (Pretendedly private to her. ) Go, you alketole, why dest tell zo, tha'rt ne'er marry ? Tha wutten ha' tha' leek ; a comely sprey vitty vella vor enny keendest theng. Come, nif tha wut ha' en, chell gi' tha a good stub. There's net a spryer vella in Challacomb. M. Bet, grammer, wullee be zo good's yow zey, nif zo be, vor your zake, ees do vorce ma zel to let en lick a bit about ma. Old Nell. Ay, es tell tha. (aside) Cham agest hare'll dra en into a promish wone dey or wother. A. Well, ount Nell, es hired whot yow zed, and es thank yow too Bet now chave a zeed ye, 'tes zo good as chad eat ye, as they uze to zey. Es must go home now as vast as es can. Cozen Magery, won'tee go wi' ma a lit wey ? M. May be ees may g'up and zee ont Moreman, and may be ees man't. [Exeunt. SCENE The open Country. Enter ANDREW, followed by MARGERY. M. Add ! ees '11 zee en up to Challacomb- Moor stile. Now must ees make wise chawr a going to ont Moreman's, and only come thes wey. Exmoor Courtship. A. (spying her). Cozen Magery, cozen Magery ! stap a lit : whare so vast, mun ? (She stays.} Zo, now es zee yow be zo good as yer word, na, and better; vor tha zedst "may be chell, and may be chon't." M. Oh, yow take tha words father wey. Ees zed, " may be chell, and may be chon't g'up and zee ont Moreman." Ees zed no more an zo. Ees go thes wey to zee hare, that's oil. Bet chud'nt go zo vur to meet enny man in Challacomb, ner Parracomb, ner eet in oil king George's kingdom, bless hes worship ! Meet tha men aketha ! Hah ! be quiet, ees zey, a creeming a body zo. And more an zo, yar beard precketh ill-vavourdly. Ees marl whot these gurt black beards be good vor. Yow ha made ma chucks buzzom. A. Well whot's zey, cozen Magery? Chell put in tha banes a Zendey, volus nolus. M. Than ees '11 vorbed men, fath. A. Oh ! chell trest tha vor thek. Es don't thenk yow'll take zo much stomach to yare zel as to vorbed men avore zo many voker. Well, cozen Magery, good neart. M. Cozen Andra, good neart. Ees wish you well to do. SCENE MARGERY'S Home. To TAMZEN enter MARGERY singing. M. Zister Tamzin, whare art ? Whare art a popling and a pulch- ing, dost hire ma? T. Lock, lock, lock ! Whot's the mater, Magery, that tha leapest, and caperest, and whistlest, and zing'st zo ? Whot, art hanteck ? M. That's nort to nobody ; chell whistley, and capery, and zing vor oil yow. Eet a vor oil, nif ta wutten't be a labb of tha tongue now, chell tell tha zometheng, Zart ! whistery. My banes g'in a Zendey, fath, to Andra, tha spicest vella in Sherwill hunderd. T. O la ! why thare lo ! why zo lo ! Now we shall be marry'd near together ; vor mine be in and out agen ; thof my man don't eet tell me tha day. Ees marl ha don't pointee whot's in tha meend o' en. M. Chell g'in to Moulton tomarra pritty *tapely, to buy zome can- vest vor a new holland chonge. T. Ay, ay, zo do ; vor tha casen't tell whot mey happen to tha in tha middle banes. M. How ! ya gurt trapes. Whot dest me-an by thek ? Ees scorn tha words. Ded ort happen to thee in thy middle banes ? Happen aketha ! T. Hah ! ort happen to me in my middle banes ? Ees scorn et to tha dert o' ma shoes, locks zee, ya mincing, *kerying baggage. Vare- well. 42 52 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. [1746, pp. 352-355-1 AN EXMOOR SCOLDING; In the Propriety and Decency of Exmoor Language, between two sisters, WILMOT MOREMAN, and THOMASIN MOREMAN, as they were spinning. T. Lock ! Wilmot, vore why vore ded'st roily zo upon ma up to Challacomb rowl ?* Ees dedn't thenk tha had'st a be' zitch a labb o' tha tongue. What a vengeance ! wart botoatled, or wart tha bag- gaged ; or had'st tha took a shord, or a paddled ? W. I roily upon tha, ya gurt, thonging, banging, muxy drawbreech? Noa, 'twas thee roil'st upon me up to Daraty Vrogwill's up-zitting, when tha vung'st to, and be hang'd to tha ! to Rabbin. 'Shoud zem tha wart zeck arter me-at and me-al. And zo tha merst, by ort I know, wey guttering,* as gutter tha will'st, whan tha com'st to good tackling. Bet zome zed " Shoor and shoor tha ded'st bet make wise, to zee whare tha young Josy Heaff-field, wou'd come to zlack thy boddize, and whare a wou'd be O vore* or no." But 'twas thy old disyease, chun. T. Hey go ! what disyease dest me-an, ya gurt, dugged-teal'd, zwopping, rousling blowze ? Ya gurt roile, tell ma. Tell ma, a zey, what disyease dest me-an ? Ad ! chell ream my heart to tha avore is let tha lipped.* Chell tack et out wi' tha to tha true ben, fath ! Tell ma, a zey, what disyease dest me-an that tha zest cham a troubled wey? W. Why, ya purting, tatchy, stertling, ghowering, prinking, minc- ing theng, chell tell tha what disyease. Is dedn't me-an the bone- shave, ner the heartgun, ner the Allernbatch* that tha had'st in thy niddick. 'Tes better 'twar : vor than ount Annis Moreman cou'd ha' blessed vore, and net ha' pomster'd about et, as moather ded. T. What disyease than, ya gurt haggage ? W. Why, e'er zince tha wart tonty, ay zewnteen, and avore, tha hast a be' troubled wey tha doul vetch tha. T. What's me-an by that, ya long-hanjed mea-zel ? Dist hire ma? Tha call'st ma stertling roil now-reert. How dedst thee stertlee* upon the zest last harrest wey the young Dick Vrogwill, whan George Vuzz putch'd ? He told ma the whole fump o' the besneze. W. Oh ! the very vengeance tear tha ! Dest thee tell me o' Dick Vrogwill ? Why thee art in a ninniwatch e'ery other torn, nif zo be tha dest but zet zeert in Harry Vursdon. T. How ! ya gurt, chounting, grumbling, glumping, zower-zwaped, yerring trash ! W. Don't tell me o' glumping: oil the neighbourhooden know thee to be a ve-aking, blazing,, tiltish hussey. Exmoor Scolding. 53 T. And thee art a crewnting, querking, he-avy, dudded-yess, chock- ling baggage. IV. Net zo chockling, ner it zo crewnting, as thee art, a colting hobby-horse ! Nif tha dest bet go down in the paddick, to stroak the kee, thee wut come oil a-gerred,* and oil horry zo vurs tha art a vorked; ya gerred-taal'd, panking, hewstring me-azel ! Thee art lick a skittish sture jest a yooked. Tha wouldst bost any keendest theng, tha art zo vore-reert, nif vauther dedn't ha-ape tha. T. Ay, ay ! Kester Moreman wou'd ha' be' hove up, nif zo be a had a had tha ; a toteling, wambling, zlottering, zart-aud-vair he-at- stool. IV. Ay, and zo wou'd the young George Vuzz, chun, whan a had a had a rubracrock, rouzeabout, platvooted, zidlemouth'd swashbucket. Pitha, dest think enny theng will e'er vittee or gooddee wey zich a whatnosed, haggage-tooth'd, stare-bason, timersome, rixy,* wapper- ee'd theng as thee art ? T. Dest hire ma ? Oil the crime o' the country goth, that whan tha liv'st up to tha cot, tha wert the old Rager Hill's under bed- blonket. And more and zo, that tha wert a chittering, raving, racing, buzzom-chuck'd, rigging,* louching h,aggaging moil. W. How ! ya confounded trapes ! Tell me enny more o' Rager Hill's bed-blonket, ad ! chell pull the poll o' tha, chall plim tha, chell vulch tha, looks zee. Rager Hill es as honest a man as any in Chal- lacomb ; no dispreise. T. And do thee tell me o' stertling upon the zess, when George Vuzz putch'd, chell gi' tha a lick ; chell lay tha over the years wey the vire-tangs. Ad ! chell ting tha. Thy buzzom chucks were pretty vitty avore tha mad'st thy zell therle, and they vlesh oil wangery, and they skin oil flagged, with nort but agging, and veaking, and tiltish- ness. W. Bed-blonket akether ! Ha ! zey zitch a word more, chell cotton thy wastecoat. Chell thong tha, chell gi tha' zitch a strat in tha chups, ya grizzledemundy. T. Me a strat in the chups? Dest hire ma? Come a neest me, chell pummel tha, chell vag tha, chell lace tha. W. Thee lace ma ? Chem a laced well afine aready. Zey wone word more, and chell bresh tha, chall make thy boddize pilmee. T. How a man a zed ! make my boddize pilmee ? Add ! if e'er tha squeak'st wone word more o' the bed-blonket, chell trim tha, chell crown tha, chell vump tha. W. Why dedst thee tell me o' the zess, or it of the hey-pook, as tha dedst whileer ; Chell drub tha, chell curry thy scabbed yess var tha. T. Why dedst thee, than, tell me 'isterday o' losting my rewden hat in the rex-bush, out to whorting ? and more and zo, that the young Tom Vuzz shou'd le-ave he's codglove* Ad ! a word more o' tha 54 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. young Tom Vuzz. chell baste tha, chell stram tha, chell drash tha ; chell make thy kepp hoppee, wi' thy Vlanders lace upon't. W. Vlanders lace ! Whet's me-an by that, ha-ah ? Tell me enny more o' Vlanders lace, chell make thy yead addle. Chell up wi ma veest, and gi' tha a whisterpoop, and zitch a zwop as shall make tha veel me, looks zee ! T. Gi' me a zwop ? Ad ! chell gi' tha a wherret, or a zlat in the chups or up wi' thy dugged coats, and tack tha gre-asy yess o' tha. W. Thee tack me, ya unlifty, ill-hearty, untidy me-azel ? Andra wou'd ha' had a trub in tha, nif's vauther hadn't a strat the match. T. How, dem ? a trub ? Go, ya rearing, snapping, tedious, cutted snibblenose ! Th'art olweys a vustled up in an old jump, or a whittle, or an old seggard, avore zitch times as Neckle Halse comath about : Than tha wut prinkee. Thee hast a let the kee go zoo vor want of strocking. It a vor oil th'art an abomination pinchvart vor thy own eends. Ay, ya ! shoort,* Wilmot, shoort ! Zwer thy torn ; or else tha tedst net carry whome thy pad, and meet Neckle Halse by tha wey. He'll meet tha in the vuzzy-park coander be cockleert, or avore, chell warndy. W. Tell ma wone word o' Neckle Halse, chell skull tha, tha hastn't a be' a skull'd zo vor wone while. Ya gurt fustilugs ! The old Mag Dawkins es but a huckmuck to tha. Zet tha about ort, why, tha dest thengs vore and back, a cathamm'd, a vore-reert, and vramp-shapen, like a totle. T. How ! ya long-hanjed trapes ! ya blowmonget baarge ! Thee wut coalvarty* a-bed avore bevore-days. Th'art zo deeve as a had- dick in chongy weather. Or when 'tes avrore, or a scratcht the le-ast theng out, or whan snewth, or blunketh, or doveth, or in scatty weather, or in a tingling vrost, than tha art theck-lifted, and behang'd to tha. W. And thee art a lams'd in one o' thy yearms, and can'st net zee a sheen in thy reert ee. T. Rex-bush ! Fath ! tell me o' tha rex-bush, ya teeheing pixy ! Es marl who's more vor rigging or rumping, steehopping or ragrowter- ing, giggleting or gambowling ,than thee art thyzel. Pitha, destn't remember whan tha comest over the clam wi' tha old Hugh Hose- good, whan tha wawter wos by stave, how tha velst in, and the old Hugh drade thee out by tha vorked eeend, wi' thy dugged clathers up zo vur as thy na'el, whan tha wart just a buddled ? W. Lock ! dest dwallee,* or tell doil? Pitha, tell reazanable, or hold thy popping, ya gurt washamouch. So ends the first bout. Exmoor Scolding. 55 BOUT THE SECOND. W. Dist hire ma, dem ? Chell ha tether vinny wi' tha. Tha toldst ma now-reert, or a whilere, of rigging and rumping, steehopping and ragrowtring, giggleting and gamboyling. What's me-an by that ? But thee, thee wut ruckee, and squattee, and doatee in the chimly coander lick an axwaddle ; and wi' the zame tha wut rakee up, and gookee, and tell doil, tell dildrams and buckingham Jenkins. Ay, ay, poor Andra Vurdson wud ha' had a rigmutton rumpstall in tha, nif tad net ha' be' strat. A wud ha' had a coad, riggleting, parbreaking,* piping body in tha ; olwey wone glam or nether. And more an zo, there's no direct to hot tha tell'st. Tha wut feb et herrtily. Na, tha wut lee a rope outreert. Chad I most a borst my guts wi' laughing, whan's zee'd tha whilere trapesee hum from tha Yeoanna Lock, thy shoes all besh , thy hozen muxy up zo vurs thy gammerels* to tha very huck- sheens*o tha, thy gore coat oil a girred, thy head-clathing oil a foust; thy wastcoat oil horry,* and thy pancrock* a kiver'd wi' brifs and buttons. T. Why thare zo ! Bet dist net thee thenk, ya long-hanjed trapes, that tha young Josy Yeaff-field wud ha' be' placad, whan ha had a zitch a crowdling theng as thee art ? Eart lundging, eart squatting upen thy tether eend. Zey ort to tha, why tha wut twitch up thy teal, and drow up thy noaze, and take owl o' or take pip o'. Nif won zey tha le-ast theng out, tha wut purtee a zinnet arter. W. How, hussey ! ya confounded trash ! Dist remember whan tha wenst out in tha Vuzzey-park, in the desk o' tha yeaveling, jest in tha dimmet, wi' tha young Humphry Hosegood, and how ha mulled and foulad about tha ? Ha bed tha zet down ; and tha zedst tha wudst net, nif ha ded net blow tha down. Zo ha blow'd, and down tha valst. Who shud be hard by (vor 'twas in the dimmet) but the square's bealy ; and vorewey ha cry'd out that oil windvalls belongad to's measter. Wi' tha zame tha splettest away down the pennet hilter skilter as if tha dowl had ha' be' in tha heels o' tha. T. Oh the dowl splet tha ! who told theckee strammer ? W. Why, 'twas thee thy own zel up to stooling o' terras.* T, Oh ! a plague confound tha ! dest tha thenk ees ded tell't to tha, to ha' et a drode vore agen ? Well, 'tes well a fine. I can drow vore worse spalls than that to tell ; Ad ! I cud rep tha up. W. What, a dowl, and be hang'd to tha, canst tha drow vore to me ? T. How many times have es a hord tha, and a zeed tha, pound savin, to make metcens, and leckers, and caucheries, and slotters ? 'Tes good to know vor why vore. W. Oh ! a plague rat tha ! Ya mulligrub gurgin ! ya shug meazel ! Th'art good vor nort bet a gapes-nest. A gottering hawcha mouth 56 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. theng ! Whan tha com'st to good tackling, tha wut poochee, and hawchee, and scrumpee ; tha wut net look vor lathing,* chell warndy; and nif et be loblolly, tha wut slop et oil up. T. How a man a zed ! How dedst thee poochee, and hawchee, and scrumpee, whan tha young Zaunder Vursdon and thee stey'd up oil tha neert a roasting o' taties ? pritch* tha vor me ! Why, than, tha wut be a prilled,* or a muggard,* a zennet outreert ; and more an zo, thee wut rowcast, nif et be tha own veather. Nif tha beest a zend to vield wi' tha drenking, or ort, to tha voaken, whare they be shooling o' beat, or handbeating, or angle-bowing, nif tha com'st athert Rager Hosegood, tha wut lackee an over-while avore tha com'st, and ma' be net trapesee hum avore the desk o' tha yeaveling, ya blow-maunger ba-arge ! Oil vor palching about to hire less, to vine-dra voaks. Whan tha goest to tha melking o' tha kee, in tha vuzzy-park, thee wut come oil a dugged, and thy shoes oil mux, and thy whittle oil besh . Tha wut let tha cream chorn be oil horry, and let tha melk be buckard in buldering weather. W. Tell me o' Rager Hosegood, chell make thy kepp hoppee. Ay, ay, ees marl hot to tha vengeance tha young Zaunder Vursdon mid ha' had a do wi' tha, nif ha had a had tha. Vor why ? Tha hast no stroil no docity, no vittiness in enny keendest theng. Tha cortst tha nated yeo now-reert, or bet leet rather, laping o'er tha Yeoanna Lock : (Chell tell veather o't zo zoon es ha cometh hum vrom angle bowing,* don't question't). Hot ded tha yeo do, whan tha had'st a cort en be tha heend legs (bet vurst ha button'd ; 'tes a marl 'tad net a vailed into tha pancrock as uzeth to do) bet thof ha ded viggee and potee, and towsee, and tervee, and loustree, and spudlee, and wriggled, and pawed, and wraxled, and rattled, and teared, vig vig, vig vig, yet rather than tha wudst ha enny more champ,* and holster,* and tanbast* wi' en, tha tookst en, and dedst wetherly bost tha neck o'en. T. And nif tha dest pick prates upon me, and tell veather o', chell tell a zweet rabblerote upon thee, locks zee. Vor whan tha shudst be about thy yeaveling's chuers, tha wut spudlee out tha yewmors, and screedle over men. And more an zo, thee wut roily eart upon wone, and eart upon another, zet voak to bate, lick a gurt ba-arge as tha art : And than getfer Rager Sherwell he must qualify't agen. Whan tha art zet agog, tha desn't caree who tha scullest : 'Twos olweys thy uze and chem agest tha wut vore an e'en. Tha hast tha very daps o' thy old muxy ont Sybly Moreman upazet. W. Why, ya gurt roil, chant zo bad's thee. Thee wut ha' a hy to enny kessen soul. Than tha wut chocklee, and bannee, and blazee, and roundshave enny body that deth bet zey ay to tha. Tha wudst buy tha cot up to town rather than thy live ; bet tha hasn't tha whare- wey ; and tha wudst kiss tha yess o' George Hosegood, to ha' en ; bet tha hasn't tha why vor ay. Exmoor Scolding. 57 T. How ! ya mulligrub gurgin ? W. And thee art a long-hanjed blowmonger baarge vor telling me o' Neckle Halse, and tha square's bealy, and tha zess. T. And thee art a convounded trash vor telling me of an under bed-blonket, and o' pounding o' savin, and making caucheries and slotters wi't. Tha art a beagle, chun, pritch tha ! vor anether trick. Chad et in my meend, and zo chave still. But chawnt drow't out bevore tha begen'st agen, and than chell. W. Hiego ! Mrs. Hi-go-shit-a-beagle ! And hot are thee ? Tha wut drow, and hen, and slat, slat tha podgers, slat tha crock, slat tha keeve and tha jibb, bost tha cloam. Tha hast a most a stinned e'ry earthly theng in tha houze. Absently tha art bygaged. Ay ay, ont Margery was death the near vor tha. Her moort ha' vet et, nif zo be tha hadst net let her totee up, and do zo ort. T. Why thare low! Bygaged ! And hot dest thee do bet jest now reert ? Tha henst a long thy torn, tha wudst ha' bost en to shivers, nif chat net a vung en, and a pung'd en back agen. Than tha wut snappy, and than tha wut cunniflee,* and than tha wut bloggy.* W. And hot art thee ? A bracking mungrel, a skulking meazel ! And it a vore oil good vor nort bet scollee, avore tha art a hoazed* that tha cast scarce yeppy. Petha, dest thenk enny theng will goodee or vittee wi' enny zitch a trub as thee art, that dest net cary to zey thy praers ? bet wut strammee, and fibbee, and blazee, and bannee : And more an zo, wut coltee and riggee wi' enny trolubber thet comath athert tha. And whan tha dest zey men, 'tes bet whilst tha art scrubbing, hewstring, and riding abed. And, nif by gurt hap tha dest zey men at oil, thy marrabones shan't kneelee, thof tha cast ruckee well a-fine. 'Tes a marl if e'er tha comst to hewn only to zey men ; zence tha ne'er zest men, chell warndy, bet whan tha art half azlape, half dozy, or scrubbing o' thy scabbed yess, whan tha art a coal-varting abed, ya gurt lollipot ! Tha hasn't tha sense to stile thy own dressing. Vor why, et 'twul zet, arter tha, ether antle- beer* lick tha dorns of o door, or wotherwey twul zet along, or weewow, or oil a puckering. Tha zedst 'twos squelstring and whot while'er. Ad ! tha wut be mickled and a steeved wi' tha cold vore Tandra's Tide, chun, nif tha dest net buy tha a new whittle. T. Why, ya gurt kickhammer baggage ! thee art good vor no sauze. Thee wut net break tha cantle-bone o' thy t' other eend wi' cheuring chell warndy ; tha wut net take et zo vreache,* ya sauntering tro-ant! W. Higo ! sauntering tro-ant than ! Vor why vore dedst tell wone, than o' tha rexbush, and tha hey-pook, and tha zess ? T. And why vore dest thee drow vore zetch spalls to me ? Go, pey tha score vor tha lecker tha hast a had zo ort in thy teening bottle. There's a rumple, chun ! W. Nif tha young George Hosegood had a had tha, ha murt ha 58 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. bozed in a little time. Ha wud zoon ha' be' condiddled. It avore oil, avore voak, tha wut lustree, and towzee, and chewree, and bucklee, and tear, make wise, as passath : And out of zeert a spare toatle in enny keendest theng. T. Why, thare's odds betwe' sh ng and tearing wone's yess. Wone must net olweys be a boostering, must a ? But thee, thee wut steehoppy, and colty, and hobby, and riggy wi' enny kesson zoul : Oil vor whistering and pistering, and hoaling and halzening, or cuffing a tale. W. Ad ! tell me o' bobbing and rigging, chell vlee to tha kepp o' tha. [Pulls her poll. T. Oh ! oh ! mo-ather ! mo-ather ! murder ! Oh ! mo-ather ! Her hath a chuck'd ma wi' tha chingstey. Ees verly bleive es shall ne'er vet et. And nif 's don't vet et, looks zee, in a twelve month and a dey, cuzzen Kester Broom shall see tha a trest up o' ground. He shall zee tha zwinged, fath ! Enter the Old JULIAN MOREMAN. JULIAN. Labbe, labbe, soze, labbe, Gi' o'er, gi' o'er, Tamzen. And thee be olweys wother agging or veaking, gawing or sherking, blazing or racing, kerping. or speaking cutted, chittering or drawing vore o' spalls, purling or ghowering, yerring or chounting, taking owl o' wone theng or pip o' t'ather, chockling or pooching, ripping up or round-shaving wone t'ether, stivering or grizzeling, tacking or busking, aprill'd or a muggard, blogging or glumping, rearing or snapping, vrom candle-douting to candle-teening in tha yeaveling, gurt hap else. An Exmoor Vocabulary. [See Note 18.] [1746, //. 405-408.] On perusing those curious pieces the " Exmoor Courtship and Scolding" in your Magazine, I find several words mark'd with an asterisk, as wanting an explanation ; and having heretofore liv'd a good while within a few miles of the forest of Exmoor,* where that dialect is spoken, and heard a good deal of it, I well remember in what sense all those words are used ; which induc'd me to draw up the inclos'd Vocabulary, for the service of your readers in other parts, and perhaps it may afford some help to their understanding our old books. I have added several words that are not to be found either in the " Exmoor Scolding or Courtship " (tho' not less common in that quarter), and believe I could recollect as many more, if they would be acceptable. You will in this Vocabulary find all the words which you have mark'd, and you may depend on the truth of my ?** This forest is in Somersetshire, and iscall'd Exmoor, from the river Ex having there its rise. An Exmoor Vocabulary. 59 explanation of every one, except two, of which being in doubt, I have mark'd them with a Q. It may not be amiss to observe, that tho' it is called "A Devonshire Dialect," it is not the dialect of the whole county, and that it would be almost as unintelligible to the inhabitants of the southern parts of it, as to a citizen of London. Every county, doubtless, has its peculiar dialect, which among the vulgar, and those who are far remov'd from the more considerable towns, is generally barbarous enough ; and therefore Devonshire is no more to be ridicul'd on that account, than any other large county : For I dare affirm that there is as good English in general spoken in some parts of Devonshire, as in any part ot England. I can't help observing that the Transcriber of the " Exmoor Court- ship" has committed some blunders, having used the word thek in many places where an Exmoorian would have said that, and the v instead of/ etc. For tho' it be very common with them to change /into u, s into z, th into d, etc., yet there are a great many words in which they never make this change, as flash, fashion, fine, sea, soul, sad, sarrant (i.e. servant), third, and many others. It should be ob- served that they generally use to instead of at ; tse, ees, and ich for I; I cham, or 'chain for I am ; 'chell for I shall, etc., which was once the general mode of proper speaking throughout the kingdom, and may be found in many ancient English authors. I am, etc., DEVONIENSIS. A Vocabulary of the Exmoor Dialect, containing all such Words in the " Exmoor Scolding and Courtship," the Meaning of which does not appear by the Sense ; with the Addition of some others ; all accented on their proper Syllables, to show the Method of their Pronunciation (with Notes). Agest, or agdst, afraid. A'xwaddle, a dealer in ashes, and, Agging* murmuring, raising sometimes, one that tumbles in quarrels. them. 'Alkithole, a fool, a silly oaf. Azoon, anon. 'Allernbatch (probably of sElderp, Baggdged, or Bygdged, mad, be- elder, and Bosse, a botch), a witch'd. kind of botch or old sore. To Bank, to beat. A-furt, sullen. Banging, large, great. Aqubtt. See Quott. Bdrngun, a breaking out in small Art, eight. pimples, or pustles in the skin. Arteen, eighteen. Bdrra, or Barrow, a gelt pig. Avrbre, frosty. To the true Ben or Bend (possibly A'xen, ashes. of Bendan, Sax., to stretch out, * Egging, or igging-on, is an expression frequently used in most counties, per- haps to spur on, from aigu, Fr. a point of a spur, or needle. 60 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. to yield to), to the purpose, or sufficiently, to the utmost stretch. Bewhiver'd, lost to one's self, bewilder'd. Biird or Berd, bread. Slaking, crying 'till out of breath. Blazing, spreading abroad news. To Blbggy, to be sullen. Blbiinnaunger^ a fat blow-cheek'd person. Bbneshave (perhaps from bone spavin, a bony crust growing on a horse's heels, or the scratches), a kind of horny tumour. Q. [See Note 19.] Bbostering, labouring busily, so as to sweat. Bourm, yeest. Brdndires, a trivet. Brawn or Broan* a cleft of wood for the fire. Briss, dust. Broach, a spit, spindle. Buckard or Bucked (spoken of milk), soured by keeping too long in the milk-bucket, or by a foul bucket. Buldering (weather), sultry hot. Biirnish, to grow fat, or increase in bulk, look bright, rosy. Butt, a bee-butt, or hive. Cat-ham' d, fumbling, without dexterity. Cduchery, a medicinal composi- tion, or slop. Champ, a scuffle. Chdnnest, to challenge. Chaungeling, an idiot, one whom the fairies have chang'd. Chaunge, a shirt or shift. Chbckling, hectoring, scolding. Chbtmting, quarrelling. Chuer, a chare, or job of work. Clathing, clothes. Cldvel, a chimney-piece. Cloam, earthenware. Coad, unhealthy. Coajerz'eend (i.e. a cordwainer's end), a shoemaker's thread. Coander, a corner. Cbckleett (i.e., cock-light), day- break or (sometimes) the dusk of the evening. Cbd-glm>e, a thick glove without fingers, to handle turf. Condiddled, dispers'd. Cbnkabell, an icicle (in the Somer- set dialect Clinkabell). Copper-clouts, a kind of splatter dashes worn on the small of the leg. To Gotten, to beat one soundly. To Creem, to squeeze or press together. Creumting, grunting or complain- ing. Crock, a pot. Crmud, a violin. Crowdling, slow, dull, sickly. Crub or Croust, a crust of bread or cheese. Cuffing, expounding on (applied to a tale). Culvers, pigeons. Daps, likeness (the very daps of one, the exact likeness in shape or manners). Deard, hurried, frighten'd, stunn'd. Dem ! you slut ! Dimmet, the dusk of the evening. Dinder, thunder. Dinderex, a thunder-bolt. Dorns, doorposts. Dbreth, it thaws. * As a seam of braunds is a horse-load of billet -wood, a rick of braunds is a stack of wood cleft for the fire ; so weaken or elmen braunds means cak or elm billets. An Exmoor Vocabulary. 61 Dowl, the devil. Dreade, thread ) and in general Dree, three j all words be- ginning with ///, sound d in- stead thereof. To Drou, to dry. Drumbledrane,*. drone (or humble bee). Dubbed, blunt. Diiggedoi Duddfd, draggle-tail'd. Eart one, eart to'ther, now one, then the other. Eel-thing, or Ill-thing, St. An- thony's fire. Elcwn, eleven. E'-long, slanting. Elt, see lit. Ewte, to pour in. Fitchole, a polecat (fitcher or fitcher, in other counties). Foust, dirty. Full-stated, spoken of a leasehold estate that has three lives sub- sisting on it. Fustihiggs, a big-bon'd person. Gdllied, frighten'd. Gdllibagger, a bug-bear. Gdlliment, a great fright. Gdmmcrell, the small of the leg. G'and or Gender, go yonder. Gdnny, a turkey. Gdbimng, chiding. Gdpesnest, a raree show, a fine sight. Geed, gave. Ghdwerin'g or Jowering, quarrel- some. Ginged or Jinged, bewitch'd. Gint orjynt, joint. Girred, draggle-tail'd. Glam, a wound or sore. Glowing, staring. Glumping,s\i\\er\, or sour-looking. Griddle, a grid-iron. Grizzledemundy , a laughing fool, one that grins at every thing. Grizzling, laughing, smiling. Gubb, a pandar, or go-between. Gurt, great. Guttering, eating greedily (gutt- ling). Hdggage, a slattern. Hdlzening, predicting the worst that can happen. Hanje or Hange, the purtenance of any creature (in Somerset, lamb's head and purf nance, is the head, heart, liver, and lights). Hdntick, frantick. Hare, her, also us'd for She. Hdrrest, harvest. Hdwchanwuth, one that talks in- decently. Hdwthern, a kind of hitch, or pin, cut out in an erect board, to hang a coat on, or the like. To Henn, to throw. Hewstring, short-breath'd, wheez- ing. Hbrry, mouldy. Q. To Hoppy, to hop or caper. Hbzee, to be badly off. Hiickmuck, a little tiny fellow (thick, stubbed.) Hucksheens, the hocks or hams. Husking, shuffling and shrinking up ones' shoulders. Jacketawdd, an Ignis Fatuus. lit or Elt, a gelt sow. Kee, kine or cows. Kep, a cap. Kerping, carping, finding fault. Kittepacks, a kind of buskins. Labb, a blab. To Lackee, to be wanting from home. Lamps' d, lam'd or hurted. Lathing, invitation. Leech-way, the path in which the dead are carried to be buried. Leery, empty unloaden. 62 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Loblolly, an odd mixture of spoon- meat Lock / What ! Heyday ! Loff, low. Lbngcripple, a viper. Looze, a hog-fly. To Loustree, to work hard. Lowing, piling up one thing on another. To Lundge, to lean on any thing. Lymptwigg, a lapwing. Malls, the measles. Marl, a marvel, a wonder. Mass, acorns (mast). Mazd, mad, crazy (so a maz'd- man for madman). Mews, moss. Mm or Men, them, e.g., Put min up, i.e., Put them up. Moyle, a mule. To Moyley, to labour hard like a mule. Mitggard, sullen. Muggots, chitterlings, also a calf s pluck. To Mull, to pull and tumble one about. Mux, dirt. Neeald, a needle. Niddick, the nape of the neck. Ninniwatch, the longing desire or expectation of a thing. Nose-gigg, a toe-piece on a shoe. <9flZ7>, the eaves of a house. 0zw, material, important, e.g., I have an over errand to you. To take Owl, to take amiss. Ownty, empty. Pdddick, a toad. To Paddle, to tipple. Palching, patching or mending clothes. Palching, walking slowly. Pame, a christening blanket, a mantle. * A term for making holes in the Pdncrock, an earthen pan. Pdnking, panting. Pdrbeaking, fretful. Peek, a prong, or pitchfork. Pestle, or leg, of pork. Pilm, dust raised by the wind. To Ping, to push. Pingzwill, a boyl. To take Pip at a thing, to take it ill. Pistering, whispering. Pixy, a fairy. Pldsad, in a fine condition. To Plim, to swell or encrease in bulk, or to make any thing swell by beating. Plump, a pump. Pbdger, a platter or pewter dish. To Pbmster, to act the empirick. To Pbochce, to make mows at a person. Pook, a cock of hay. To Pbtee, to push with one's feet. Pritfd, sour'd. Prinked, well-dress'd, fine, neat. To Pritch,\.o check orwithstand.* Prbsets, buskins. Pung, push'd. Purting, or a-piirt, sullen. Putch, to hand up (pitch) sheaves or the like with a pitch-fork. Quelstring, hot, sultry (sweltry). Querking, grunting. Quott or Aquott, weary of eating; also sat down. Rabble-rote, a repetition of a long story, a tale of a tub. Ragrbwtering, playing at romps. Ranish, ravenous. Rathe (not rear, as Gay has it), early, soon, e.g., a leet rather, i.e., a little while ago, a little sooner (why do you op so rathe, or rise so early). To Ream, to stretch, leathers of cards to admit the wire. An Exmoor Vocabulary. Rearing, mocking by repeating another's words with disdain, or the like. Reart, right. Redrting, (i.e., righting), mending. Rexen, rushes. To Rey one's self, to dress one's self (array). Ripping one up, telling him all his faults. Riffling, wheazing (quasi rattling). Roundshaving, chiding exceed- ingly. Rumple, a large debt contracted by little and little. (Somer- setshire. 'Twill come to a rumple, or breaking, at last). To Scorse or Scoace, to exchange. Sewent or Suent, even, regular, all alike. Sheenstrads, splatterdashes. Sherking or Sharking, an eager desire to cheat or defraud another. To take a Shoard, to drink a cup too much. Shool, a shovel. To Shoort, to shift for a living. Siss, great fat woman. Skotch or Squotch, a notch. Slotter, nastiness. To Sou'l, to tumble one's clothes, to pull one about, etc. Spalls, chips, also things cast in one's teeth. Spare, slow. Spewring, a boarded partition. Sprey, spruce, ingenious. To Spi'idlee, to stir or spread a thing abroad. Squehtring, sultry. St'eehopping, playing the hobby- horse. Stewardly, like a good housewife. Steyan or Stean, an earthen pot, like a jar. To Stile or Stilee, to iron clothes. Stirrups, a kind of buskins, Strdmmer, a great lie. Strbaking, milking after a calf has suck'd. Stroil, strength and agility. A good Stubb, a large sum of money. Sture, a steer, also a dust raised. Stiffing, sobbing. Swill, to swallow down one's throat. Swillet, growing turf set on fire for manuring the land. Tdllet (i.e., top-loft), a hay loft. Tdnbaste or Tdnbase, scuffling, struggling. Taply or Tapely, early in the morning. Tatchy, peevish. Teaster, the canopy of a bed. Ted or Tet, to be order'd or per- mitted to do a thing, as / Ted go home, i.e., I am to go home. Terra, a turf. To Tervee, to struggle and tumble, to get free. Tetties (from Teats], breasts. Thek or Theckee or Thecka, this is (generally not always) us'd for That when it is a pronoun de- monstrative, but never when it is a pronoun relative, or a con- junction, in which cases Thctot Thate is the word us'd. Therle, gaunt, lean. To Thir, Thear, Der, Dear or Dere, to frighten, hurt, or strike dead. Tho, then, at that time. Thumping, great, huge. To Ting, to chide severely. Tbtle, a slow, lazy person. Tbtiing, slow, idle. Tourn, a spincing-wheel. ToToze, to pull abroad wool, etc. 64 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. Troant, a foolish fellow, and sometimes a lazy loiterer, a truant. Trolubber, a husbandman, a day- labourer. Trub^ a slut (not a little squat woman, as Bailey has it). Twine, pack thread. To Vang, to take or receive. To Vang to, to stand sponsor to a child. Veaking, fretfulness, peevishness. Vigging. See Potee. Vinnied, mouldy. Vinny, a scolding-bout. To Vit, to dress (meat, etc). Vitty, decent, handsome, well. Umber, number. Voor, a furrow. Vore, forth. To drow Vore, to twit one with a fault. Vore-days,or Voar-days,\sA.^\^ the day. Vore-reert, forth-right, without circumspection. Upaz'et, in perfection. Upzetting, a gossiping or christen- ing feast. Vung, receiv'd. Vull-stdtad. See Full-stated. Vurdin, a farthing. Vur-vore, far forth. Wdngery, flabby Wdshamauthe a blabb. Wdshbrew, flummery. Watsdil, a drinking-song on twelfth-day eve, throwing toast to the apple-trees in order to have a fruitful year ; which seems to be a reliclc of a heathen sacrifice to Pomona.* Wetherly, with rage and vio- lence. ijri. ' j ( a great blow Wherret , , T*n.> * j. j.-\ (perhaps a back- W/ ^^^( hand stroke). Whitwich, a pretended conjurer that discovers, and sells charms for witchcraft. Whbtjecomb, what d'ye call him. Whott, hot. Why-vore, or for IVhy vore, where fore. Wop, a wasp. Wraxling, wrestling. Ydllow heels or Yellou* boys, guineas. Yead, head. Yeaveling, evening. Yees, eyes. Yeevil, a dung-fork. Yerring, noisy. Yhvmors, embers, hot-ashes. Yeo, an ewe. Zcnnet, a week, a sev'night. Zess, a pile of sheaves in a barn. Zeiv, a sow. Zewnteen, seventeen. Zigg, urine. Zinnyla, son-in-law. Zivc, a scythe. Zbiverswopped, ill-natur'd. Zoivl, a plough. I could muster up many more words in this barbarous dialect, but ne quid nimis. DEVON. What is between hooks ( ), and the notes is an addition to the Vocabulary ; and we hope will not offend the author. Wassail, or Was-heil, to wish health. See Observat. on Macbeth, p. 41. Popular Names of Natural Objects. 65 Popular Names of Natural Objects. [1784, Part I I., pp. 505, 506.] Among many other impediments to the progress of Science, one is the different names the same thing passes under, not only in different kingdoms, but in different parts of the same kingdom. Your correspondent, R. B., p. 100, observes that Mr. D. Barrington, in his Miscellanies, has said that the Mountain Ash is not indigenous in the Southern counties, which mistake he fell into from not knowing that Quickbeam is the name commonly given to that tree in these parts. Many instances of similar mistakes have occurred to me. The writers of books on Natural History appear to me not to have been sufficiently careful to form a complete nomenclature of the animals, birds, fishes, insects, plants, and trees, which they describe, so as to enable their readers in different countries to know what object in nature their descriptions refer to. To remedy these defects, and the perplexities which result from them, people in different parts of the country ought to furnish lists of the names of things in those parts where they reside. To excite some of your correspondents to do this, I shall subjoin a few articles which have occured to me, to show the difference between names in Scotland and England. [See note 20.] The Mountain Ash, or Quickbeam, is with us [Montrose] the Rantry, or Roddan Tree. The red berries it produces are called Roddans. Concerning this tree there are various superstitions. The plant Sorrel, we call Sourrichs. Buttermilk, called Bladda, from the Gaelic Bladdach. The Lark is the Laverock or Larick. The Linnet, the Lintwhite. The Thrush, the Mavis, from the French Mauvais, a Thrush. The Magpye, the Pyot. The Chaffinch, the Shillfa. The Tomtit, the Oxeye. The Kite, the Gledd, from the Saxon Glidan, to glide, because this bird moves through long tracts of the air without shaking its wings. The Great Turn, I suppose, our Pictarney. The Arctic Gull is the Dirty Aulin. The Land-rail is the Corn-craik, from the noise it makes, by 7.0SO.I. The Fox is with us the Tod. The Toad, the Tedd. The Frog, the Paddock. The Weasel, I suppose, the Whitterit. The Mole, the Maudawort. The Crab, the Parton. 66 Lists of Local Words and Specimens of Dialect. The Periwinkle, the Wilk The Hollibut, the Turbot. The Turbot, the Bannock Flook. The Flounder, the Flook. Small differences are easily got over, as the fFraw for Wren, Pertrick for Partridge, etc. ; but I should be glad to see the English names corresponding to many other Scotch terms : thus of birds, the Bleucheret, Clocheret, Colhood, Sandy-larick and Havour Craws, Hoody-Craws and Corbies, correspond with the English Craws, Ravens, Royston Crows, etc. I do not know what animal answers to our Fumart,* and to several others. We have many droll names of insects, as the Cloc, King-Colin, Horngolach, Maggy-with-the-Mony- Feet, etc. Many of these names I conceive are derived from the northern languages, and from the Gaelic. The etymologies of some of them may be curious ; most of them are now used only by the vulgar, as the higher classes of people are daily adopting the language and manners of England. P.S. We call the House-spider, Etter-cap. In the Welsh it is Atyr- cop, i.e., the Top-insect, because it lodges near the roof. T. C. Montrose. * The -weasel we believe : though a learned friend suggests the polecat. EDITOR. Proverbs. 52 PRO VERBS. Witty and Seasonable Proverbs. [1748, A 21.] January. MANY papers were published this month, with regard to this subject of exporting corn to France; and the strongest reasons urged in favour of it were : i. If the K. of France can get corn from any other country to supply the magazines for his armies, our farmers should not lose so large a sum as a million. 2. If the K. of France ca'n get a supply only sufficient for his armies, by sending to all countries as he does, he will be able the better to recruit them, and sooner, as his poor subjects are in want of bread. On this occa- sion is quoted a politic stratagem of Lewis XIV. during the late war. It was a time of uncommon scarcity, and his armies having suffered in the preceding year greatly at the relief of Barcelona, the siege of Turin, and the battle of Ramellies, so great a nmber of recruits were wanting for the next campaign, that it was thought impossible to raise them. His majesty issued money, and sent ships to Egypt, Syria, Constantinople, etc., filled the public magazines, and while his generals were surprised that he issued no orders about levies, he only commanded them to take care that his soldiers should have plenty of bread, and to publish it everywhere that it was his majesty's strict orders. On this, the poor starving peasants ran everywhere to the officers, and listed so fast that, tho' they wanted 80,000 men, the army was filled up without any expense for levies, besides 20 new regiments by way of augmentation. This is a matter that ought undoubtedly to have great weight. But, on the other hand, as our fleets are now much superior, the French can scarcely be supposed able to procure a supply from Egypt or other parts by sea. And, therefore, the soldiers must want bread, be enfeebled and perish, if not relieved from England. On this supposition were published some witty Proverbs, as follows : 7o Proverbs. From the Daily Advertiser, Jan. 7. i. Hambre efrio entregan al hombre a su enemigo. Hunger and cold deliver a man to his enemy ; i.e., put him out of a capacity of defending himself. 2. El pan comido, la campanna desJieca. The bread being eaten, the company depart, or campaign breaks up ; i.e., no longer pipe, no longer dance. 3. Tomb ar par Jidmbre. To take a town by starving it ; a metaphor, to make advantage of a man's wants. 4. A pan duro diente agudo. A sharp tooth for hard bread ; or diamond must cut diamond. 5. A pbco pan tbmar primiero. When /////(? bread, cut first. 6. A quien & sbbrapan, no crie can. He that has not bread to spare, must not keep a <&. If a man has not enough for himself, he must not keep more mouths, 7. Tanto pan cdmo el purgar, torno el alma a su tugar. As much bread as a man's thumb restores his soul to its place ; that is, saves a man's life when he is starving. 8. For mucho pan nunca mal anno. Much corn never makes a bad year. [See note 2 1.] PEDRO PINEDA. From the Daily Advertiser, Jan 9. fas est 6 ab hoste doceri. We have proverbs as much to the purpose as the Spaniards. 1. Shut the stable door before the steed is stolen. 2. A man cannot live by the air. 3. The belly is not filled with fair words. 4. It is an ill sign to see a. fox lick a lamb. 5. The first point in hawking is Jwldfast. 6. Brag is a good dog, but hold-fast is a better. 7. This buying of bread undoes us. 8. There are more ways to kill a dog than hanging. 9. He that's down, down with him ; for I can't allow that 10. A French dog should be preferred to an English man, though it be asserted by the right honourable the lord , and should be offered to be proved by his valet de chambre, Monsieur Pimp. 11. He needs must go whom the devil drives. And then 12. Alts well that ends well. Yours, etc., J. RAY. Witty and Seasonable Proverbs. 71 From the Daily Advertiser, Jan. 13. Ny cheir gon y uwynog ondi groen. From a fox nought, scarce the skin. Splutter hur nails! what does the Spaniard mean? and the Saxoneig too ? Certe they must both give way to the antient Prittish. The Cymaracean tongue is ranked by all glottographers amongst the fourteen maternal and independent vernacular languages ; and for energy and sweetness yields to none. Read, 1. Dyn, derwen, a diwnrod. Whilst through all places thou dost roam, yet have thy eyes still toward home. 2. Can tin gwedi brummu. The bum-hole's shut when the fart's shot. 3. Anghew garw drud ai birch. Grim death will buy full dear. 4. Angen a dyrr ddeddf. Want cancels commands. 5. Gwell can muw ir cannyn nag un muw i undyn. Better die one, than die all ; or, better die one in a hundred, than a hundred for one. 6. Gwell duw, yn garnd lluy ddaiar. Better God's arm, than earth's army. 7. Gwell duw na dim. Better God than gold. 8. Nid caufau ar Iwynog. Not shut hole fast on fox. For 9. Nip twyll twyllo, twyllwr. To fox the fox, no foxing. 10. Pan yrrer y guyddel allan, infyd ydd heurir eifod. When the Kerne's turned out of door, they feign that he was mad before. The Gauls (now called French) came over by frequent transfreta- tions to be indoctrinated by us ; we are still willing to give them one more lesson, and we will give it in the modern Saxoneig, viz., Bread is the staff of life, and that staff wo. will not put out of our hands. [See note 22.] Yours, JAMES HOWELL, Cambro Britannus. Anglo-Saxon Proverb. [1836, Part I., p. 611.] On passing some time lately with Professor Schmeller of Munich, my attention was called by him to an ancient Saxon proverb quoted in an Epistle of Saint Boniface, which he had read in the third vol. of Pertz' " Thesaurus," just published. As it stood in Pertz, it ran thus : Oft daed lata domae for eldit si gi sitha gahuuem suuylt it fiana. A very old MS. copy of the same epistle in the Munich library, and, like that from which Pertz printed, written in Germany, gave the same, as follows : 72 Proverbs. Oft dsed latadom asfor eldit si gisitha gahuuem suuylt it j>iana. On translating this from its half-German half-Northumbrian dialect, into good plain West-Saxon (Anglo-Saxon), I arranged the lines as follows : Oft dsedlata dome foryldeS sigesfSa gehwaem : swylteS t5y' ana. " Oft doth the dilatory man with justice lose by his delay, in every successful undertaking : therefore he dieth lonely." As this was written by Saint Boniface, or, to call him by his Anglo- Saxon name, WinifriS, in the early half of the eighth century, it is one of the earliest pieces of Saxon poetry on record. It shares the character of the Saxon proverbs generally; viz., that of a solemn gnomic saying, treasured, probably, as a wise rule of life. WinfriS quotes it as well known, and therefore as earlier than his own period. On this account, it may, perhaps, be placed by the side of the verses cited by Beda in his last moments ; and on this account, it may, per- haps, interest some one or other of your readers. Yours, etc., J. M. KEMBLE. Greek Proverbs for Absurd Actions. [See note 23.] [1809, Part L, p. 428.] Permit me to send you a list of a few of the foolish and absurd actions mentioned by the Greeks, and used by them as a kind of proverbs, more than 2,000 years ago. Those of your readers that are well acquainted with the histories of modern times, and the colloquial language of this country, will be able to judge how far the nations of Europe have, by adopting these, approved of them. When the Greeks meant to say that a man was absurdly, foolishly, or improperly employed, they used to say : He ploughs the air ; He washes the Ethiopian ; He measures a twig ; He opens the door with an axe ; He demands tribute of the dead ; He holds the serpent by the tail ; He takes the bull by the horns ; He is making clothes for fishes ; He is teaching an old woman to dance ; He is teaching a pig to play on a flute ; He catches the wind with a net ; Greek Proverbs for Adsztrd Actions. 73 _ He changes a fly into an elephant ; He takes the spring from the year ; He is making ropes of sand ; He sprinkles incense on a dunghill ; He is ploughing a rock ; He is sowing on the sand ; He takes oil to extinguish the fire ; He chastises the dead ; He seeks water in the sea ; He puts a rope to the eye of a needle ; He is washing the crow ; He draws water with a sieve ; He gives straw to his dog, and bones to his ass ; He numbers the waves ; He paves the meadow; He paints the dead ; He seeks wool on an ass ; He digs the well at the river ; He puts a hat on a hen ; He runs against the point of a spear ; He is erecting broken ports ; He fans with a feather ; He strikes with a straw ; He cleaves the clouds ; He takes a spear to kill a fly ; He brings his machines after the war is over; He washes his sheep with scalding water ; He speaks of things more antient than chaos ; He roasts snow in a furnace ; He holds a looking-glass to a mole ; He is teaching iron to swim ; He is building a bridge over the sea, etc., etc. JAMES HALL. [1809, Part //.,/. 627.] We are much obliged to you for Mr. Hall's set of Proverbial Say- ings from the Greeks, p. 428. Erasmus, who has mentioned some of them, tells us, that when the Greeks meant to say that a man was use- lessly, foolishly, or improperly employed, they used to say : He is teaching a dog to bark ; He is teaching a bull to roar ; He is teaching a cock to crow ; He is teaching a serpent to hiss ; He is teaching a hen to chuck ; He is teaching a fish to bite ; 74 Proverbs. He is writing on the surface of the sea ; He is boiling a bone ; He is shaving an ass ; He is glueing chalk ; He is sounding the trumpet before the victory ; He is putting meat in a chamber-pot ; He is taking a post to kill a bee ; He is selling an ox to catch a hare ; He is doing what is done ; He is promising golden mountains : He is taking a hammer to spread a plaster ; He is seeking figs where only brambles grow ; He is taking a hair to draw a waggon. A NEW CORRESPONDENT. English Proverb Explained. [1754, A 415]- The late Mr. Ray, in his " English Proverbs, p. 256, very well explains the sense and meaning of the proverbial phrase " at latter Lammas," " ad Graecas calendas," says he, " i.e., never, kxtav qpiovos rtxtuti, cum muli pariant Herodot." But the question still recurs, how came "latter Lammas" to signify never? I answer, The first of August had a great variety of names amongst our ancestors : it was called " Festum Sancti Petri ad vincula," " Gula Augusti," " Peter-mass," and amongst the rest "Lammas." The two former of these names depend upon an old legend, which in Durantus runs thus ; " One Quirinus, a tribune, having a daughter that had a disease in her throat, she, by the order of Alexander, then Pope of Rome, and the sixth from St. Peter, sought for the chains with which St. Peter was bound at Rome, under Nero ; and having found them, she kissed them and was healed ; and Quirinus and his family were baptized." " Tune dictus Alexander Papa hoc festum in calendis Augusti celebrandum instituit, et in honorem beati Petri ecclesiam in urba fabricavit, ubi ipsa vincula reposuit, et ad vincula nominavit, et calendis Augusti dedicavit. In qua festivitate populus illic conveniens ipsa vincula hodieosculatur." Durant. " Rationale divin. Offic."lib. vii., p. 240.* The festival was instituted on occasion of finding the chains, and of the miracle wrought by them, and so was intitled " Festum Sancti Petri ad vincula /" and because the part upon which it was performed was the gula or throat, in process of time it came to be called " Gula Augusti." It took the name of Peter-mas partly from the Apostle, and partly, as I think, from its being the day when the Rome-scot or Peter- pence in ancient time (when that tribute was paid in this kingdom) * This legend is falsely represented by Dr. Cowel in his " Interpreter," vide " Gule of August." English Proverbs Explained. 75 was levied. The Confessor's law is very express . " The Peter penny ought to be demanded at the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul,* and to be levied at the feast called 'ad vincula'?"t " Eccles. Laws of Edward the Confessor," A.D. MLXIV. c. n. We come now to Lammas, of which there are two etymologies. The first is in Cowel : " Lammas day," says he, "is the first of August, so called, ' quasi Lamb-mas,' on which day the tenants that held lands of the cathedral church of York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad vincula,| were bound, by that tenure, to bring a living lamb into the church at high-mass." Cowel's " Interpreter." But this custom may seem too local to give occasion to so general a name, and therefore the etymon given us by Mr. Wheatly from Somner I would choose to prefer. These gentleman derive it from the Anglo-Saxon hlafmaessan that is, Loaf-mass, it having been the custom of the Saxons to offer that day, universally throughout the whole kingdom, an oblation of loaves, made of new wheat, as the first fruits of their new corn. It appears from many passages in the Saxon chronicle, that this name is of great antiquity ; in some of them there is the P prefixed, which shows it has no relation to the lamb, agnus ; and in others, as anno 913, 918, 921, and 1 1 01, 'tis expressly written hlafmessaan, and the learned editor and translator of the Saxon annals renders it everywhere very justly, by " Festum primitiarum." Now as to the point in hand, Lammas day was always a great day of accounts ; for in the payment of rents, etc., our ancestors distributed the year into four quarters, ending at Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas, and this was every whit as common as the present division of Lady-day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas. In regard to Lammas, besides it being one of the usual days of reckon- ing, it appears from the quotation taken above from the Confessor's laws, that it was the specific day whereon the Peter-pence, a tax very rigorously exacted, and the punctual payment of which was enforced under a penalty, by the law of St. Edward, was paid. In this view, then Lammas stands as a day of accounts, and " latter Lammas" will consequently signify the last day of accounts, or the day of doom, which, in effect, as to all payments of money, and in general, as to all worldly transactions whatever, is never. "Latter" here is used for "last," the comparative for the superlative, just as it is in a like case in the book of Job, xix. 25. " I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," meaning the last day. That the last day, or the " latter Lammas," as to all temporal * June 29. t Mr. Johnson says, King Offa chose this lime for the payment of the Peter- pence, because on this day the relicts of St. Alban the martyr were first discovered to him. This is not true ; 'tis dedicated to St. Peter, but not to St. Peter ad vincula. The feast of the dedication is Oct. i. See Mr. Drake's " Eboracum." 76 Proverbs. affairs, is indeed never, may be illustrated by the following story, A man at confession owned to his having stolen a sow and pigs. The father confessor exhorted him to restitution. The man said some were sold and some were killed ; but the priest, not satisfied with that, told him they would follow him to the day of judgment if he did not make restitution ; upon which the man replies quickly, " /'// restore 'em THEN," as much as to say, never. Yours, etc., G. P. An Old Proverb Illustrated from a Play in MS. [1788, Part //., pp. 770, 771.] Meeting the other day with a very pretty book, lately published, called " The Lounger " [see note 24], I observed Mrs. Bustle, in the description of her husband, says, among his other plans of alteration, "his dove-cote he pulled down, without regarding the old proverb which intimates the wife must die with it." This proverb I could not recollect, nor could I guess from whence it arose. But looking over some old papers, I saw a piece of a play in manuscript ; it was very much wore, and in some places scarcely legible. I think, however, I have made enough out of it to send you three speeches, which allude particularly to this subject. The first speaker, the husband, appears to be called MOROSO. What would I give, the three last years of life Could I recall, when happy I was free ? No woman e'er again should me persuade, Or tempt, bewitching for the /Eliad's charms, To engage in wedlock. The ruby lip, The ivory teeth, the jet black hair, and shape As finely turn'd as Venus, should ne'er more My thoughts seduce from freedom's flowery path, Or noose me to a woman. Why, these charms My wife possesses, and they tell me too Has virtue to preserve them : let that be ; I little prize the virtue that's in woman. Will she not smile on others, amble, corvet, And lisp ? Will she not when the dance Sprightly moves on, laugh, talk, and gay appear, Tho' I'm no partner ? This they virtue call, And this to married women they allow, And say the husband, who does take offence At this, is but a Dolt, a mere John Dolt, A Nicompope : how dare I then complain ? But sweet revenge I'll have, and secret too : An Old Proverb Illustrated from a Play in MS. 77 My dove-cote I'll pull down ; my wife will die, And I'll commence a fresh man o'er again. ( While he is speaking, enter the father BENEVOLUS, and the wife JULIA.) BENEVOLUS. What is this murmuring, son, which fills my house With pining discontent, and smuts the joys That white-rob'd Fortune has bestow'd upon me ? You shun my daughter. If by chance you meet With scowling eye, knit brow, and language harsh You wound her bosom : nay, if truth I hear, When warm with your companions, you traduce Her reputation, cruelly injure her fair fame, Than which no wife a fairer e'er deserv'd. Not purer to the eye should seem the galaxy, Than to your heart her virtues. Oh, my daughter, To me, and to my house, you e'er were kind. My grey hairs knew no sorrow, and my years Declin'd with comfort, till this testy gentleman, Proud of his titled birth made suit upon thee, Conquer'd thy easy nature, won thy heart, Which, skill-less how to prize, he'as cast away. But, Sir, insult me not : tho' I'm not noble, I'm honest ; and tho' time shews white upon me, I have an arm still able to resent My daughter's and my house's injury. My father was a merchant, high esteem'd ; His father was not less so ; and, I've heard, This grandsire's father was a man of honour. Thus, Sir, four ages have not yet debas'd The blood within these veins ; and merchandise, By which my country is kept high in riches, Can ne'er disgrace its practiser. Merchant's a name, An argosie fraught with integrity : And, should this fail, honour will, like Astrea, To heaven fly, and leave her Britain wretched. JULIA. My honour'd father, oh, my heart it grieves, To see you thus afflicted for your daughter : True what you say, from your bright conduct I Have nought receiv'd out what was just and right. And then, kind Sir, you had a consort, who Contributed with you to give me birth ; 78 Proverbs. And she, like you, had all the sense of honour Which piety can bestow, and Christian faith. From her I learnt, together with yourself, That all worth knowing my kind Saviour taught : Nor ever shall be learnt, or understood, Doctrines sublimer, or more useful, than His Gospel has bestow'd on all mankind ; They who receive them happy, unhappy They who dare reject them. My mother, Sir, Was gentle, pious, humble as a dove, Quite well her qualities I recollect, For twelve years while she liv'd I thought upon them : Nay, and my father, sure I am, array'd His own sweet countenance with benevolence, Ten times more brightened by the faith she bore. A Christian and a woman ! two characters Which man ne'er yet despis'd. Why should I fear, For I'm a Christian and a woman, this Testy husband ? If he goes, why let him ; I'll conquer his esteem ; and if his heart, Wayward, uneasy, cannot be recall'd, I'll fret not : let him go, let him pull down His dove-cote, if he pleases ; his poor dove Will fly on virtue's pinions unconfin'd. Yours, etc., L. B. Soon Ripe, Soon Rotten. [1756, /. 556.] There is a coarse proverb in England concerning the Spanish ladies which, in justice to the most amiable and useful of the sex, I must refute. The proverb is, " Soon ripe, soon rotten ;" intimating that the ladies of Spain are soon marriageable, and soon barren. They are indeed soon marriageable, but they bear children longer, perhaps, than any other women in the world.. A woman of fifty, with an infant sucking at her breast, is here a common sight, as common as a woman of forty, in the same situation, in England and Ireland. It is here common to see women that were married at thirteen, sur- rounded by ten or a dozen children, all of which they have suckled at their own breasts. Cuckoo Proverb. [1797, Part L t p. 456.] A Constant Reader wishes to remind those who wait for an oppor- tunity of endeavouring to keep a Cuckoo through the Winter, that Weather Proverbs. 79 this is the time for offering a reward to the neighbouring boys, who may thereby be induced to find and bring them at the proper age. Has it been observed that they stammer (or stuf, as it is called in the North of England), and are unusually clamorous in the month of June, as if mocking and vying with each other, previous to their general silence ? And are they not said to be hoarse during some period of their singing ? " As scabbed as a cuckoo " is a common saying in the North of England, as well as the following : Comes in mid March, Sings in mid April, Stuts in mid May, And in mid June* flies away. CURIOSO. Weather Proverbs. [1799, Part I., p. 203.] The present month of February, which has commenced in the midst of a whirlwind of driving snow, unequalled probably, even in the North of England, during the last twenty years, reminds me of an old adage " February fill dike, Either black or white ;" which, I apprehend, is generally known. But I am not certain that the following, applied to Candlemas-day, is equally notorious : " If the sun shines i' th' forenoon, Winter is not half done." Yesterday the sun certainly did shine through the frosty air upon a white world ; but we also know, that the genial warmth of his rays sometimes renders a forenoon in the beginning of February delightful to an invalid as an April morn. It is not possible then, that the latter maxim might be founded on the common observation, that a too early spring is usually succeeded by wintry weather? On the other hand, as an old adage must refer to old style, it may seem that the 22nd of January is rather too early for spring-like weather; and that it may signify only, that a clear sunshiny morning on the 22nd of January is likely to be followed by a continuation of settled frost, t Considering the word either in the first adage, may not the meaning of the second apply to either ? Yours, etc., UTRUM HORUM. * Old Style, f In the North of England usually called a if arm, however calm and pleasant. 8o Proverbs. Local Proverb. [1820, Part II., p. 326.] In the " Beauties of England and Wales," vol. i., p. 342, 1 observed the following : " According to the tradition which accompanies the quaint distich, " Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe, did go, For striking the Black Prince a blow." Those places were formerly in the possession of the Hampden family, but what degree of credit is to be attached to these lines we know not ; for the particulars of the circumstance to which they relate have eluded our inquiries." Tradition says, that Edward III. and his son, the Black Prince, once honoured Lord Hampden with a visit at his seat at Great Hampden, now Wendover, in Bucks, for many generations the pro- perty of this ancient family : and that whilst the Prince and his host were exercising themselves in feats of arms, a quarrel rose between them, in which Lord Hampden gave the Prince a blow on the face ; the King in consequence of this outrage, quitted the place in great wrath, and punished Lord Hampden's misbehaviour by seizing on some of his most valuable manors, which gave rise to the following impromptu by some of the court wits : " Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe, Hampden did forego, For striking of a blow, And glad he did escape so." Mr. Lysons, however, in his " Magna Britannia," adds, " This tradition, like many other of a like nature, will not bear the test of examination ; for it appears by record, that neither the manors of Tring, Wing, or Ivinghoe, ever were in the Hampden family. Yours, etc.. W. S. Season Proverbs. % [See note 25.] [1788, Part /., pp. 188, 189.] I have long threatened to trouble you with some of my grand- mother's saws ; for what we catch in our youth, we rarely lose. At the distance of nearly half a century, the tag of many a monkish rhyme still rings in my ears. Born and educated in a Northern county of England, and there- fore remote from the capital, their sayings, and their customs, which still savour much of Popish superstition, are not to be wondered at. Season Proverbs. 81 We have in Northumberland the following couplet, which gives name to every Sunday in Lent, except the first : Tid, and Mid, and Misera, Carling, Palm, and Good-pas-day. What the three first mean, or whether they mean anything, some of your correspondents may inform us. Pas-day is obviously an abbreviation of Pasque, the old French spelling for Easter. Pas-eggs are still, I am told, sent as presents for young folks in the Easter-holidays. They are merely the eggs of our domestic fowl boiled, and tinged of various hues, by adding to the water, when boiling, logwood, rose-leaves, the yellow blossoms of the whin or furze, or other dyes, and are written on, figured or orna- mented, by an oiled pencil, or any greasy matter, drawn lightly over the shell, before they are boiled, according to the boyish taste of the artist. A pecuniary present, at this season, has the same name given toil. Of the more social customs still kept up in this country, is this of, the Sunday fortnight before Easter, feasting together on Carlings,* which are choice grey-pease, of the preceding autumn, steeped in spring-water for twelve or fifteen hours, till they are soaked or mace- rated ; then laid on a sieve, in the open air, that they may be ex- ternally dry. Thus swelled, and enlarged to a considerable size, and on the verge of vegetating, they are put in an iron pot or otherwise, on a slow fire, and kept stirring. They will then parch, crack, and, as we provincially call it, bristle : when they begin to burst, they are ready to eat. On this memorable Sunday, the Carlings are everywhere regularly introduced among the genteeler sort, after dinner, faire la bonne louche to a glass of wine, as we would here a napkin of roasted chestnuts, to which they are no bad substitute, being in taste not ex- ceedingly unlike them. While the honest peasant resorts to the best home-brew'd, and there freely quaffs his Carling-groat in honour of the festival. [1788, p. 288.] In answer to your correspondent (p. 1 88), who desires an explanation of Tid, and Mid, and Misera, Carling, Palm, and Good-pas-day ; Tide, and fife, are words in common use in the North of England, sig- nifying soon, or quickly; and tider, or titter^ sooner or nearer. * I have endeavoured to find the etymology of the word Carling to little effect ; it can have nothing to do with the Carle- Carleing, or nuie-clmrle oi Minsheu. t When I was on a visit in Yorkshire, I found the family one morning employed in securing a swarm of bees, which had fixed on a high tree in the garden. A poor neighbour came in to assist, and the first words she spoke, I write exactly as 6 82 Proverbs. 11 The tider you come, the tider you'll go," [proverb] probably a cor- ruption of the hither. Tid, then, in this instance, means the first Sunday in the first line ; Mid, the middle of the first three ; of Misera, I can only suppose it to be the first word in some office appropriated to that day in the missal. Grey pease are called Cartings in some counties ; but whether the pease were denominated after the festival, or the festival after the pease, remains to be proved. Carting, or Careing, may be derived from carefully preserving and preparing the best pease for the purpose, or perhaps, Charing, or Charting, from parching the pease like charcoal ; or, lastly, if (as is asserted) this feast was instituted to commemorate the plucking the ears of corn by the disciples, might it not be taring Sunday ? an e and a c, when written, being very frequently not distinguishable ; and many mistakes have doubtless thus originated, and continued undetected. Palm requires no explanation ; and Good-pas-day is obviously either an abbreviation of Pasque, Paschal or Passover. Vails (as it is commonly pronounced), I conceive to have been originally the Latin Vale, as it is applied to farewell gifts to servants. R. P. Round about Revess. [1754, /. 426.] As you sometimes allow a place in your useful Magazine, for the explanation of proverbial sayings, peculiar to certain counties, I send you the following : Near Howden, in Yorkshire, when a person cannot easily come at a place, without going a great way about ; or, for want of a proper term, is forced to make use of several synoni- mous words ; or, in discourse, produces several arguments before he comes to the main point ; it is a common saying, that he is going " Round about Revess." This adage is undoubtedly taken from the abbey of Revess (or Rivaulx, in Latin, Rievallis, i.e., the valley thro' which the river Rye passes), now adorned with an agreeable variety of woods and water, but anciently, Locus horroris et vastce solitudinis. It is situate between Black Hamilton and Hemsley- Black-a-Moor, was founded by Walter Espec, in the year 1131, and is now in the possession of - Duncomb, Esq. [Lord Faversham]. The road to it is almost circular ; first, down a very steep and craggy mountain, where you must make several serpentine windings, before you reach the bottom and river, and then rising again, much in the same manner, on the opposite side, seeming sometimes to go directly she pronounced them; "Ya sed a cute doon t' bewss titter, and tok' em i' t' eeve." It is impossible, however, to describe on paper her accent, or the rapidity of her utterance, which rendered it still more unintelligible. " Does this woman speak English ?" whispered I to my friend. "Yes, "said he; "and her words are, ' You should have cut down the boughs titter [sooner], and taken them into the hive.' " Northern Proverbs. 83 to the place, and anon directly from it ; and to be sometimes on one side of it, and sometimes on another. This, sir, I presume, is ground enough for the propriety of our proverb. P. W. Northern Proverbs. [1754, p. 121.] From Erric-Brae-Foot we ascend for above a mile to the vertex, beyond which is a monstrous dungeon just by the roadside, called the " Beef-stand ;" at the bottom of this the river Annan has its source, and the nitch above it is called the " Nick of Annan-Head." Not above half a mile beyond is the source of the Tweed, and hard by that, a little westward, is the source of the Clyde. Of these the country people use this proverb : Tweed run, Annan won, Clyde fell down and broke its neck. Intimating this to be the starting-post of these three rivers in a wager for the sea. Tweed made great haste, as its course is rapid, but it had too far to go to reach the East Sea. Annan won, as its stage was the shortest to the Irish or South Sea, though its pace was slow, and Clyde made more haste than good speed by tumbling over a precipice a little below Lanark, in its course for the West Sea. At Tweed Cross the hill falls lower to Tweedy Brae Foot, and we coast Tweed to the " Beel," an inn by the highway. The landlord told me that the Marquis of Tweedale had entic'd him to dig, or howk as he call'd it, in some cumuli of stones hard by, assuring him he would find gold, which induc'd the man and his servants to throw off the stones 'till they came to an upright coffin ; this deterred him from proceeding, being prejudiced by a popular opinion in this country, and afraid of raising the plague ; but I have persuaded him to go on with it, and to dig up a place called the giant's grave near the same place, where he, doubtless, would be rewarded. I take all these to be the burying-places of the ancient Druides, or of heroes killed in battle, and should be glad to see them opened. The houses here have the fires in the midst of the floor, and the family sit all around, arguing like Hudibras, that in our practice all that rises in smoke is useless, which in their opinion helps to keep them warm. Powmood is a gentleman's seat : here secretary Murray was taken. Wr3 is an old ruin'd place, as is Drumailer on the opposite side of Tweed. The Broad-law is a very high and extended mountain ; it is enter- 62 84 Proverbs. taining to observe the variety of words for high hills in this country : Law, Dun, Cor, Heighth,Fell,,\.c.., are only so many different names for the same thing. This must be the mountain called Braid Alb in his- tory, from whence both seas may be seen, for it is described as in Tweedale, and Alb or Alp is an Irish name for heights. Broughton, near the seat of secretary Murray, is a paltry village ; beyond this we have a prospect into Clydes-Dale, a level country, except one very conspicuous eminence like a pyramid by itself in a large plain, called " Tintoc-Top." This mountain is equal to any in South Scotland, reckon'd from the base, and has passed into a proverb thus : On Tintoc-Top there is a mist, And in the mist there is a chest, And in the chest there is a cup, And in the cup there is a drop ; Take up the cup, suck out the drop, And set the cup on Tintoc-Top. These mountains are surprizing barometers to country people. The heights of Car-Donn, or rather Cor-Donn, are also very emi- nent, but beyond these the mountains are neither so high nor so frequent. A Peck of March Dust is Worth a King's Ransom. [i753. pp. 267, 268.] There is a proverbial saying in the midland countries of England, " A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransome," but whether it obtains in any other parts I am really no competent judge : however, it is grounded on experience, and a good geoponical reason may certainly be assigned for it, for a dry season at this time of the year, after the wet month of February, especially if we follow the new stile (and I believe the observation to have been very antient), makes the best seed-time of all lenten corn. The corn will grow, but how grew the expression ? A large sum no doubt is meant, but why a king's ransome ? This is something particular, and, as I take it, has its foundation in very high antiquity. K. Richard I.,"Cceur de Lion" had the misfortune in his return from the Holy Land to fall into the hands of the Emperor, Henry VI., who being of a very sordid and ungenerous disposition, impos'd upon him a very exorbitant ransome, to wit, 150,000 marks of silver, which amount to ; 2 91,000.* I thought myself obliged, in descanting upon this subject, to take some notice of this passage in our English history, but otherwise I am of opinion we must go a great deal farther back for the original of this proverb : A * Mr. Folkes's table of English silver coins, p. 6. A Peck of March Dust is Worth a Kings Ransom. 85 single fact could hardly give rise to it ; besides, this was entirely an arbitrary proceeding of the emperor's, consequently the sum fixed was accidental ; whereas our Adage seems to hint at something more certain, and in mid-England, at least, very well-known. In short, it seems to me to allude to the antient Wergild, of which we read so much in the Anglo-Saxon laws.* The custom was with these our ancestors, when any person was slain, to admit a payment in money by way of compensation, which payment was called the Wergild, and it was always proportioned to the quality of the person killed. A pecuniary mulct was allowed in other cases, as well as murder ; it was likewise varied in the business of murder, according to the circum- stances that attended it, but on these occasional variations I need not insist. Now, for this purpose, says Sir Henry Spelman, "aestimabantur omnes hominum classes ab ipso rege ad mancipium ipsum inclusive;"t and in Mercia, which included all the midland part of England, where, as I said, this proverb prevails, the estimation ran thus : the Churl's Wergild was rated at 200 shillings, the Thane's Wergild at 6 times as much, or 1,200 shillings, the King's Wergild at 6 times the Thane's, or 7,200 shillings, which, there being 60 shillings in the pound, amounted to i 20. And then it was added in the law, "Tan- turn est de Weregildo, sed pro dignitate regni debet addi tantundem in Cynegilde ipsam Weram debent habere Parentes ejus, et regni emenda- tionem ipsius terrse populus,"J by which I understand that twice thesum was to be pay'd, that is, double of the simple Wergild (for the Weres were sometimes doubled and trebled and a great deal more), one half of which the relations of the deceased were to have, and the other half was to go to the state or community. Thus the culprit redeemed his own life with a sum of money, " et posteri," says Sir H. Spelman, "si menon fallitconjectura,hancredemptionemvocantGallis et Anglis ransome," insomuch that by a " King's ransom," in the proverb is meant as much as was paid for the redemption of a man's life on occasion of the killing of a king, which was the highest mulct of this sort which our ancestors knew of, and which indeed amounted in those days to a very great sum. Mr. Urban, I know not whether such a paper as this will fall in with your design of collecting a Vol. of our Antiquities from your Magazines, but I cannot but declare myself a well wisher to that scheme, and am, Sir, Your most obedient, PAUL GEMSEGE. * Laws of ^Ethelbert, Hlotaire, and Eadric, etc., in Dr. Wilkins's edition. t Spelman's Gloss, v. Wera. Dr. Hicke's Dissert. Epist., p. no. Spelman's Gloss, v. Wera and Wergilda. 86 Proverbs. Lancashire Proverb. [1753, /. 120.] We have an old saying : He that marls sand, may buy land ; He that marls moss, suffers no loss ; But he that marls clay throws his money away. Proverbial Phrases. PROVERBIAL PHRASES. An't Please the Pigs. [1790, Part IL, p. 876] YOUR correspondent Indagator, p. 801, asks the derivation of "An't please the pigs." It is, with a very small change, the old Roman Catholic ejaculation " An it please the pix /" To the same purpose, R.B., who adds, "The Pix is the box in which the host was carried" [and G.S. in 1755, p. 115]. [1790, Part //., //. 1086, 1087.] I do not agree with K.A. and R.S., that the expression "an it please the pigs "is a corruption of "an it please the pix." The following account will, I trust, more satisfactorily answer the enquiry of your correspondent Indagator : There were formerly two eminent and rival schools in. London : St. Paul's, founded in the reign of King Stephen ; and St Anthony's established in 1213, by a grant of Henry III. to the brotherhood of St. Anthony of Vienna ; which latter was situate in the parish of St. Bennet Finke, Threadneedle-street. Many learned and dignified characters received their education at St. Anthony's. Among others, Sir Thomas Moore and Dr. Nicholas Heath, Lord Chancellors ; and Dr. John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed, this seminary generally presented better scholars than St. Paul's in the yearly disputations in grammar and other exercises, held, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, in the Church- yard of the priory of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield. This pre- eminence occasioned great animosity between the scholars on the different foundations, and proved the source of numberless broils whenever they met in the streets. The story of St. Anthony's preaching to ti\e pigs is too well-known to merit repetition here : it is sufficient to observe that this saint was 90 Proverbial Phrases. always figured with a pig following him ; and in consequence, the scholars of St. Paul's nick-named their rivals, St. Anthony's//?* ; who, in return, derided them with the appellation of St. Paul's pigeons, from the number of those birds bred in the spire of that cathedral. From this circumstance alone arose the saying of " an it please the pigs ;" for the scholars of St. Paul's having accustomed themselves, whenever they answered each other in the affirmative, to add thereto the expression in question, scoffingly insinuated, with a reserve of the approbation of their competitors of St. Anthony's, who claimed a superiority over them. To what extent the contagion of cant-words may spread, we have had various instances of late, in bore, twaddle, quoz, and other ridiculous expressions. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to presume that the repetition of this saying by the numerous scholars of St, Paul's in their respective families, strongly attracted the attention of the menial servants on account of its quaintness, and was by them dis- seminated to their companions, and the lower orders of society, among whom the saying at present principally prevails. Yours, etc., I. H. S. Bear the Bell. [1839, Part II., p, 330.] Pennant derives the phrase " to bear the bell " from the custom of giving a bell as the prize at running matches. A little golden bell was given at York as the reward of victory, in 1607. Pennant's Tours in Wales, vol. i., p. 257, edit. 1810. Cat in the Pan. [I7S4,//. 66, 67.] We have a proverbial saying current through the whole kingdom, peculiar I believe to this nation, of which the sense is generally well enough understood, but the reason and foundation of it is so greatly obscured by a corrupt pronunciation, that I presume they are known to few. The adage meant is " to turn cat i' th' pan," of which every- one knows the meaning, and probably has remarked many examples of it, but there being no connection between a cat and a pan, the rise of the phrase is very intricate, all owing, as I said, to a corruption of speech, for the word no doubt is cafe, which is an old word for a cake, or other aumalette, which, being usually fried, and consequently turned in the pan, does therefore very aptly express the changing of sides in politics or religion, or, as we otherwise say, "the turning one's coat." I will now produce some authorities for this word ; offer a conjec- ture concerning its etymon ; and then show, by a similar instance, the facility and probability of the corruption. Cat in the Pan. 91 When the cowherd's wife upbraids King Alfred in Speed, for letting the cake at the fire burn, the author observes, she little suspected him " to be the man that had been served with far more delicate cates " (Speed's " History," p. 386), here it signifies a cake, but in general it means any dainty or delicacy, as in the example following, and as Dr.' Littleton well notes when he latinizes it in his dictionary, cibi delicati. In the Moresco feast called Ashorah, Dr. Lancelot Addison tells us the Moors eat nothing but " dates, figs, parched corn, and all such natural cates as their substance can procure " (Addison's " Account of West Bar bary," p. 214). In Taylor's play, "The hog hath lost his pearl," Lightfoot says of King Croesus in the shades below, that he is there, " Feasting with Pluto and Proserpine Night after night with all delicious cates." Dodsley's " Old Plays," vol. iii., p. 227. So in Heywood's " Woman killed with kindness," Anne says : for from this sad hour, I never will, nor eat, nor drink, nor taste Of any cates that may preserve my life." Ibid. vol. iv., p. 139. In Lylie's " Euphues," Euphues say?, " be not dainty mouthed ; a fine taste noteth the fond appetites that Venus said her Adonis to have, who seeing him to take his chief delight in costly cates," etc. (Lylie's " Euphues," p. 242.) Here it apparently signifies delicacies, and indeed I take the word to be no other but the last syllable of the word delicate, for the last cited author, p. 356, uses the word delicate in the very same sense, when he speaks of the English ladies, " drinking of wine, yet moderately ; eating of delicates, yet but their ears full," and perhaps from this word cafe, comes to cater and a caterer ; which are both of them English, and not French terms. Now that this is the true original of this saying is very clear from a similar corruption in the word salt-cat. A salt-cat is a cake well impregnated with brine, and laid in a pigeon house, in order to tempt and entice the birds, who are exceedingly fond of it ; and cat, is here used for cate in the sense of a cake, just as it is in this proverbial saying which we are now explaining. I am, Sir, yours etc., PAUL GEMSEGE. [i 754, p. 172.] My author* gives the etymology of cat-in-pan mentioned in your magazine for February, p. 66, and of Topsy-turvy in that for March, p. 129, as follows: Catipan, to turn catipan, from a people called Catipani, in Calabria * See a book containing the derivation of English words. London : printed by E. H. and W. H., 1689. [See note 26.] 92 Proverbial Phrases. and Apulia, who got an ill name by reason of their perfidy; very falsely by us called cat-in-pan. Topsy Turvy, q. d. the tops of turves downwards ; metaphorically taken from gravers of turfs. [1796, Part II., pp. 1065, 1066.] I received an unexpected pleasure from seeing the celebrated song of "the Vicar of Bray" in your last Magazine. The example of this sensible vicar is exhibited to us with peculiar propriety in such a situation of affairs as we are now placed in ; and may probably be attended with beneficial effects, in a greater or less degree. Amidst revolutions in governments, and the struggles of contending parties for profit and power, what has a prudent priest to do, but be quiet during the uncertainty of the conflict, and, when the victory is decided, then to join the conquerors ? This line of conduct is what I design to pursue, it being my maxim (and I would recommend it to my brethren) to keep what I have, and get what I can. But this is not the purport of my writing. In the last stanza but one of the song, the line, which you print "My principles I chang'd once more," used, in the older editions, to be read "I turn'd my cat-a-pan once more." The late Dr. Miles Cowper, who had a knack at song-writing, and composed some popular things about the beginning of the American war, had a conjecture that the term cat-a-pan was a corruption of the text, and suspected that cat in pan was the true reading. At first view, this emendation seems plausible; but, with due deference to such authority, I presume to think the Doctor did not hit the nail on the head : for who ever heard of turning a cat, in a pan ? A custom in his own college might have helped him to a better solution. At Shrove-tide, when pancakes are a standing dish, the scholars, who chuse to try their dexterity at turning a pancake in the frying-pan in the college kitchen, pay a forfeit on their failure. This practice at once suggests the genuine reading, viz. " I turn'd my cake in pan once more." The gradation of corruption from the original purity is easy to be traced. The word keep, for brevity's sake, is often pronounced kep ; and give me is abridged to g?me : so also cake, in the rapidity of utter- ance, becomes cak. In this way, the expression cake in pan was transmuted into cak in pan, and thence, for the sake of more speedy delivery, was abbreviated to cak a pan ; just as we say six o'clock by way of dispatch, rather than take up time by pronouncing six of the clock at full length. The short sound of cake exciting the idea of that Cat. in the Pan. 93 substance which a darling child, who is introduced by its fond mother to be admired by the company, sometimes drops involuntarily on the carpet, while the visitors are obliged to hold their noses till it is removed ; the cant word cak was, in process of time, through delicacy, displaced for the unmeaning term cat ; the primitive reading, cake, being, by long disuse, entirely forgotten. This I apprehend to be the true state of the case. However, after all, it is not impossible but the term cat-a-pan might have been in the author's manuscript ; for, it cannot reasonably be supposed, that so ingenious a clerk as the vicar (who wrote the song, as appears from his speaking in the first person) should be ignorant of Greek. Cat-a-pan, when properly distinguished, is literally a Grecian phrase in English characters, as I shall instantly prove, if Mr. Urban will pardon the trouble I give him in looking for his Greek types. Kara (3pa%u is Greek for paulatim ; xara xa/goi/ for opportune ; and it is as clear as the day, that xara -rai/ is Greek for omninb, in English, entirely, thoroughly, etc. Now, after restoring one word, namely me which is the same in sound as my, and might easily be mistaken by the copyists, the line will run thus : / turrid me cat-a-pan once more ; that is, / turrid myself entirely ; or, according to your paraphrase, / chang'd my principles, as many other men do (and who can call it wrong ?) when it suits their interest to do so. Perhaps some of your correspondents, who are inclined to con- troversy, may give a different account of this matter. But, lest any of them should be desirous to appear bold by advancing to attack you, I hereby declare, that being of a peaceable disposition, I will never fight while I have power to run away. O. X. [1812, Part I., p. 228.] " As busy as the Devil in a high wind," is an adage of probably much greater antiquity than the legend of Saint Michael, and originated in the generally-received opinion of the Devil being the author of all mischief. The proverbial saying to turn cat in band has hitherto been " obscured by the corrupt pronunciation " Q{ pan for band ; and not- withstanding much reading and some ingenuity have been exhibited by your old Correspondent, in support of the text to turn cat in pan, yet the attempt to prove that cat is a corruption of cate, and that cate is "an old word for a cake or other omelette usually fried, and conse- quently turned in the pan," is very far from being satisfactory. Indeed, it is afterwards observed by the same respectable writer, that " cate is no other but the last syllable of the word delicate" and that cates signify delicacies. Shakspeare playfully gives precisely the same definition : 94 Proverbial Phrases. Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate-Hall, my super-dainty Kate, For dainties are all Gates Taming of the Shre'w. [Act. ii., Sc. I.] I am informed that the words cates and acates, perhaps from the French ac/tat, frequently occur in house accounts of the sixteenth century ; and uniformly distinguish, in such accounts, the provisions purchased, among which we may presume to class delicacies or dainties, from such as were the immediate produce of the farm. It does not then seem reasonable to infer that the adage in question has any relation to " cate or cake, or other omelette fried and turned in a pan." Proverbial sayings, generally speaking, took their rise from circum- stances and occurrences familiar to those in the lower stations of life; from common objects, and not from the habits or customs of the few in the higher ranks of society. How then is it probable that one of our most common sayings should allude to a practice, of which the great majority of mankind, in all ages, may with reason be supposed to be ignorant ? that is to say, the method of dressing certain delicacies for the tables of the great. " Give a dog an ill name and hang him," is another old saying and tends to shew, that before the invention of gunpowder, offending dogs as well as cats were customarily destroyed by suspension. Since the invention of gunpowder, another engine of destruction has superseded the cord or band ; and notwithstanding the practice of " shooting the cat"* is doubtless of high antiquity, yet the proverb now under discus- sion did evidently take its rise from the punishment inflicted by hanging, as a cat when suspended by the neck in a band twirls about, and from its rotary motion and gesticulation requires, it is said, more space when undergoing this operation of strangulation, than perhaps any other animal of the same size. Swing^ and hang are synonymous terms ; hence the origin of another old saying, serving to elucidate and confirm the true reading of the proverb in question ; speaking in derision of a place of small extent we say, "there is not room to swing a cat," meaning there is not room to hang a cat or for a cat to turn in band. JAMES DOWLAND. [1812, Part I., pp. 308, 309.] " Cat in the pan." An unknown Correspondent imagines, very naturally, that it is corrupted from " cate in the pan." These are the very words of Dr. Johnson (see his Dictionary) ; and they certainly allude to Paul Gemsege, i.e. Samuel Pegge : but, as Mr. Dowland seems to think that " much reading and some ingenuity " ought to give way to a deficiency of both, how far his pretensions should be supported is the subject of this paper. * See Grose's Dictionary. f Ibid. Cat in the Pan. 95 It is not my disposition to be witty ; and if anything I shall advance wears that complexion, I beg it may be considered as merely illustrative of the subject. Mr. Gemsege, your old Correspondent, tells us the meaning of cat i' th' pan is " the changing of sides in politics or religion ; that the turning of a cake in a pan very aptly expresses this, or, as we other- wise might say, turning one's coat ;" but Mr. Gemsege no where asserts, or intimates, that it requires a frequency or repetition of turning to constitute a cat in the pan, which Mr. Dowland's reasoning implies. Mr. Dowland says, a cat, when suspended by the neck in a band, twirls about ; and by his using the words " rotary motion," I should suppose him to mean a perpetual one to be necessary, con- necting with it the idea of overcoming the "nine lives of a cat" by suspension ; how he makes the gesticulation of the cat, or that of its taking up more space than perhaps any other animal during strangu- lation, to apply to the proverb " turn cat i' the pan," he has not explained. Though Mr. Dowland thinks lightly of much learning, I find he attends to as much of Mr. Gemsege's as he imagines will serve him- self, eruditely supporting it with a proof from Shakespeare. Here I wish Mr. Dowland had not lost sight of candour ; for this, with his saying that, " indeed it is afterwards observed by the same respectable writer, that cate is no other but the last syllable of the word delicate, and that cates signifies delicacies," leads the reader to believe that Mr. Gemsege has relinquished his assertion that cate means cake ; now that he has not done so, take it from his own words : " When the cowherd's wife upbraids King Alfred, in Speed, for letting the cake at the fire burn, the author observes, she little suspected him to be the man that had been served with more delicate cates (Speed's " History," p. 386). Here it signifies a cake, but in general it means any dainty or delicacy." Add to this the quotation from Dr. Johnson I started with ; for would the Doctor have said, " Imagines very naturally," if he had not understood cate in the pan to mean a cake ? But Mr. Dowland himself has proved that cates means cake, though he knows it not, for his quotation from Shakspeare, taken with his observations thereon, it is most certain acknowledges as much ; he says that delicacies, or dainties we may presume, come from the farm. Now we will apply this to his quotation from Shakspeare, and then ask if we can be otherwise than simpletons, if we do not believe the metaphor : " My super dainty Kate, For dainties are all Cates," to be a rich and most delicious cake ? We never, I am positive, can presume it to mean a sucking pig, or a fat goose, " the immediate produce of the farm." By a visit to the farm, we shall get acquainted 96 Proverbial Phrases. with a stranger Mr. Dowland has not thought fit to introduce to us ; I mean the salt-cat Mr. Gemsege speaks of, whom I understand to be a very worthy resident of the Pigeon-house, and well-known to all the people of the farm, so much so that the most illiterate plough-boy, belonging to the said farm, will tell you, in his own dialect, all about the salt-cat, just to the same meaning as Mr. Gemsege has done. Yours, etc., W. M. [1812, Part l. t p. 429.] Your old correspondent tells us the meaning of the words " Cat i' th' pan," " the changing of sides in politics or religion ;" and he tells us the meaning very rightly, but he does not himself understand how to make them out. Now I will explain them for him. The words should be written xara uav ; that is, in Latin, omnirib ; and in plain English, wholly, or altogether. Thus in the song of the " Vicar of Bray," the Vicar says, " I changed my principles xard uav," that is totally. J. M. [1813, Part I., pp. 627, 628.] However I may despise the gross misrepresentations contained in the letter signed W. M.,and lament the spirit of rancour and unmanly bitterness in which it is written ; however I may be blamed by those whose opinions claim respect from me for thus taking notice of an anonymous attack, as weak as it is calumnious, and manifesting a want of that spirit which should influence the actions of a good man; yet, feeling as I do, in the situation of one at the bar of the public, I must crave leave of you, Mr Urban, to be heard in my defence. In my endeavour to show that, in the saying " to turn cat in pan," the word/a is a corruption of band, every impartial and unprejudiced man will, I trust, acquit me of ill-manners and of want of candour, in citing your old correspondent, Paul Gemsege, whom I personally knew, and whose opinions I wished to treat with becoming respect. But, much as I am inclined to reverence " grey-headed doctrines," I must be allowed to preserve the liberty of my own judgment ; and as my faith is not so strong as to bear all the lumber thrown in its way, or so easy as to believe, without examination, all that is told, I claim the privilege of thinking for myself, and of sifting the opinions of other, even against a torrent of authorities, under the exalted names of that Colossus in Literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and that polite scholar and Antiquary, the late Rev. Dr. Samuel Pegge. If these literary characters were not infallible ; if, on the contrary, it can be shown that in tracing the origin of this proverbial saying, they have (mistak- ingly) perverted some words, and disagreed in the meaning of others; I shall stand protected by the rhyming adage : " When Doctors disagree, Disciples then are free." Cat in the Pan. 97 In vol. xxiv., pp. 66, 212 [See note 27] may be found all that Dr. Pegge, under the anagrammatical signature of Paul Gemsege, advanced in favour of the text " cat in pan ;" and I request such of your readers, Mr. Urban, as are in possession of the early volumes of the " Gentle- man's Magazine" to refer to his authorities, which I should be glad to give at length, were it consistent with the limits of your publication to allow such an indulgence. It is observed by Dr. Johnson that the word cates has no singular ;* indeed, there is not to be found in the English language such a word as cate; yet we are told by Mr. Gemsege " the word [cat] no doubt is cafe, which is another word for a cake or other aumalette !" This is a pretty round assertion, and, it is presumed, destitute of all authority. He takes " cate to be no other than the last syllable of the word delicate," giving a rather unlucky instance from Lilly, who, in his " Euphues," speaks of the English ladies " eating deleter. " Mr. Gemsege then observes, " perhaps from this word cate comes to cater, and a caterer ;" perhaps not ; cate being an airy nothing, and the mere child of imagination, cannot be the etymon of cater. Dr. Johnson says cater is from cates with the authority of Junius before him, who observes that the Dutch have kater in the same sense with our cater. Mr. Gemsege having deduced his favourite cate from delicate (the propriety of which he himself afterwards justly called in question, suggesting that cate might be from the French achat, a word signifying a purchase, bargain, buying, etc.), goes on, "that this is the true original of this saying is very clear from a similar corruption in the word saltcat ; a saltcat is a cake well impregnated with brine, and laid in a pigeon house in order to tempt and entice the birds," etc. Now really, Mr. Urban, & saltcat SQ enticingly described would almost lead one to suppose it to be " a rich and most delicious cake !" It is, however, no such thing. To support his hypothesis, Mr. Gemsege had recourse to a maze of words, and to ringing changes, as it were, upon cates, cate, and cat, to prove, if he could, that they all signify " a cake, or other aumalette ;" well knowing, that on failure of doing this, his explanation of the saying would fall to the ground, and that his cat, instead of being " in the fryingpan," would be " in the fire." His fondness for the non-entity cate, reminds me of a man, who having but one story, and that about a gun, would mistake any noise for the report of one, that he might introduce his story. Dr. Johnson's definition of saltcat is " a lump of salt," and in this neighbourhood a "saltcat is a misshapen mass of clay impregnated with brine, or generally with a less expensive saline ingredient : but in preparing it for use, it is neither baked or fried, and consequently as this cat * Notwithstanding this positive assertion by the Doctor, cate has most anoma- lously and feebly found its way into the late editions of his Dictionary, attended with a quotation from Shakespeare, proving its non-existence as a word. 7 98 Proverbial Phrases. is not turned in the pan, it cannot have any more relation to the saying than the owl and gridiron in the sign. " Cat in the pan," says Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, " is imagined by some to be rightly written catipan, as coming from ' Catipania.' An unknown Correspondent imagines, very naturally, that it is cor- rupted from cate in the pan." " Turning of the cat in the pan," taking the meaning from the Doctor's citation, " is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him." Our great Lexicographer certainly knew no more of the meaning of this saying than he did of the word pastern when he called it " the knee of an horse ;"* and how he came to assert that it was " naturally imagined" to be a corruption from cate in the pan, when cate is not to be found, as an authorized word, in his own or any other Dic- tionary, or work, in the English language, seems wonderful. Such slips as these ought, in charity, to be considered as the aberrations of a great mind, which could not bend to trifles as the objects of research. Whether Mr. Gemsege has made out a good case in favour of the saying " cat in pan," or I have succeeded in overturning it, by re- storing that which I think is the true text, namely, " cat in band," I appeal to the judgment of unbiased minds to decide ; and, willing to allow all men the liberty of their own sentiments, I shall take leave of this subject, after making a few observations on the letter signed W. M. In a manner the most gross and ungentlemanly, I am charged by W. M. with "seeming to think" that much reading and some in- genuity ought to give way to a deficiency of both of thinking lightly of much learning, and of want of candour. Whether these charges can be supported by what is advanced in my letter, must be deter- mined by other and better judges than W. M., who has wilfully per- verted my reasoning in support of cat in band, by making it referable to the corruption cat in pan. He makes me say that delicacies or dainties came from the farm ; whereas I classed delicacies or dainties among the purchased provisions, in contradistinction to such as were the produce of the farm. He then goes on misquoting, and lays upon my shoulders the luggage of his own ignorance, by asserting, that, without knowing it, I have proved, in citing the passage from Shakespeare, " dainties are all cates," that cates means cake ; and then, with great puerility, asks " if we can be otherwise than simpletons, if we do not believe this to be a rich and most delicious cake ?" The word cates, in Johnson's Dictionary, is thus defined : " Viands ; food ; dish of meat : generally employed to signify nice and luxurious food ;" and Shakespeare, in this passage, intended to designate that which is nice and luxurious : for by transposition we have the sense in this * See Dictionary, eel. 1755. Cat in the Pan. 99 sentence, all cates are dainties. To use the simple language of W. M., what " a simpleton " a man must be, to believe that Shakespeare here meant to convey the idea of " a rich and most delicious cake !" It is unquestionably proved, that there is no such word as cafe. If the saying took its rise from the plural word cafes, then, to be con- sistent, the advocates for the old should adopt a new reading ; and cats i' tK pan would be " illustrative of the subject," by proclaiming its own origin. Now, should these be living cats, and they would answer all the purposes of the saying as well as dead ones, a person prone to mischief (I will not say W. M.), would, " very naturally," be gratified with the employment of " turning " such velvet-footed delicacies, and be highly delighted with the discord which would doubt- less attend it. In phrase most singular we are told by W. M. that he " started with a quotation from Dr. Johnson ;" and before he has run the length of a decent distance, he insinuates that he intends to win in a canter, by enlightening the course he has to go over, with some flashes of illustrative wit. Not having any wit of my own, I do not pretend to judge of it in others ; but, I presume, the dreadful coruscation we were led to expect, lies in his observation upon the words " rotary motion," which were innocently used by me, in opposition to motion rectilinear : a word probably not in W. M.'s vocabulary, as he does not appear to have any practical knowledge of its meaning. Passing over a misquotation where he makes me say " cates signifies delicacies," I come to the last and dying flash of his illustrative wit, on being introduced, in language appropriately elegant to a saltcat " the salt-cat Mr. Gemsege speaks of, w/i0m," says W. M., "I understand to be a very worthy resident of the pigeon-house, and well known to all the people of the farm, so much so, that the most illiterate plough-boy will tell you, in his own dialect, all about the saltcat, just to the same meaning as Mr. Gemsege has done." This story " all about the salt- cat " is froth without ink, and too ridiculous for criticism ; the mean- ing of the word having been already explained, it is unnecessary to say more on that head, than merely to remark that W. M. has adopted the most infallible method to prevent the diffusion of knowledge, by setting up something in the room of it ; it being fair to conclude that were his friend, the " illiterate plough-boy," to declare, " in his own dialect," that the sun is no bigger than a cheese-vat, and that the moon is made of green-cheese, he would believe "all about it, just to the same meaning as the plough-boy," and propagate these ab- surdities. And now, having drawn back the curtain which has hitherto been spread over this subject, I shall take a final leave of it. If I am wrong, I shall acknowledge my error when I am better informed ; but I do not mean to seek for truth in troubled or muddy waters, or to reply to the scoffs or buffoonery of the rude or the ignorant. A 72 ioo Proverbial Phrases. well-dressed man may fight with a chimney-sweeper, and beat him ; but in the conflict his clothes might be so much daubed, and made to stink of soot, that the victory would but ill requite him for the disorder he would be put into. Yours, etc., JAMES DOWLAND. [1813, Part //.,//. 334-335-] Though it is so long since as your July Supplement, 1812, that Mr. Dowland's second letter appeared, there has no one stepped forward in vindication of the learned author of " Anonymiana," that staunch supporter of the Gentleman's Magazine, the once worthy and much respected Paul Gemsege. Permit me then, sir, again to address you in his behalf. I do not mean to enter into a full discussion of Mr. Dowland's letter ; that will appear presently unnecessary : indeed, any remark of mine you will think so ; and I shall only trouble you with one or two observations, out of many, to convince him that his arguments are assailable. You will recollect, Mr. Urban, that Mr. Pegge merely offered to explain the etymon of Cat-in-pan; he did not conceive any alteration of its name ; and in the support of its etymon, he brought forward several quotations, together with the salt-cat ; that Mr. D. not only disputed the aptness of these quotations, but set his face against the salt-cat and proposed Cat-in-band as the true reading ; and he instanced the ges- ticulation and " twirling rotary motion " of a suspended cat in a state of strangulation to make it pass muster ; but it is Mr. Pegge's salt-cat, which Mr. D. was so shy of introducing, that I wish the reader to be more acquainted with. A salt-cat, Mr. D. asserts, does not mean a salt cake, but he has not told us what it does mean ; thus leaving every one to his own conjecture: but my opinion is with Mr. Pegge, as cited by me, April, 1812, p. 309 ; and I hesitate not in pronouncing Mr. D. too hasty in his conclusion, in saying, because Dr. Johnson defines salt-cat a mis-shapen lump of clay, that it is merely so ; and I ask Mr. D. what else he would define a tallow cake made up of fat enveloped and congealed in the slaugh- tered animal's caul, than a lump of mis-shapen fat ? Mr. D. surely does not mean that a salt-cat is of the race of " velvet-footed " Gri- malkins ; for either, " alive or dead," I believe, the practice would not become very general to place the said Grim in a cote as a lure for pigeons : we should rather depend, it is reasonable to think, upon the mis-shapen lump of clay, impregnated as it always is with warm fragrant seeds, the cummin seed, and other comfortables, for that purpose ; and it must be delicious, though Mr. D. says it is not, to entice the pigeons from their usual food and homes ; but I confess, Mr. Urban, that I never tasted, not even the "'less expensive one." There is clearly an error, too, in Mr. D.'s proofs of a discrepancy of Cat in the Pan. 101 meaning in cafes and cat, as the corruption of cake; and it is re- markable that he should quote Dr. Johnson's authority, whose horse's pastern he ridicules, to countenance him in his error. Mr. D. says, Dr. Johnson defines cafes " viands, food ;" this is as much as to say, that cat, the corruption of cake, is not food : but bread, I do main- tain, is the staff of life ; and my housekeeper not unfrequently, in the doughy state of the loaf, reserves a bit of it for a homely cake, such as I suppose the cowherd's wife to have entertained her Royal guest with, after having shown the immortal Alfred much of her virago airs, for his inattention during the baking process. There is another passage in Mr. D.'s letter that I must request to allude to, as he has pledged himself to the publick. He says, " if I am wrong," meaning in the substitution of Cat-in-band for Cat-in-pan y " I will acknowledge my error when I am better informed." This information may be found in the following quotation from Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i., p. 193, from Edward's "Damon and Pithias," of the date 1571 : " Our fine Philosopher, our trimme learned elfe, Is gone to see as false a spie as himselfe, Damon smatters as well as he of craftie philosphie, And can toitrne Cat in the panne very prettily ; But Carisophus hath given him such a mightie checke As I think in the end will break his neck." In the last Magazine, p. 240 (Sept.), Mr. D. has given an authority from " The Nomenclator of Adrianus Junius, imprinted in 1585," upon the conviction that it is decisive of what it is meant to establish, " wine of one year." I too, upon the same conviction, have just given an older authority by fourteen years than his, to establish Cat- in-pan ; the like applies to both. I therefore, Mr. Urban, as one of that publick Mr. D. has pledged himself to, now call upon him to acknowledge his error. Yours, etc., W. M. Cock's Stride. [1759, P- 16.] The countryman has a method of making a guess at the lengthening or shortening of the days, concerning which he has a saying that I believe is very general all over England At New Year's tide They are lengthened a cock's stride. Everybody knows the meaning of this saying, to wit, that it intends to express the lengthening of the days in a small but perceptible degree; but very few, I imagine, are aware of the ground and occasion of it, which is the less to be wondered at, since there is something uncommon IO2 Proverbial Phrases. and seemingly improper in applying long measure, inches, and feet to time. But the countryman knows what he says, and as I take it, borrows his idea from hence : at the winter solstice he observes where the shadow of the upper lintel of his door falls at 12 o'clock, and makes a mark. At New Year's day, the sun being higher, when at the meridian, he finds the shadow is come nearer the door by four or five inches, which for rhime's sake he calls a cock's stride, and so by that he expresses the sensible increase of the day. Whereupon, sir, you will please to observe, that before the stile was altered, which was long after this saying came into use, the distance of time was greater by eleven days between the " solstice " and New Year's day than it is now ; and consequently, the difference as to the sun's altitude, or the length of the days at those two times, would be more perceptible than it is now. P. GEMSEGE. Cunning as Crowder. [1754, //. 211, 212.] Dr. Fuller died while he was writing that extensive work entitled the " History of the Worthies of England," for which reason, amongst others, that book is not so complete as one could wish. In some counties he has register^ the "proverbial sayings " peculiar to them, in others he has omitted them, and yet those counties no doubt afforded some, tho' the doctor could not recollect them. One saying we have in the northern parts, omitted by him, which is there very common, but perhaps wants some explanation ; it is this, " as cunning as Crowder." Now a crowd is a fiddle, and a crowder is a fiddler, both which words, to go no further, you will find in Dr. Littleton's dic- tionary. Hence crowdero is the fiddler in " Hudibras," Cant. II. But why as cunning as Crowder? I answer, we have two senses of the word cunning, one implying craft and subtilty, and often in an ill sense, and the other implying art and skill, and always in a good one. Hence cininj and coninj, rex t from Anglo-Saxon connen, scire. King is an abbreviation of curing, and imports prudens, sciens, or the knowing one, the first kings or monarchs among the Saxons being chosen into their office (which was not hereditary then) on account of their greater and more consummate knowledge in the administration of affairs, especially the military. But I observe that the word in this latter use was very commonly applied to skill or knowledge in music, of which I will here produce you an instance or two. i Sam. xvi. 16, 17, 18. " Seek out a man who is a cunning player upon an harp. And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants and said, Behold I haveseenason of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing," etc. i Chron. xxv. 7. " So the number of them, with their brethren Cunning as Crowder. 103 that were instructed in the songs of the Lord, even all that were cunning, was two hundred fourscore and eight." Psa. Iviii. 5. " Which will not hearken to the voice of the charmers, charming never so wisely." According to the margin, " be the charmer never so cunning /" whereupon, it must be observ'd, that this charming of serpents here alluded to was suppos'd to be effected by music. Psa. cxxxvii. 5. " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cun ning." This is spoken by King David, the same person who above, by the prophet Samuel, is styled a " cunning player on an harp," and by the late learned Mr. Johnson is very well paraphrased thus : " If I do not retain my natural affection for thee, O Jerusalem, the city of the living God, and the divine services which are there to be perform'd ; if I forget to perform my part in those solemn devo- tions, let my hand quite lose its skill in touching the harp." See also Bishop Patrick. In all these passages the substantive means skill, and the adjective skilful, but particularly in the science of music. To come then to the point ; I suppose there was a time formerly, when minstrels were so scarce, that it denoted great parts and great application to be able to play on a violin in these parts at least : To be as cunriiing as crowder, imported consequently a person of skill and abilites ; and if ever the phrase is us'd of craft and artifice, it is by catachresis, or an abuse of speech, as happens very commonly in language. I am, Sir, yours, etc., PAUL GEMSEGE, [i 754, p. 256.] Mr. Gemsege has given a very pretty account of the saying, " As cunning as Crowder" (see p. 211), it may be a true one; but the same saying in the N.W. part of England (perhaps not so ancient as his) came from the following story : " One Samuel Crowder, a carrier, was desired to bring a pound of tobacco for a neighbour ; accordingly he buys the tobacco, and packs it up in the mouth of a sack of salt, it being wet weather, and the salt moist, breaks through the paper in which the tobacco was contained, and next day, when Crowder and his wife were unpacking, to their great surprise, found the tobacco and some of the salt mixed together. His wife Mary made great lamentations to have so much tobacco and salt spoiled, which must certainly be paid for by them ; but Samuel, wondering at his wife's simplicity, told her he had thought of a method of separating them immediately, and ordered her to fetch a pail of water, which was done ; he then emptied the tobacco and salt into the water. " Now," says he to his wife, " there is a quick thought of mine, you fool ! you see all the tobacco swims at the top, and all the salt falls to the bottom." So when any person does not act quite so smart as they should, they are said to be " as cunning as Crowder." Yours, BRITTANICUS. IO4 Proverbial Phrases. Dab at Anything. [1767, pp. 441, 442.] Your correspondents have now and then entertained us with the explanation of an obscure phrase or proverb, and their attempts were generally well receiv'd. Some of your readers would be pleased with them, whilst others would be disposed to laugh, which come to the same thing, namely, the amusement of both parties, and consequently answered one purpose of your Magazine, which was to intermix the dulce with the utile. I propose, then, to endeavour here the explica- tion of one of our common phrases, of which everyone knows the meaning, and but few, as I take it, the original. 'Tis a common saying with us that a person is a "dab at such or such a thing," at music, for example, bowling, etc. ; and sometimes people will say, "he is dab," without naming in what, leaving you to supply that from the subject you happen to be talking upon. Now, all know that the sense and meaning of these expressions is that the party is one that is very expert in science, or at the exercise in question. How- ever, these expression are mere vulgarisms, are seldom met with in authors, and only find a place in our canting dictionaries. But, nevertheless, the word dab may possibly have a rational cause or origin, though to many it may be hard to investigate. This, then, is what I shall try to do. Now, as the word dab does not seem to be an old English one, that is neither deducible from the British or the Saxon, 'tis probably a corruption of some better and more legitimate term, and, as I think, of the word adept. An adept is a term peculiar to the Hermetic philosophy, being allotted to the consummate proficients in alchymy, of whom the principal were Ripley, Lully, Paracelsus, Helmont, etc. And Mr. Chambers tells us," That it is a sort of tradition among the alchymists that there are always twelve adepti ; and that their places are immediately supplied by others, whenever it pleases any of the fraternity to die, or transmigrate into some other place, where he may make use of his gold ; for that in this wicked world it will scarce pur- chase them a shirt." From thence the word came to be applied meta- phorically to other matters, and consequently to signify a person far advanced or perfect in anything ; and therefore it obtains exactly the same sense as a dab does ; wherefore I take this latter to be a vulgar corruption of the word adept, which is no other than the Latin adeptus. Just as that other expression, which we have in the north, a cute man, is an abbreviation of acute, or the Latin acutus, and signi- fies a person that is sharp, clever, neat ; or to use a more modern term, jemmy, according to the subject you may happen to be speaking of. Spice, again, is a word which we use in the sense of a jot, bit, small portion, or least mixture ; as when we say, there is no spice of evil in perfect goodness ; in which case it is the latter part of the French Drunk as David's Sow. 105 word espece, which was anciently adopted into our language in this very sense, as appears from these words of Caxton : " God's bounte is all pure wythout ony espece of evyll." Caxton's "Mirrour of the World," cap. i. Espece is formed, after the manner of the French, from the Latin species. T. Row. Drunk as David's Sow. [181 1, Part I., pp. 634,635.] CURIOSUS, vol. Ixxx., ii., p. 280, asks for the origin of the proverb, "As Drunk as David's Sow." He will find an account of it in the "British Apollo," 1711, vol. i., p. 572, of which the following is a copy : " David Lloyd, a Welshman, kept an ale-house in the town of Here- ford, and had a kind of monstrous sow, with six legs, which he showed to customers as a valuable rarity. This David's wife would often rise to make herself quite drunk, and then lie down to sleep an hour or two, that she might qualify herself for the performance of her business. But one day the house was full, and she could find no other place to sleep in but the hogsty, where her husband kept the sow above- named on clean straw ; so she very orderly went in, and fell asleep by her harmonious companion. But the sow no sooner found the door upon the jar, but out she slipt, and rambled to a considerable dis- tance from the yard, in joy for her deliverance. David had that day some relations come to see him, who had been against his marrying ; and, to give them an opinion of his prudent choice, he took occasion to inform them he was sorry that his wife was then abroad, because he would have had them seen her : ' For,' says David, ' surely never man was better matched, or met with a more quiet, sober wife than I am blest in.' They congratulated his good fortune, and were after a short time, desired by David to go and see the greatest wonder of e sow that ever had been heard of in the world. He led them to tha hogsty door, and opening it to its full wideness, the first thing they saw was, his good wife in such a posture and condition, as, upon her starting up and calling David husband, gave occasion for a hearty fit of laughter ;" and the proverb you have mentioned. Yours, etc., R. W. Eyes draw Straws. [1790, Part //., /. 978.] It is a current expression, in a great part of the kingdom, to say of a person, when his eyes are heavy and he is much inclined to sleep, that his eyes draw straws. I have never seen this phrase or mode of speaking explained, and therefore may venture, till a more plausible illustration of it is offered, to hazard a conjecture, as thus : when a person is disposed to doze, his eyelids do not draw up above a straw's io6 Proverbial Phrases. breadth before they close again ; so that the meaning and origin of this saying a saying founded, as you see, in Nature is that the person's eyes, meaning his eye-lids, open or draw up, not more than a straw's breadth, and is opposed to the wide and broad stare. L. K [1790, Part I I., p. 1185.] A correspondent, p. 978, has endeavoured to explain the meaning of the current and vulgar expression made use of to persons when inclined to sleep. It may be thought a trifling subject in your repository ; however, since it has appeared, we may as well endea- vour to throw a proper light thereon, particularly as your correspon- dent seems to be so much in the dark ; indeed, I have reason to fear he was never trusted with fire and candle when going to sleep, or he would not have attempted an explanation so wide of the mark. But I ask pardon for my familiarity; and (joking apart) will make him amends, if I can, by giving him and your readers a more plau- sible illustration. Let any one close his eyes nearly, and look at a candle placed at some distance : the rays of light will resemble straws, both in breadth and colour. The motion of the eyelids will appear to draw them from the luminary to which they are directed. Therefore those in- clined to sleep will consequently, if looking towards a candle, occasion their eyes to draw straws. Whence the vulgar saying. NIDITY NOD. [1790, Part 77. , p. 1185.] What L. E., p. 978, attempts to illustrate he really darkens; for he goes off from the eyes to the eyelids, which by the way do not draw up half a straw's breadth, at the time he speaks of, before they close again. The current expression, then, is not founded on nature. The meaning is nothing more than this : let any person at night, sitting before a fire or a candle, wink with his eyes ; the rays of light from the object, being broken by the hairs of the eyelash, will appear like straws. I recollect the phrase was used in London above sixty years ago : " Put the child to bed, for his eyes draw straws." This may serve, if you think proper, to fill such a corner in your useful repository, as you gave to your correspondent L. E. W. Keeling the Pot. [i76o,//. 169, 170.] At the end of a play of Shakespeare's entitled " Love's Labour's Lost," you may remember there is a song, which thus strongly cha- racterises winter : Keeling the Pot. 107 " When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail ; And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail ; When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit, to-who ; A merry note, While greasy Jone doth KEEL " When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marion's nose looks red and raw ; When roasted crabbs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit, to-who ; A merry note, While greasy Jone doth The whole is so highly descriptive, that I believe few of your readers have read it so often, as to be displeased at their having this occasion for reading it again. The design of my producing it at present is, that I may endeavour to trace out the etymology and signification of the word keel, about which the critics seem utterly at a loss. One of Shakespeare's Glossographers says, " Keel seems here to mean to drink so deep as to turn up the bottom of the pot, like turning up the keel of a ship." To say the best of this interpretation, it affords no emphasis nor propriety to the epithet given to Jone. Mr. Johnson explains the word from the Saxon ccelan, to cool ; but if this had been Shakespeare's meaning, he would probably have ex- pressed it by the more usual word cool. Besides, it is evident from the epithet greasy, that Jone appears in the office of cook, who would hardly be described as cooling the pot, but rather as endeavouring to make it boil ; neither of these, therefore, seems to be the true sense of the word ; and what other conjectures have been made concerning it, I have not at present an opportunity of inquiring. It appears to me, however, more than a conjecture, that what Shakespeare intended by this word, was to express the action of putting herbs into the pot, in order to make a kind of broth, or pottage, very common amongst our ancestors. Kele (Saxon, capl; Low Dutch, kool ; German, kohl) was, says Verstegan, the chief winter- wort for the service of the husbandman. For hence the month of February was called '"by the Saxons sprout-kele-mand (as it is now by the Hollanders, sprokkelmaand), because in that month the kele, cale, or cole-worts begin to sprout afresh. The Scots to this day, not only call their pot-herbs kale, the place where they grow a kale-yard, and the knife with which they cut them to a proper size before they put them into the pot a kale-gully ; but they also call the broth which is loS Proverbial Phrases. made with them kale. Now, supposing the word keel or kele to have signified the herbs which our ancestors used to put into their pottage, a verb formed from it would signify the applying those herbs to that purpose ; just as to salt, to water, to gravel, to sand, to clay, to manure to dirt, to colour, to paint, and the like, signify to apply salt, water, gravel, sand, etc., to their respective recipients. Keeling the pot in this sense of it would be properly a characteristic of Jone's cooking the broth, against Dick and Tom and the rest of them came in to supper. If you think these observations worth the notice of your readers, you may give them a place in your next Magazine. I know the mean- ing of a single word, tho' it be Shakespeare's is a matter of small importance ; but as I have endeavoured to explain this as briefly as I well could, the explanation I have given may possibly please some, and cannot reasonably give much offence to any. M. W. C. [1760, //. 218, 219.] Your correspondent's etymology, and signification, of the word keel, in your last Magazine, is, I acknowledge, very ingenious, and not so far fetched as is frequent in such attempts ; but I apprehend is not just. I beg leave, by your means, to inform him that Shake- speare's phrase of keeling the pot is in common use in this country, among the servant-maids and country-people ; insomuch that many would smile at one's ignorance in asking the meaning of it. " It means here no more than cooling the broth with the ladle, when the fire is so fierce as to endanger its boiling over." The term is applied in other instances too. In brewing, to keel the copper, when the wort is likely to boil over. To keel the wort, when it is exposed to cool in shallow vessels. To keel, therefore, as well as to cool, both undoubt- edly came from the old Anglo-Saxon word ccelan refrigerare. I pre- sume, therefore, that Mr. Johnson's etymology and signification should not be deviated from. The word keel fat occurs in Skinner's Etymo- logicon Linguae, Anglicanae, and is interpreted a vessel to cool the wort in ; and in Low Dutch the word keel vat has the same signification. See Ainsworth's Dictionary likewise, under the word keel. This ex- planation, too, I should imagine, would do more justice to Shake- speare's subject, than that of your correspondent ; to whom I hope this information will not be unentertaining, as I dare say he does not know that keeling the pot is at present a local term in common use. Yours, etc., T. A. Notwithstanding what your correspondent, in the last Magazine, says to the contrary, I am clearly of opinion (with Mr. Johnson) that Shakespeare, by the expression of KEEL the pot meant no other than COOL the pot, which is an expression still in use in some parts Mont ft s Mind to it. 109 of Yorkshire ; where I have frequently heard the good woman cry out, when it has been in danger of boiling over, " KEEL the pot" which is done by first taking part of the pottage out with a ladle, and then gradually pouring it into the pot again, which is thus effectually keeled or cooled ; a proper office for greasy Jone, in the character of a farmer's cook. This may suffice, I hope, to remove your correspondent's ob- jection to a most easy solution of an expression altogether local, and to which he may, for that very reason, be supposed a stranger. EBORACENCIS. Month's mind to it. [i 765,^. 137.] I dare say you have frequently heard it said by those who have a great desire to have or to do something, that they have a month's mind to it, and it is probable that neither you, nor any of your readers, can account for the expression. I am not sure that I can do it per- fectly myself; but I have something to communicate on the subject, that will perhaps afford entertainment, if not instruction. The following is an extract from the will of Thomas Windsor, Esq., which was dated in the year 1479 : " Item, I will that I have brennying at my burial and funeral service, four tapers and twenty-two torches of wax, every taper to conteyn the weight of ten pounds, and every torch sixteen pounds, which I will that twenty-four very poor men, and well disposed, shall hold, as well at the tyme of my burying as at my monethe's minde. " Item, I will that after my monethe's minde done, the said four tapers be delivered to the church-wardens, etc. " And that there be 100 children within the age of 16 years to be at my monethe's mind to say for my soul That against my monethe's mind the candles bren before the rude in the parish church. " Also, that at my monethe's mind my executors provide 20 priests to sing placebo, direge, etc." The monethe's mind mentioned in this extract was a service per- formed for the dead one month after their decease ; there were also week's mindes, and year's mindes, which were services for the dead performed at the end of a week and of a year. The word mind signified remembrance ; a month's mind was a remembrance after a month ; a year's mind a remembrance after a year. The phrase month's mind survived the custom of which it was the name, and the words being still remembered as coupled, when their original meaning was almost forgotten, it is, I think, easy to conceive that a person who had a strong desire to a thing, might, instead of saying I have a mind to it, say I have a month's mind to if, as meaning something more. Yours, etc., D. S. no Proverbial Phrases. Nine of Diamonds the Curse of Scotland. [1786, Part I., pp. 301, 302.] There is a common expression made use of at cards, which I have never heard any explanation of. I mean, the nine of diamonds being commonly called the " curse of Scotland." Looking lately over a book of heraldry, I found nine diamonds, or lozenges, conjoined, or, in the heraldic language, Gules, a cross of lozenges, to be the arms of Packer. Colonel Packer appears to have been one of the persons who was on the scaffold when Charles the First was beheaded, and afterwards commanded in Scotland, and is recorded to have acted in his com- mand with considerable severity. It is possible that his arms might, by a very easy metonymy, be called the curse of Scotland, and the nine of diamonds, at cards, being very similar in figure to them, might have ever since retained the appellation. Allusions in old writers to family arms are by no means unfrequent, Shakespeare's Plays, particularly his historical ones, are full of them. In the second part of Henry the Sixth, the Earl of Salisbury, and his son the Earl of Warwick, are called bears, from their crest. The Duke of York says : "Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,* That with the very shaking of their chains They may astonish these fell lurking curs : Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me." And afterwards old Clifford says to Earl Warwick : " Might I but know thee by thy house's badge," when Warwick replies : " Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest, The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff, This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet." I think the hint may be of some use, and perhaps lead to explain some passages in our antient writers, and some familiar (though un- intelligible) expressions that we frequently hear. Yours, etc., M. [1786, Part II., p. 538.] A correspondent, in your March Magazine, expressing a desire to know the origin of the nine of diamonds being called the " curse of Scotland," I beg leave to offer the following explanation, which I have been assured is the true : That the night before the battle of Cul- loden, the Duke of Cumberland thought proper to send orders to Nine of Diamonds the Curse of Scotland, 1 1 1 General (Campbell, I think, but am not quite certain) not to give quarter ; and this order, being despatched in much haste, happened to be written on a card, and that card the nine of diamonds ; from which time and circumstance it has gone by the appellation in question. [1786, PartIL,p. 538.] A well-wisher to the success of your Magazine observes a query put there, which has not been answered to his satisfaction, con- cerning the reason why the nine of diamonds is called the " curse of Scotland." The following answer to the question will, it is hoped, prove satisfactory. When the Duke of York (a little before his suc- cession to the crown) came to Scotland, he and his suite introduced a new game, there called " comet," where the ninth of diamonds is an important card.* The Scots who were to learn the game felt it to their cost ; and from that circumstance the ninth of diamonds was nick-named the "curse of Scotland." %* Another correspondent suggests that the nine of diamonds re- sembles the arms of the Dalrymples, and that Lord Stair (a famous hero of that family) was the curse of Scotland. [1786, Part II., p. 1 1 22.] Considering the little importance of the subject, a great deal has been offered in explanation of that common, though ungenteel custom of stigmatizing the nine of diamonds with the curse of Scotland. Nothing that has been advanced seems yet satisfactory ; and what is hazarded as a further conjecture, at p. 968 of your last Magazine, appears equally improbable with the rest. In a French treatise now before me, intituled " Academic Universelle des Jeux," printed at Paris, 1739, the game of comete is described at full length, with all the established laws and rules plainly laid down. One of these is to play with two whole packs : the first to contain all the red cards, the other the black. Each pack thus formed is to be used alternately ; the nine of diamonds being the red comete, and the nine of clubs the black. So there must be two comete cards ; these are placed among the cards of the contrary colour, to render them more distinguishable. By this method there will be two cometes moving in the same circle, and both equally liable to the curse of Scotland, according to the tra- dition of P. C. But this discovery throws a negative against his sup- position. Besides, I have been engaged many times in a party at this game abroad, where, to prevent trouble, one undivided common pack has served; and the nine of spades was then honoured with the figure of a comet painted thereon. "This game," says my French author, " is so called on account of the long sequence of cards which * By the rules of the game the nine of diamonds answers for any card whatever. H2 Proverbial Phrases. is frequently played. Comets being usually accompanied by a long train of light, known by the name of the Comet's Tail." OBSERVATOR. [1787, Part I., p. 130.] Give me leave to add one more conjecture concerning the nine of diamonds. The curse of Scotland must be something which that nation hate and detest ; but the Scots hold in the utmost detestation the Pope. At the game of Pope Joan the nine of diamonds is Pope ; therefore the nine of diamonds is the curse of Scotland. Q. E. D. [1789, Parti., p. 39.] The old saying of "curse of Scotland" was understood of the number nine in general, as alluding to nine kings of Scotland, who reigned tyrannically (some say successively); and diamonds being most emblematical of royalty, the appearance of the nine of that suit revived always the idea of the nine tyrants in the minds of card-players at any game ; and they naturally made the application. After the battle of Culloden, in 1746, the same card was usually called "the Duke of Cumberland." Old Maids leading Apes in Hell. [1798, Part I., p. 114.] I have often wished to discover the meaning of the saying of " old maids leading apes in hell," but can get no information ; but upon read- ing Hayley's " Essay on Old Maids," I found that the saying was invented by the monks to allure young women into the cloisters, tell- ing them that, if they were not connected to man or God, they must expect in a future state to be joined to some disgusting companions. This, I think, is the most probable. I shall be obliged to any of your correspondents to inform me the true meaning of this proverb, or where is the account of this being ascribed to the monks to be found. But the expression of leading apes does not appear to accord to this story in the " Essay on old Maids." REPANDUNUM. Old Nick. [i 777, / 439-] In page 119 of your present volume, we are told that " nobody has accounted for the Devil's having the name of Old Nick." Had your correspondent consulted Junius's " Etymologicum Anglicanum," he might have observed that Mr. Leye, the learned editor, had previously made use of " Olaus Wormius " for the explanation of that name. Dr. Zachary Gray has also accounted for the name in a note on Part 3, Canto i., verse 1314, of " Hudibras." [See note 28.] Ploughing with Dogs. 113 Ploughing with Dogs. [1795, Part I., p. 299.] Famed as your Miscellany in general is for everything useful and agreeable, and particularly for local and provincial terms, customs, and proverbs, I have often wondered never to have met with therein this old comparative North Country Proverb, " As bad as ploughing with dogs ;" which evidently originated from the farm-house ; for, when ploughmen (through necessity) have a new or awkward horse (sometimes more) taken into their team, by which they are hindered and hampered, D n it, they will say, " This is as bad as ploughing with dogs ;" this is in the field ; and also in the house, I have seen a friendly dame, winding a ravelled skain of thread or yarn, exclaim with a curse, " This is as bad as ploughing with dogs." And though economy would not let her loose the skain till her patience was re- covered, she would apply herself to other domestic business. This proverb in the country is so common, that it is applied to any- thing difficult or abstruse : even at a rubber at whist, I have heard the minor party execrate the business in these words, " This is as bad as ploughing with dogs :" give it up for lost, change chairs, cut for partners, and begin a new game. But, Mr. Urban, my present design is to explode this saying as obsolete, having no more occasion " to use this proverb, no not in Israel." For it requires only the same prudence to match and couple these creaturest hat is requisite for horses, oxen, or other cattle, to be of the same breed and size (and to match in colour will better please the eye) : then they will draw equal and well, and a word will be instead of whip and spur. And though this creature's service may not be wanted for the plough, while we have plenty of horses and oxen ; yet, Mr. Urban, you must have observed them drawing under carts to the market, and cheerfully exerting all their strength, sweating with open mouths to help their owners home with their meat ; which, when it is once arrived there, they; will not suffer any thief to purloin. I have sometimes seen two dogs yoked, one to each side of a barrow, draw regular and well, similar to ploughing ; their feet being tender, to prevent their being footsore, they should have some sort of shoeing, perhaps leather would be properest. A man who sells dog's meat, in St. George's Fields, has a Newfoundland dog, which draws before the wheel of the barrow (wheeled by the man) by two traces fastened to the head of it, who knows all the customers, and, if they do not notice his arrival, will bark till they come to the door. It is fabled, that when the Goddess Fidelity was lost from among men, after long searching, she was found in a dog-kennel.* * See Sir R. L'Estrange's/' Fables from the Italian of Boccace." H4 Proverbial Phrases. In short, sir, so tractable is the dog kind, that we are likely soon to see your little boys and girls, too small for riding ponies, taught to ride this creature with saddle and bridle, under the care of a servant who may say with Gay :* " Our dog, the truest of his kind, With gratitude inflames my mind ; I mark his true, his faithful way, And in my service copy Tray." Yours, etc., T. de B. P.S. You see, sir, I have confined myself to the useful qualities of this creature, and have not insisted on his politer ones of education, such as dancing and orthography ; the former they exhibit every day in the streets, dressed " a la mode de pet-en-1'air " and " a la mode de militaire." But they are likely to be outdone by the horses, which have begun to dance minuets in public, and are now under tuition of a dancing-master for cotillons and country-dances ! T. de B. Running a Muck. [1768, //. 283, 284.] We have an expression of doubtful and very obscure original ; it is the phrase " to run a muck." Mr. Johnson interprets it, " to run madly and attack all we meet " and he cites the authority of Mr. Dryden. The question is, whence the expression was borrowed, and what could give occasion to it ? I remember a gentleman who loved an etymology, observed that it probably came from "running to Mecca" in one of those expensive and tedious pilgrimages which the followers of Mohammed think themselves obliged once in their lives to under- take, as prescribed in the Koran. And in confirmation of this, he remarked, that to saunter, which is now a common English word, came at first from Saincte Terre : the Croisees running in an idle manner, and to the neglect of their affairs, under pretext of being engaged in expeditions to the Holy Land. The etymology of saunter is undoubtedly probable, and may be the truth; but if Mr. Johnson has given us the real sense of running a muck, in his interpretation of the phrase, as I suppose he has, the chargeable and expensive pilgrimages to Mecca do not seem to come up to it ; these imply only idleness and extravagance, which are not the ideas conveyed by running a muck, since this rather means running a riot, and assaulting people's persons with madness and fury, so as to endanger or take away their lives. I am, therefore, of opinion that this expression came to us from the island of Java, in the East Indies : Tavernier says certain Java lords, * Introduction to his Fables. Running a Muck. 1 1 5 on a particular occasion " called the English traitors, and drawing their poisoned daggers, cry'd a Mocca upon the English, killing a great number of them before they had time to put themselves into a posture of defence." Tavernier's "Voyages," [1678] ii., p. 202. Again, he tells us that a Bantamois, newly come from Mecca, was upon the design of moqua; that is, in their language, when the rascality of the Mahometans return from Mecca, they presently take their axe in their hands, which is a kind of poniard, the blade whereof is half poisoned, with which they run through the streets and kill all those which are not of the Maho- metan law, till they be killed themselves." Ibidem, p. 199. This seems to be an exact description of what we call running a muck, according to Mr. Johnson's sense of it ; and if the English did not bring the expression from the island of Java, the Hollanders might, and so it might come to us through their hands. Whereupon it may be pertinent to observe that the term mohawk came in like manner from North America to England ; by which we mean both those ruffians who infested the streets of London in the same cruel manner which the Mohawks, one of the six nations of Indians, might be supposed to do, as likewise the instrument employed by them in their assaults. Yours, etc., T. Row. P.S. As we know not the original of the word mocca or moqua, in the Javanese language, it is possible it may come from Mecca, since, as you observe, this town is mentioned along with it in the latter quotation above. But still it will not allude to the pilgrimage to that place merely as a pilgrimage, for this implies nothing of massacres and assassinations, but to the furious enthusiasm of certain zealots after their return from thence. The word assassin, that I may just mention it, is taken from the name of a people in Asia, just as mo- hawk is in North America, so that there is nothing wonderful in words coming from even the remotest countries ; but the word assas- sin, I may, perhaps, write you a line on a future occasion. [See post, p. 128.] [i 770, pp. 564, 565.-] One of your ingenious correspondents, who signs T. Row, some time ago, attempted to give us an account of the origin of the word a muck, or the phrase running a muck, but I have some reason to think he has not quite reached the mark, though he comes near it. The word is Indian, as he supposes, and is used particularly by the Malays, on the same occasion on which we use it, though the par- ticular meaning of it I do not know. The inhabitants of the islands to the eastward of Bengal, such as Sumatra, Borneo, Banco, and the coast of Malay, are very famous for cock-fighting, in which they carry gaming to a much greater excess than the customs of Europe 82 n6 Proverbial Phrases. can admit. They stake first their property, and when by repeated losses all their money and effects are gone, they stake their wives and children. If fortune still frowns, so that nothing is left, the losing gamester begins to chew, or eat what is called Bang, which I imagine to be the same as opium ; when it begins to operate he disfigures himself, and furnishes himself with such weapons as he can get, the more deadly the fitter for his purpose, and the effect of the opium increasing, as he intends it should, he at length becomes mad : this madness is of the furious kind, and when it seizes him he rushes forth, and kills whatever comes in his way, whether man or beast, friend or foe, and commits every outrage which may be expected from a person in such circumstances. This is what the Indians call amuck, or perhaps, as Mr. Row says, a mecca, and when it happens the neighbours rise, and combining together, hunt down and kill the wretched desperado, as they would any other furious or destruc- tive animal. Perhaps these particulars may excite some of your cor- respondents who are skilled in the languages of this part of the East, to give you still farther information on the subject. I am, Sir, yours, etc, A. B. The authority quoted from Dryden by Johnson very much favours this account of our Oriental correspondent, and probably gave T. Row the first hint of the word amuck being of Indian derivation, and it is therefore a pity that he did not cite it : " Frontless, and satire-proof he scours the streets, And runs an Indian muck at all he meets." Thus Johnson has printed it, but it may be questioned whether Indian is intended as an adjective to muck, or whether the words an Indian are parenthetical ; in either case it is printed wrong : if Indian is an adjective to muck, it should not have been printed with all capital letters ; if not, the word an as well as the word Indian should have been in the Roman character, and there should have been a comma both at runs and Indian ; thus : "And runs, an Indian, muck at all he meets." But in either case it shews that Dryden knew from what country the word was derived. By our present correspondent's account it seems probable that amuck means to do mischief frantickly. From the passage in Tavernier quoted by T. Row it seems to mean simply to kill by a sudden onset. We shall be much obliged to any of our distant or learned correspondents who will acquaint us with the literal meaning of the word. [See note 28.] Sixes and Sevens. 117 Sixes and Sevens. [1781, /. 367.] What is the origin of the phrase, " I found everything at sixes and sevens, as the old woman left her house?" [See note 29.] ADURFI. Spick and Span. [1755, /-ns-l " Spick and span new " is an expression the meaning of which is obvious, though the words want explanation, and which, I presume, are a corruption of the Italian, " Spiccata de la spanna," snatched from the hand ; " opus ablatum inendo," or, according to another expres- sion of our own, " fresh from the mint ;" in all which the same idea is conveyed by a different metaphor. It is well known that our language abounds with Italicisms, and it is probable the expression before us was coined when the English were as much bigoted to Italian fashions, as they are now to those of the French. There is another expression much used by the vulgar, wherein the sense and words are equally obscure. The expression I mean is, An't please the pigs, in which there is a peculiarity of dialect, a corruption of a word, and a common figure, called a metonymy. In the first place, an in the Midland Counties is used for {f ; and pigs is most assuredly a corruption of Pyx a vessel in which the host is kept in Roman Catholic countries. [See ante, p. 89.] In the last place, the vessel is substituted for the host itself, by an easy metonymy, in the same manner as when we speak of the sense of the house, we do not mean to ascribe sense to bricks and stones, but to a certain number of representatives. The expression means, therefore, no more than Deo volente, or, as it is translated into modern English by coachmen and carriers, God willing. G. S. [1790, Part IL, pp. 1194, 1195.] The etymology of words and odd sayings is sometimes very enter- taining : and as that subject is started in your magazine, I wish it may be continued ; and by way of a specimen, let me tell you, Mr. Urban, my opinion of Spick and span new. Says one antient Briton to another, " Is your spear new ?" " No, it is spike new ;" that is, he had got a new spike to his old spand (handle or haft). " Is yours new ?" says another. "No; but is spand new." "Is yours new?" "Yes, spick and spand new" Why do ladies help every stranger at their table in England and in no other country? Because no other country was so bountiful and generous as the English were, I will not say are: the word lady is a corruption from two Saxon words ; the lady of the manor was called the Le-day [hlaf-dige], that is, the bread-giver, which she served n8 Proverbial Phrases. to the poor at the mansion house gate, and, knowing the number of children each family contained, regulated her donations accordingly. [See/w/, p. 154.] When, therefore, her opulent neighbours were at her table, " My Le-day" said they, " be pleased to serve us with your own fair hands : shall the poor at the gate receive an honour denied to us ?" Had my lady refused, she would have made them look blue, that is, change colour, as the angry turkey-cock does, from red to blue : so they hum'd the lady to help them, as the milkmaid does the cow when she will not give down her milk without a song. But perhaps, Mr. Urban, you do not like to be both-eared or bothered with such stuff; almost everybody has a favourite word, which they bolt out every moment ; that is not extraordinary, but many sensible people who have retired have a saying (as a body may say}. I know a good old couple who never ask a neighbour how they do without adding in it and of it: and if they were asked the same question, they replied, "Pretty well in it and of it." Nay, even that worthy and respectable man, whose name is so honourably mentioned in your obituary of last month relative to Mr. Thicknesse, never spoke without adding and ditto: nay, I have a letter of his before me, in which he desires a dozen sheets of India paper may be sent him, and ditto ; yet he had as good a head as he had a heart ; his neighbours loved him : nor was he obliged to send his hounds into a neighbouring county because his neighbours would not let him keep them nearer home. [See note 30.] P. T. Thief in a Candle. [1809, Part I., p. 605.] As the following common phenomenon is almost continually pre- senting itself to observation during our social evenings in winter, I shall attempt, for the amusement of the female part of your readers, a solution of the same. It is well known that a small knot of cotton, or as it is more commonly called, a thief, will occasion such an in- creased flux of the tallow, as to produce a deep guttering in a burn- ing candle ; and it is not less certain that a slip of paper, or any other substance of an oblong form, about four or five inches by one, placed horizontally on the top of the candlestick, in an opposite direction, will almost instantly arrest the progress of the said thief, and prevent any subsequent effusion of the tallow. But, to form a more correct idea of the cause, perhaps it may be necessary to remark, that the air, being a fluid, will operate equally on every part of the candle, and that it no sooner comes in contact with a more rarified air than the equilibrium is destroyed, and a current ensues ; hence it is that the thief, exciting a greater absorption of the tallow to take place, the heat is increased on that side of the candle ; consequently the adjacent air becomes more rarified, and recedes from the impulse of the heavier Topsy Turvy. 1 1 9 air, which rushes in from the opposite side to occupy the vacuum, and thereby preserve the equilibrium ; and thus the current is ob- tained, which will continue in motion till the slip of paper, placed on the contrary side, opposes its progress upwards, by preventing a greater admission of the surrounding air than is sufficient to restore the equilibrium. Yours, etc., WILLIAM HUMPHRIES. Topsy-Turvy. [1783, Part II., f. 928.] When things are in confusion, they are said to be turned topsy- turvy. I apprehend this expression to be devised from the way in which turf cut for fuel is placed to dry on its being cut; the surface of the ground is pared off with the heath growing on it, and the heath is turned downward, and left some days in that state, that the earth may get dry before it is carried away. It means then top-side turf- way. [See note 31.] Trelawny " And shall Trelawny Die ?" [1827, Part II. , p. 409.] Since any trifle, indicative of public feeling and of public senti- ment at a time so interesting as that of the Revolution, cannot fail of being thought worth recording by many of your readers, I take the liberty of requesting that the following communication may be inserted in the Gentleman! s Magazine. DAVIES GILBERT. "AND SHALL TRELAWNY DIE?" The strong sensation excited throughout England by that decisive act of bigotry, tyranny, and imprudence, on the part of King James the Second, by which he committed the seven Bishops* to the Tower, was in no district more manifestly displayed than in Cornwall, notwith- standing the part taken by that county in the Civil war. This was, probably, in a great degree occasioned by sympathy with a most re- respected Cornish gentleman, then Bishop of Bristol, as appears from the following song, which is said to have resounded in every house, in every high-way, and in every street : * The Seven Bishops were : William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury ; consecrated 1678. William Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph ; consecrated 1680. Thomas Kenn, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; consecrated 1683. Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely ; consecrated 1683. John Lake, Bishop of Chichester ; consecrated 1682. Thomas White, Bishop of Peterborough ; consecrated 1685. Sir Jonathan Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol ; consecrated 1685 ; translated to Exeter in 1689 ; to Winchester in 1707 ; died 1721. I2O Proverbial Phrases. A good sword and a trusty hand, A merry heart and true \ King James's men shall understand What Cornish men can do. And have they fix'd the where and when ? And shall TRELAWNY die ? Then twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why ! Out spake the Captain brave and bold, A merry wight was he, Though London Tower were Michael's* hold, We'd set TRELAWNY free ! We'll cross the Tamar, land to land, The Severn is no stay ; And side to side, and hand in hand, And who shall bid us nay ? And when we come to London Wall, A pleasant sight to view, Come forth ! come forth ! ye cowards all ; Here are better men than you. TRELAWNY he's in keep and hold ; TRELAWNY he may die ! But twenty thousand Cornish bold Will know " The Reason Why." U. P. K. spells Goslings. [1791, Part L, p. 327.] " U. P. K. spells May goslings," is an expression used by boys at play, as an insult to the losing party. U. P. K. is up-pick, that is, up with your pin or peg, the mark of the goal. An additional punish- ment was thus : the winner made a hole in the ground with his heel, into which a peg about three inches long was driven, its top being below the surface ; the loser, with his hands tied behind him, was to pull it up with his teeth, the boys buffeting with their hats, and calling out, " Up pick, you May Gosling ;" or " U. P. K. Gosling in May." A May Gosling, on the first of May, is made with as much eagerness in the North of England, as an April noddy (noodle) or fool, on the first of April. In 1688, when James II. left the kingdom, a rising of the Roman Catholicks was expected in the South of Lancashire, when an order was issued, as said, by the Earl of Derby, for the men of the Northern * St. Michael's Mount. Wake. 121 parts, from sixteen to sixty years of age, to meet at Kirkby Lonsdale, a town on the borders of Lancashire and Westmorland, with a fort- night's provision, and with such armour as could be procured, on pain of being hanged up at their own doors : numbers came, but no enemy appearing, after staying their time, they departed. The follow- ing verse is yet remembered, and made on that occasion : In eighty-eight was Kirkby feight (fight), When ne'er a man was slain ; They eat their meat, and drank their drink, And so went yham (home) again. Why diamonds are called picks seems to be from the sharp points, picked or pointed, a pick being a tool, used in digging in stony ground, with two sharp points : hence hearts, clubs, spades, and picks. W. Wake. [1771, / 351-1 As the expression lately used in the papers in an article from Ireland concerning a girl who was killed by lightning, viz., "that she could not be waked within doors " (after she was dead) seems unin- telligible to most readers, it may be proper to mention, that it alludes to a custom among the Irish of dressing their dead in their best cloaths to receive as many visitors as please to see them ; and this is called keeping their wake. The corpse of this girl, it seems, was so offensive that this ceremony could not be performed. [NOTE. There are two pages numbered 351 in this volume.] W. G. Wine of One Ear. [1812, Part I., p. 38.] In "Rabelais' Works," by Ozell, 1750, vol. i., p. 154, occurs this note : " Wine of one ear. A proverbial expression for excellent good wine. In some parts of Leicestershire and elsewhere, speaking of good ale, ale of one ear ; bad ale, ale of two ears. Because when it is good, we give a nod with one ear ; if bad, we shake our head, that is, give a sign with both ears that we don't like it." Not having met with this proverbial expression in any other writer, I should be glad to know to what county it is properly to be appro- priated. H. [1832, Part I., p. 239.] Your Correspondent H. cites a proverbial expression from Rabe- lais' works by Ozell, " Wine of one ear," and solicits an explanation of it. I apprehend that he mistakes in supposing this to be an 122 Proverbial Phrases. English proverbial expression, and that it is derived from the French, though erroneously translated, who have this proverb, which they apply to anything that is crude, immature, "Vin d'une Anne." From which it appears that it should be "wine of one year," and not of "one ear/' wine of only one year old, or new wine, not being in estimation. [See note 32.] Yours, etc., R. E. R. As the Devil loves Apple-Dumplings. [1858, Part //.,/. 401.] This is a not uncommon saying, but to all appearance a very silly one. About a century and a quarter ago it was the custom to give the students of certain colleges at Oxford Hart Hall, for example ; Oxford men will forgive the apparent misnomer nothing but apple- dumplings for their dinner on fast-days ; every Friday, for example. The flesh rebelling against such unsubstantial diet, a proverbial saying may have thence arose to the effect that the devil was no lover of apple-dumplings. That the students complained bitterly of Dr. New- ton's apple-dumplings, there is no doubt, printed authority being still in existence to that effect [1772, / 529-] [The following is quoted at the above reference from a review of a play, The Irish Widow, then just published, and performed at Drury Lane.] Wife a mouse, Quiet house ; Wife a cat, Dreadful that. Special Words. SPECIAL WORDS. Apple of the Eye. [1833, Parti., pp. 30, 31.] VARIOUS unsatisfactory attempts have been made, in Boucher's " Glossary of Archaisms," to give a rational derivation of the Biblical expression, the " apple of the eye." The fact is, that apple, a corruption of the Teutonic ap-fel, i.e., ^fall-from, where the German ap is the same as the Latin ab, and Greek aero (apo\ never had nor could have anything to do with the eye ; and therefore the origin of the word must be sought for elsewhere. Now it does so happen that in the Coptic language bal means the ball of the eye. Hence apple would only be a corruption of al-bal where al, the definite article, has been united to the noun, as in Al- chemist, Al-coran, Al-magist, and Al-manach, with all of which we are accustomed to repeat the article, when speaking of the Alchemist, the Alcoran, the Almagist, and the Almanach ; and thus the apple would be only another example of the repetition of the definite article the al-bal, of which the Latin orb-is is a still greater corruption. Of the Coptic Bal, the radical consonants are BL, which, by the insertion of the five vowels a, e, i, o, u, have given rise to an infinity of words in various languages, all referable to some property of the eye. Aroint. [1832, Part IL,pp. 594, S9S-] Your learned Correspondent, in p. 228, has attempted to elucidate and explain the word aroint, in Shakespeare. Although he refers to Boucher's " Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words," to Wil- braham's " Cheshire Glossary," and to Collier's " Lancashire Dialect," he appears still dissatisfied with the etymology of the word. He thinks it probable that ronyan may be French or Italian ; but that it is by no means evident that the word aroint has the same derivation. 126 Special Words. I refer your correspondent to the Rev. Wra. Carr's second edition of the " Craven Glossary," from which it appears that in that district of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the mountain ash, the sorbus aneuparia of Linnaeus, was called royan tree, and was supposed by the inhabi- tants to have wonderful efficacy in depriving witches of their infernal power. The learned editor of Boucher's " Glossary " calls aroint an interjection ; but in the " Craven Glossary," the royntree (of which aroint may be supposed a corruption) conveys the sense of a trium- phant exclamation. As your correspondent may not have seen the second edition of the " Craven Glossary," I will extract for his infor- mation the whole of the reverend author's remarks on the word royntree, which, in my judgment, forcibly elucidate the meaning of the word aroint : Royntree, Roantree, Rowantree^ Rantree, Wicken, Wigan, Wibele Hazel : Mountain Ash, sorbus aneuparia , Linn. Dan. Roune. Thompson, in his Etymons, says that the word aroynt signifies reprobation, from Gothic raun ; a tree of wonderful efficacy in depriv- ing witches of their infernal power ; and she was accounted a very thoughtless house-wife who had not the precaution to provide a churn- staff made of this precious wood. When thus guarded, no witch, however presumptuous, had the audacity to enter. Sometimes a small piece of it was suspended from the button-hole, which had no less efficacy in defending the traveller. May not the sailor's wife, in Macbeth, have confided in the divine aid of this tree when she triumphantly exclaimed, " aroynt thee !" alias, " a royntree ! With the supernatural aid of this," pointing, it may be supposed at the royntree in her hand, " I defy thy infernal power." The event evidently proved her security ; for the witch, having no power over her, so com- pletely protected, indignantly and spitefully resolves to persecute her inoffensive, though unguarded husband on his voyage to Aleppo. Mr. Wilbraham, in his " Cheshire Glossary," says, " Possibly aroynt owes its origin to the old adverb arowme, found in Promptorium Parvulorum Clericorum [see note 33] ; and there explained by remote seorsum, or from ryman, or reunean, A.-S., to get out of the way "Rym thysummen sell, give this man place." "Saxon Gospels," Luke xiv. 9. It was said two hogsheads full of money were concealed in a sub- terraneous vault at Penyard Castle, in Herefordshire. A farmer took twenty steers to draw down the iron doors of the vault. When the door was opened, a crow or a jackdaw was seen perched on one of the casks ; as the door was opening, the farmer exclaimed, " I believe I shall have it." Whereupon the door immediately closed, and a voice without exclaimed " If it had not been for your quicken-tree goad and your yew-tree pin, You and your cattle had all been drawn in." Aroint. 127 This story has some resemblance to the curious nonsense concern- ing a cave and a cock, related in Dugdale's "Warwickshire," p. 619, ed. i, because the prophylactic properties of the quicken- tree (moun- tain ash) shew an incorporation with Druidical superstition ; for we believe these ancient personages were accustomed to delude the people with wonders. In the song of the Laidley Worm, in "Northum- berland Garland," p. 63, we read " The spells were vain, the Hag returns To the Queen in sorrowful mood, Crying that witches have no power Where there is rown-tree wood !" Brand's "Pop. Ant." vol. ii., p. 370. " I go to Mother Nicneran's," answered the maid ; " and she is witch enough to rein the horned devil, with a red silk for a bridle, and a rowan-tree switch for a whip." Abbot. " In my plume is seen the holly green, With the leaves of the rown-tree." " Minst. of S. B.," vol. iii., p. 290. Not long ago, as a sagacious farmer in my neighbourhood was driving his plough, the horses instantaneously became restive. The whip was most rigorously applied without any effect whatever upon the horses, which still continued motionless. The farmer very fortunately cast his eyes on a wicken-tree, which was growing in the adjoining hedge ; he speedily cut from it a twig, when lo ! the most gentle application of this divine plant broke the witches' infernal spell, and caused the horses to proceed quietly with their accustomed toils ! Credat Judeas ! " Wi rown-tree weel fenced about, We're seafe frae every evil ; For weel I ken that wood has power To scar away the deevil." Stag's " Poems." [See note 34.] "And money a panting heart was there That bode full bitter picks, For tho' wi witch-wood weard yet weel, They kend auld Hornie's tricks." " The Panic," Idem. This species of superstition which, in England and Scotland, attaches to the rown-tree, Bishop Heber, in his Journal, informs us, is paid by the Indians to a species of mimosa, the leaves of which so much resemble the mountain ash. " Though it did not bear fruit the natives observed it was a noble tree, being called the ' Imperial tree,' for its excellent properties : that it slept all night, and wakened and was alive all day, withdrawing its leaves if anyone attempted to touch 128 Special Words. them ; a sprig, worn in the turban, or suspended over the bed, was a perfect security against all spells, an evil eye, etc. From what common centre are all these notions derived?" Bishop Heber's "Journal," vol. ii., p. 252. Yours, etc., OXONIENSIS. [1788, Part I I., p. 392.] Allow me to venture a conjecture on a passage in Shakespeare. In Mr. Ray's " Collection of English Words," Rynt ye is thus ex- plained : " By your leave, stand handsomely. As Rynt you Witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother proverb Cheshire." Compare with this the following passage in Macbeth, and Johnson's note on it, p. 378 : " ist Witch. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, and mouncht, and mouncht. Give me, quoth I. Aroint thee, witch ! the rump-fed runyon cries." When the witch roughly cries, "Give me," it is natural that the sailor's wife should use a common proverb to reprove her for her ill manners. [See note 35.] Assassin. [i 768, //. 326, 327-] The word assassin, whence comes to assassinate, assassination, etc., is both French and English ; and it is supposed we borrowed it from the French. But that might not be the case, since both nations might have it from a common original, as nobody pretends to assert it is a pure French, or even a Gaulish word. Thus Mons. Menage acknowledges, that it came to the French from the East, " ce mot nous est venu du Levant avec la chose." This author says, Le Vieil de la Montagne, the Old Man of the Mountain, Prince of the Arsacides, or Assassins and Bedins, fortifying himself in a castle of difficult access, in the time of our expeditions to the Holy Land, collected together a number of people, who engaged to kill whomsoever he pleased. Hence, he adds, both the Italians and the French called those people assassins that committed murders in cold blood. It seems, they were also called Arsacides. Menage cites his authorities, but passing them by, I shall content myself with giving you the words of one or two of our English authors. Dr. Fuller says (" Hist, of the Holy War," p. 38), " These assassins were a precise sect of Maho- metans, and had in them the very spirit of that poisonous superstition. They had some six cities, and were about 40,000 in number, living near Antaradus in Syria. Over these was a chief master whom they called the Old Man of the Mountains. At his command they would refuse no pain or peril, but stab any prince, whom he appointed out to death - } scorning not to find hands for his tongue, to perform what he enjoined. At this day there are none of them extant, being all, as it seemeth, slain by the Tartarians, anno 1237," etc. Assassin. 129 Mr. Sale, in his preliminary discourse to the Koran, p. 246, gives the following authentic account of them : " To the Karmatians, the Ismaelians of Asia were very near of kin, if they were not a branch of them. For these, who were also called al molahedah, or the im- pious, and, by the writers of the history of the Holy Wars, assassins, agreed with the former in many respects ; such as their inveterate malice against those of other religions, and especially the Moham- medan, their unlimited obedience to their prince, at whose command they were ready for assassinations, or any other bloody or dangerous enterprises ; their pretended attachment to a certain Imam of the house of Ali, etc. These Ismaelians, in the year 483, possessed them- selves of Jebal, in the Persian Irak, under the conduct of Hasan Sabah; and that prince and his descendants enjoyed the same for 171 years, till the whole race of them was destroyed by Holagu the Tartar." Whence it appears, that the assassins were not Mohammedans, as Dr. Fuller suggests, but rather of a religion set up in opposition to Islam, or that introduced by Mohammed. Both authors, however, agree in their characters as to their being professed bravo's, or mur- derers ; and it appears from Matthew Paris in several places, that the Oriental name of this people, as a nation or community, was that of assassins. From the East it was brought to us, who were entirely unacquainted with it, till after the era of the Crusades ; and it has been now, for an age or more, applied to persons of the like mur- derous disposition. I am, yours, etc., T. Row. [i 768, /. 464-] To what Mr. Row has collected about the Assassins in your Maga- zine for last July, you may, if you think fit, add what follows : " The Batineans were profest Assassins, and are called in history Ishmaelians, Hassassins, Assassinians, whence we have borrowed the word. Some say they were originally Karmathians, whose conduct they closely followed. They formed a kind of dynasty which lasted about 170 years. Their first prince was Hassan Sabah, who estab- lished himself in Persian Irak, A. Heg. 483. Their chief place of shelter was the castle of Almut. Historians have called their leader the old man of the mountain, translating thus Sheik al Gebal, q. d. Lord of Persian Irak, because Sheik signifies an.0A/ man, and Gebal, a mountain, and Irak is very mountainous. Marigny's Hist, of the Arabians, iv. 128, note. [See note 36.] H. D. Beauty. [1771, /. 166.] Charles VII., King of France, having given his mistress, Agnes de Sorel, the Castle of Beaute, she was thence called the Demoiselle de Beaute. This introduced the term in France, and afterwards ia England. [See note 37.] 9 130 Special Words. Bast [1784, Part I., p. 253.] Your correspondent W. in your Magazine for December last, p. 1028, seems desirous of knowing the meaning of the word BAST, in an Act of Parliament made for punishing of wood-stealers, 15 Charles II. chap. 2, and supposes it means the fruit of the tree, and to be derived from the word MAST ; and your other correspondents R. B. and A. in your Magazine for February, p. 106, both imagine it may be derived from the word BASS, whereof mats used by gardeners are made. Now I take the liberty to differ from both these opinions ; and having looked into Jacob's Law Dictionary, which I think the best expositor of the words of an Act of Parliament, I find the word BASTON, and that it signifies a staff or club; and as sticks to walk with are generally made of young shoots, or scyons, the extracting whereof from plantations or coppices of wood is very prejudicial, and great damage to the proprietor of such wood, I therefore presume this statute might probably be made for the better preventing such pilfering; and the constable is ordered to apprehend all persons carrying away burthens or bundles of wood, underwood, poles, or young trees, bark, or bast of any trees, etc. ; and also to search the houses of suspicious persons for such kind of things; and any persons buying such are punishable. Now it is natural enough to suppose that the word BAST, in this Act, is a contraction of the word BASTON ; for it is very common in the English language for words of more than one syllable to be so contracted; and I am the more inclined to think that is the case here ; for that the taking of the fruit of forest trees, or the mast of beech, is not an injury of such consequence as to be the subject of an Act of Parliament. The beech tree grows only in some particular parts of this kingdom, in woods, and is there seldom mixed with other sorts : and I believe the lime tree is not originally of this country, nor grows spontaneously in any part of it, that I know of. I am told that the bass-mats, used for packing goods, or for gardens, come chiefly (if not wholly) from Russia, and perhaps may be made of the bark of the lime, or some other tree growing in that country, but could by no means be intended by this Act. [See note 38.] Yours, etc., R. S. Bum-fiddle. [1775. P- 368.] I have read with pleasure Mr. T. Row's ingenious explanations of many terms whose derivation length of time has rendered obscure ; but I was rather disappointed in not finding among them the etymo- logy of Bum-fiddle, a word that is far from being obsolete, however Bum-fiddle. 131 arduous may be the task of investigating the origin of it. The learned author of the " Commentary on the Laws of England" has clearly shown (b. i. c. 9, 8vo. edit., p. 346) that another word, to which the same monosyllable is now usually prefixed, has suffered an altera- tion by the common people; for that " bound-bailiff" was the original term : and possibly this may have been the case in the word before mentioned, though I am not deeply enough versed in antiquarian lore to discover the source of the corruption. Mr. Paul Gemsege formerly transmitted to the public, through the channel of your magazine, a curious disquisition on the favourite word and thing "bumper," as also a second upon the terms "crowder" and "crow- dero ;" and, as the instrument which is the subject of this letter is undoubtedly a species of the crowdero, I am solicitous to know his sentiments upon it. [See Gent. Mag. Library, " Manners and Customs," p. 157.] ANTIQUE. Coccayne and the Cockneys. [1838, Part //., pp. 596-602.] We have fallen on a very dainty subject. We want to prove that the glorious and song-renowned " land of Coccayne" is neither more nor less than the land of Cookery, and that the Cockneys or Coc- caneys derive their name from thence, as the proper and legitimate natives of the said kingdom of Coccayne. We think we shall be able to establish this connection between the land of Coccayne and the Cockneys by many good and sufficient authorities, and, by so doing, show the point and propriety of the appellation that has so long fastened itself on our metropolitans, and refute those vulgar and erroneous notions that are still afloat on the stream of Cockney chit-chat. The etymology of the Latin word Coquo, to cook, from which, we verily believe, the words Coccayne, Cockney, etc., are derived, is thus stated by Guichard in his " Harmonie Etymologique des Langues," Paris, 1506: " Le verbe Hebrai'que Goug signifie premierement coquere panes subter prunas." From this root he supposes that the Greeks derived their ximw, misceo> to mix; and the Latins their cogue, to cook. " Apres de COQUO, koken fut forme en Flamen ; kocken en Allemand ; cucinareen. Italien; cozinare, cozer, en Espagnol; cuire en Francais : cook en Anglais." So much for etymologies : we shall see, anon, how critically they bear upon our friends the Cockneys. The subject of cooker y, in all its branches, is one that we approach with infinite respect and reverence. It hides its head among the clouds, while it walks up and down on the earth. If we may believe so shrewd a mythologist as Homer, the gods themselves, in the gor- geous palaces of Olympus, cultivated this science of sciences before 92 132 Special Words. men were either born or thought of. The magnificent banquet at which Jove himself presided, when the limping Vulcan acted the part of cup-bearer so awkwardly as to fill the immortals with unextin- guishable merriment, has always been a favourite topic among epicures. Plato himself appears to have entertained very savoury conceptions respecting the nectar and ambrosia once served by Hebe and Ganymede ; and indeed the very mention of such things is enough, in Cockney dialect, " to make one's mouth water." Among the Jews, and most of the ancient nations, so great was the respect entertained for cookery, that official epulones, superintendents and inspectors of their fasti, epulae, and dapes were appointed. In Rome they had seven dignitaries of this kind, whose duty was to furnish banquets for Jupiter and the other gods of his retinue. The sacrifice being over, the gods were served as if they were able to eat, and, on their declining the offer, the epulones very obligingly per- formed that function for them. We know not how it is, but Epicures and Apicians have in all ages possessed an extraordinary faculty of magnifying their office ; Ude or Kitchiner, we forget which, got into so lofty a rhapsody con- cerning the art and mystery of cookery, as to call it the very mother of all moral, intellectual, social, and political improvement. Their argument was, that men never reasoned clearly and correctly on these abstract and metaphysical matters unless their stomachs were in a prosperous condition, and well lined with culinary blessings. As they had probably indulged in an extravagantly good dinner before allow- ing their imagination so outrageous a swing, we shall make every excuse for them which the case admits. But seriously, and without a joke, the progress of cookery is one of the best tests we have of the progress of civilization. What Dr. Johnson said of law may with great propriety be applied to this subject. " Do you, Sir, presume to deride that science which is the last effort of human genius working on human experience ?" Here, and here alone, reason and taste have gone hand in hand, and the sub- limest abstractions of Epicurus have been tested by no less infallible a criterion than " Do you like it ?" Sir Humphry Davy appears to have caught a glimpse of this sub- lime theory in one of his philosophic visions. When his emancipated spirit arrives at the planet Saturn, which he imagines to be a much more respectable world than our own, touching its ecclesiastical and civil polity, what does he discover ? why, Sir, he discovered that the whole surface of Saturn is strewed with enormous culinary machines worked by steam and oxygen gas. Viands the most exquisite that ever enchanted the olfactories of the ex-president, diffused their delicious effluvia through the whole atmosphere of the planet. They were cooked by a chemistry, or rather an alchemy, which defied the most critical analysis of the Royal Institution, and altogether made Coccayne and the Cockneys. 133 Sir Humphry feel, if he never felt so before, like a thorough-bred glutton Epicuri de grege porcus. The inhabitants of Saturn, who were shaped more like elephants than anything else, were disporting themselves on the wing between the mainland and the ring. This exercise they invariably took in order to give themselves a constitutional appetiser or whet for the keener relish of their dinner ; and, according to the said president, our best authority on the subject, these Saturnites, if they spent not their time like ingenious Athenians in seeing or hearing some new thing, contrived to pass it in the more agreeable or at least substantial employment of tasting and devouring new dishes. So much for the cookery of the stars. Of the cookery of the Oriental world we have some very transcen- dental and magnificent speculations, derived from the authority of the Koran, the Arabian Nights, and the very piquant stories of travellers, which we always swallow aim grano salt's, with a little salt, which we find assists their digestion, and saves us from that highly fashionable complaint dyspepsia. But attend to Mahomet a moment : for his description of cookery in Paradise is, as Sir John Falstatf says, " worth the listening to." In the entertainment of the blessed on their admission to Paradise, thus speaks the Prophet : The whole earth will then be as one loaf of bread, and for meat they shall have the ox Balam and the fish Nun, the lobes of whose livers will suffice seventy thousand men. From this feast every one will be dismissed to the mansion assigned him, where he will have such a share of felicity as is proportionate to his merit, but vastly exceeding comprehension or computation, since the very meanest in Paradise will have 80,000 servants, 72 wives of the girls of Paradise, beside the wives he had in this world, and a tent erected for him of pearls, jacinths, and emeralds of a very large extent. There he will he waited on by 300 attendants while he eats, and shall be served in dishes of gold, whereof 300 shall be set before him at once, containing each a different kind of food, the last morsel of which will be as grateful as the first, and will also be supplied with as many sorts of liquors in vessels of the same metal ; and, to com- plete the entertainment, there will be no want of wine, which, though forbidden in this life, will yet be freely allowed in the next without danger, since the wine of Paradise will never inebriate though you drink it for ever. But all these glories, as Sale observes, will be eclipsed by the ravish- ing girls of Paradise, called Houris, from their large black eyes, Hur al oyun, the enjoyment of whose company will be a principal felicity of the faithful. These are not created of clay, as mortal women are, but of pure musk, and their bodies are odoriferous as frankin- cense; being free from all defects and inconveniences incident to the sex, of the strictest modesty, and secluded from public view in 134 Special Words. pavilions of hollow pearls, so large that one of them will measure sixty miles long and as many broad. Thus the bold and dazzling imagination of the East has ever de- lighted to draw analogies and correspondences between the spiritual and physical economies of nature, which Milton seems to have dreamed of in his description of Paradise, where he says, " For earth hath this variety from heaven Of pleasure situate in hill and dale." Perhaps, however, there is more analogy than we suppose, as the soundest and gravest commentators on Scripture, like Grotius, have adopted this idea, which has been carried to so great a length by the Swedenborgians. Grotius, whom of all men we love best to imitate, regarding him as the greatest light that ever yet scattered the clouds of ignorance and discord that still hover around us, makes the tree of knowledge in the earthly Paradise no less dainty and delectable than the immortal palms of Mahomet's elysium. In fact, he supposes the fruit was ex- cessively nice, and that Eve, with due reverence be it spoken, was a little epicure, or at least a little of an epicure. For thus she speaks in the Adamus Exul, which is the parent of Paradise Lost : " O sweet, sweet apple ! how thy glittering store Dazzles try eyes ; its dream-like, exquisite scent Fills all my sense ; would I could lay aside All fear, that trembling folly, and enjoy The elysium of the fruit, and learn at once Its mystery of bliss." It is necessary to observe that in the East, cookery very early divided itself into two branches, the science and the art ; one was the learned, occult, esoteric, initiated cookery of the physicians and philosophers, now called dietetics ; the other was that vulgar, but ex- ceedingly edifying, art, which, though comparatively undiscriminating, is far more satisfactorv, and has consequently almost superseded the other in popular esteem. An old writer of the sth century, no less a man than St. Ambrose, was highly indignant with these medical dietetics, which he evidently considers the worst dep tment of cookery. "The precepts of physic," says he, "are contrary to divine living, for they call men from fasting, suffer them not to watch, seduce them from oppor- tunities of meditation. They who give themselves up to physicians deny themselves to themselves." And St. Bernard on the Canticles thus asserts -. " Hippocrates and Socrates teach how to save souls in health in this world ; Christ and his disciples how to save them for the next ; which of the two will you have to be your masters ? He makes himself noted who, in his disputations, teaches how such a thing hurts the eyes, this the head, that the stomach ; pulse are Coccayne and the Cockneys. 135 windy, cheese offends the stomach, milk hurts the head, water the lungs ; whence it happens that in all the rivers, fields, gardens, and markets, there is scarce to be any thing fitting for a man to eat." From these passages it is evident that the dietic and therapeutic system of physic by no means pleased the Fathers or the monks ; and, indeed, it must have been discordant to the rules and regulations of good Catholics in general. Cornelius Agrippa, whom we take to have been nearly the greatest man of his age, confirms the same censure on the dietetic doctors, and his remarks apply patly enough to Dr. Abernethy and his school, in the nineteenth century. "These doctors," says Agrippa, "command, forbid, curse, and discommend the meats and drinks that God has. created ; framing rules of diet difficult to be observed, and those morsels which they forbid others to taste of they themselves (as hogs eat acorns) greedily devour. And those laws of living which they prescribe to others, they themselves altogether neglect or contemn. For, should they live according to their own rules, they would run no small hazard of their health ; and, should they permit their patients to live after their own examples, they would altogether lose their profits." " But grant," continues Agrippa (who never lost an opportunity of giving the monks a dry rap over the knuckles, for taking which liberty he was often within an ace of being roasted for a necromancer), " that these rules of the doctors apply to the monks, for whom, perhaps, it is not needful to take so much care of their healths as of their pro- fessions, yet the variety of dishes and feasts may not be unlawful for civil men to use, with consideration of their health. The first the art of dieting performs, the second the art of cookery, being the dressing and ordering of victuals. For which reason Plato calls it the ' flat- teress of physic,' and many account it a part of dietary physic, though Pliny and Seneca, and the whole throng of other physicians, confess that manifold diseases proceed from the variety of costly food." Now Asia, and the land of the East, is the first land of Coccayne, or country of good feeding, that we read of. The Asiatics were so intemperate and luxurious in their feeding, that they were known by the surname of Asotse, or Gluttons, or, more properly translated, Cockneys. If we were to make inquiries of the board of East India Directors, ex-nabobs, etc., they would very probably inform us that the Asiatics have not yet forfeited their claim to this honourable epithet; or, if their tongues preserved silence, their livers would answer for them. For these livers of ours are very discriminating logicians, and easily detect the sophistry contained in that noted verse, " He that lives a good life is sure to live well." It was from the East, the earliest land of Coccayne, that Greece learnt the great lesson of Cockneyship, and became the rival of her 136 Special Words. instructress. If the soldiers of Greece conquered Persia, the cooks of Persia conquered Greece, and exchange is no robbery. We shall not expatiate on Grecian cookery, lest we should so debauch our souls with its manifold luxuries as to become incapable of travelling into the next great kingdom of Coccayne, " the revel of the earth, the mask of Italy." Asia and Greece both revenged themselves on their Roman con- querors, by making them the victims of triumphant luxury. Then Italy, in her turn, became the veritable land of Coccayne ; and of her feast monarchs partook and deemed their dignity increased; and the stern Romans at length became the most unparalleled Cockneys under the sun. Thus we read in Livy'(as an old writer well observes), after the conquest of Asia and Greece, foreign luxury first entered Rome, and then the Roman people began to make sumptuous banquets. Then was a cook the most useful slave that could be, and began to be much esteemed and valued, and, all bedabbled with broth, and be- daubed with soot, was welcomed out of the kitchen into the schools; and that which was before accounted as a vile slavery, was honoured as an art whose chiefest care is only to search out everywhere the provocatives of appetite, and study in all places for dainties to satisfy a most profound gluttony ; abundance of which Gellius cites out of Varro, as the peacock from Samos, the Phrygian turkey, cranes from Melos, Ambracian kids, the Tartesian mullet, trouts from Pesse- Muntium, Tarentine oysters, crabs from Chios, Tatian nuts, Egyptian dates, and Iberian chesnuts. All which enormous bills of fare were found out for the wicked wantonness of luxury and gluttony. But the glory and fame of this art, Apicius, above all others, claimed to himself: from him, as Septimus Florus witnesses, there arose a certain sect of cooks that were called Apicians, propagated, as it were, in imitation of the philosophers, of whom thus Seneca has written : " Apicius (says he) lived in our age ; who in that city out of which philosophers were banished as corrupters of youth, professing the art of cookery, hath infected the whole rising generation with the most astounding luxuriousness." Pliny calls this Apicius the gulf and barathrum of all youth. At length so many subjects of taste, so many provocatives of luxury, so many varieties of dainties were invented by these Apicians, that it was thought requisite to restrain the luxury of the kitchen. Hence all those ancient sumptuary laws. Lucius Flaccus, and his colleague censors, put Duronius out of the Senate, for that, as a tribune of the people, he went about to abrogate a law made against the excessive prodigality of feasts. In defence whereof, how impudently Duronius ascended the pulpit of orations : " There are bridles (said he) put into your mouths, most noble senators, in no wise to be endured. Ye are bound and fettered with the bitter chains of servitude. Here Coccayne and the Cockneys. 137 is an old antiquated sumptuary law which commands us to be frugal : let us abrogate such a demand, deformed with the rust of ghastly antiquity ; for to what purpose have we liberty, if it be not lawful for them that will to kill themselves with luxury ?" At length the character of Italy, as the land of Coccayne and the empire of good living, got sadly impaired by the ravages of Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Saracens, and rascally barbarians of all kinds, that came down like a darksome cloud of locusts, and demolished her loaves and fishes before she could say Jack Robinson. In fact, Virgil's vision of the banquet and the harpies was most painfully realized in his dear Italia, which still reverences him as a wizard and arch magician, on account of such prophetical allusions sprinkled through his works. As we do not, however, give much credit to the Sortes Virgilianae, we shall say no more about it. Thus the ever memorable land of Coccayne was for some time overwhelmed by the invasion of barbarism, not to say cannibalism, which is the very basest kind of cookery we are aware of. Dear land of Coccayne, for centuries thy very existence was a problem : the disciples of Epicurus, with a portentous elongation of physiognomy, went seeking thee as carefully as Ceres sought Proserpine, and, alas ! found only that you were not to be found. Sometimes they seemed to recover a glimpse of thy august vision in the states of Italy, but they only aggravated the disappointment of the surviving Cockneys, who then wandered, like the Jews or the Gypsies, up and down the earth, yet could find no country like their own. Then was the land of Coccayne likened unto the land of Utopia, " that place called No Place," or the island of Atalantes, or the land of Limbo. At length, however, the great vision of Coccayne once more gladdened the hearts of disconsolate Cockneys. Her first appear- ance was at Florence, then at Venice, then at Palma. All these became celebrated in turn as the veritable Coccayne ; resuscitated, as it were, from the grave for the benefit of all good fellows. As the empire of Coccayne advanced, savagery and barbarism retired, and civilization and good-humour resumed their legitimate ascen- dancy. The empire of Coccayne then travelled west, and was long pre- eminent in France. France and Paris are lauded as the land of Coccayne in numberless old songs, and the French were entitled Coccainees par excellence. But the empire of Coccaygne did not confine itself to France ; it travelled over to Great Britain, and took up its residence in London, which has long appropriated the title to herself, with a most com- mendable enthusiasm. The epithet Cockney has for ages so fastened itself on the inhabitants of oar English Babylon, that not all the steam-engines in the country could now explode it. In fact, it sits so 138 Special Words. happily on the natives of " the great metropolis," that nothing would console us for the loss of it. Now let us confirm our statements by a few authorities ; for we entirely agree with our legal brethren, that assertions are not worth a crack without confirmation and proof to back them withall. In Toone's " Etymological Dictionary " (a very useful little book), we find the following : " In a mock heroic poem in the Sicilian dialect, published at Palermo, 1674, a description is given of Palma, as the Citta di Cuccagna; and Boileau calls Paris unpais decoccaigne, representing it as a country of dainties ; which seems to have been the meaning of the word as understood by the French." In England, no precise time can be ascertained as to its first introduction. The earliest poem in which it is mentioned is a very ancient one in the Normanno-Saxon dialect : " Far in sea by West Spayne Is a lond yhote Cocayng." In a very curious poem called the " Tournement of Tottenham," said to be written in the reign of Edward III., the word Cokeney is used, but whether as applied to a cook or a dish is a matter of con- jecture : " At that feast they were served in rich aray, Every five and five had a cokenay." Which reminds us of the Welshman's boast : " Nine cooks at least in Wales one wedding sees." In Nares's " Glossary " are the following remarks : " What this word Cockney means, is well known how it is derived, there is much dispute. The etymology seems most probable which derives it from cookery. Le pais de cocagne, in French, means a country of good cheer ; in old French, coquaine. Cocagna, in Italian, has the same mending. Both might be derived from coquina. This famous country, if it could be found, is described as a region 'where the hills were made of sugar-candy,' and the loaves ran down the hills crying, ' Come, eat me !' " It is spoken of by Balthazar Bonifacius, who says, " Regio qucedam est, quam Cucaniam vocant ex abundantia panis qui atca Illyrice dicitur." " There is a certain region called Cocagne, from the abun- dance of bread, which the Illyrians denominate cuca, or cake." In this place, he says, " rorabit bucceis, pluet pultibus, ninget laganis, et grandinabit placentis :" which we thus translate " it rains puddings, drizzles sausages, snows pancakes, and hails apple-dumplings." The Cockney spoken of by Shakespeare seems to have been a cook, as she was making a pie. " Cry to it, nuncle, as the Cockney did to the eels when she put them i' the paste alive." Yet it appears to denote mere simplicity; since the fool adds, "'Twas her brother that in pure kindness to his horse buttered his hay,' [King Coccayne and the Cockneys. 139 Lear, Act ii., sc. iv.] Some lines in Camden's " Remains " seem to make Cockney a name for London as well as for its citizens. [See note 39.] In the " Cyclopedia Metropolitana," we find the following under the word : " Dr. Thomas Henshaw, sagaciously, as he is wont (Skinner observes), derives Cockney from the French accoquina, to wax lazy, become idle, and grow slothful as a beggar." The passages brought in illustration are these : " And when this jape is told another day, I shall be holden a daff cockanay ; I will arise and auntre it, by my fay ; Unhardy is unsdy, as men say." Chaucer. " I speak not in dispraise of the falcons, but of them that keep them like Cokeneys." Sir Thos. Elliot. [See note 40.] " Phillip he smiled in his sleeve, And hopeth more to smile, Willing this Cockney to intrap With this same merry wyle." Drant's Horace. 44 And with a valiant hand from off His neck his gorget tear, Of that same Cocknie Phrygian knight, And drench in dust his hair." Phaer. 14 1 meet with a double sense of this word Cockney, some taking it for " ist. One coaked or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock of, delicately bred and brought up, so that when grown men or women, they can endure no hardship nor comport with painstaking. "andly. One utterly ignorant of husbandry and housewifery, such as is prac- tised in the country, so that they may be persuaded anything about rural commo- dities, and the original thereof; and the tale of the citizen's son, who knew not the language of a cock, but called it neighing, is commonly known," Fuller's " Worthies." "Some again are on the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their heads by too ceremonious and strict diet, being over precise, Cockney like, and curious in their observation of meals." Burton's " Anat. of Melancholy." "In these days," says old Minshew, in his admirable dictionary, "we may change the term cocknays into Apricocks, in Latin pracocia, for the suddenness of their wits , whereof cometh our English word pnncockes, for a ripe-headed young boy." To conclude, the empire of Coccayne has been extended even to Scotland , for the land of Coccayne, and the land of Cakes, are essen- tially and etymologically the same. For cake is derived from the Latin coquere, and the Teutonic kuchen or kochen, to cook- How well Scotland is entitled to this honourable name, will be acknowledged by those who have tasted her hospitalities. So that they who are called Sawnies, because of their frequent delivery of wise saws, are no less entitled to the luxurious appellation of Cockneys. The Scotch- man, therefore, resembles A nacreon's grasshopper : " Voluptuous, but wise withall, Epicurean animal." Cowley's Trans. 140 Special Words. Cock-loft. [1858, Part II., p. 322.] Antony Wood, in using this word, writes cockle-loft; which would seem to point to the origin of the name from cockle, or darnel ; the cock-loft of a barn being the place where the inferior products of the field were kept. Country Dance. [1758. pp> i73> 174.] Truth is a thing so sacred with me, and a right conception of things so valuable in my eye, that I always think it worth while to correct a popular mistake, tho' it be of the most trivial kind Now, sir, we have a species of dancing amongst us which is commonly called country dancing, and so it is written ; by which we are led to imagine that it is a rustic way of dancing borrowed from the country people or peasants ; and this, I suppose, is generally taken to be the meaning of it. But this, sir, is not the case, for as our dances in general come from France, so does the country dance, which is a manifest corruption of the French contredansef where a number of persons, placing themselves opposite one to another, begin a figure. This now explains an expression we meet with in our old country dance books, " long ways as many as will ;" as our present English country dances are all in that manner, this direction seems to be very absurd, and superfluous ; but if you have recourse to the original of these dances, and will but remember that the performers stood up opposite one to another in various figures, as the dance might require, you will instantly be sensible, that that expression has a sensible meaning in it, and is very proper and significant, as it directs a method or form different from others that might be in a square or any other figure. Yours, etc., PAUL GEMSAGE. Curries. [1791, Part I., p. 126.] In your vol. lx., p. 538, in the review of Mr. Pennant's "London," some doubt seems to have been entertained by the writer of that article both as to the orthography and the meaning of the term curries. In the county of Norfolk, however, or at least in the neigh- bourhood of Great Yarmouth, it is constantly made use of to signify a smaller kind of two-wheeled cart, drawn usually by one horse, and is derived undoubtedly, witli the word curricle (in fashionable use for a more elegant kind of carriage), from the Latin verb curro, in allu- sion to their velocity and lightness. * Marshall Bassompierre, speaking of his dancing country dances here in Eng- land in the time of K. Chas. 1., writes it expressly contredaiises. t>ee his Memoiis, torn, iii., p. 307. 14* There is another term also in use, and I believe peculiarly so, in that county, namely, sluss or shish, to express the mire of the high- way in its most liquid state ; which word also, arbitrary and provin- cial as it may appear, is surely a derivative ; not indeed from the Latin, like the other, but (as it struck me on a perusal of Mr. Malone's " Historical Account of the English Stage," prefixed to his edition of Shakspeare, lately published), from the language of our forefathers of this island, and that not in vulgar usage only, but poetic. In a quotation of Mr. Malone's from the " Mystery of the Deluge," exhibited ,by the Dyers' Company, at Chester, above 450 years ago, in the opening speech, in which, besides other matter, the Almighty instructs Noah how to frame and finish the Ark, are the following lines : " Litill chambers therein thou make, And binding slytche also thou take, Within and without ney thou slake To anoynte yt " Where by slytche is evidently intended slime, or mire, or slush, to be applied to the fabrick of the Ark, for the purpose of closing the joints or filling up all cracks and crevices to the exclusion of wind and water. G. Dandy and Dandyprat. [1819, Part II., pp. 7, 8.] The word Dandipart, or Dandiprat, has, we believe, not been well denned by any author, otherwise than by way of contempt and ridicule ; and the term Dandy, on the same principle, at the present day, is ap- plied to a certain set of men not unlike those formerly denominated Fribbles, who, instead of supporting the dignity and manliness of their own sex, incline to the delicacy and manners of a female. But from what source the word Dandy is derived seems hitherto uncertain. That Dandy and Dandyprat meant a term of reproach and ridicule, as abovesaid, we have sufficient authority for. In Cotgrave's Diction- ary (1650), it is defined by Manche d'Estille handle of a currycomb, slender little fellow, or dwarf. Torriano, in his Italian Dictionary, construes Dandipart by Nani, or Homiccnalo, a dwarf, pretty little man, or mannikin. Johnson merely says that Dandipart means a little fellow, urchin ; a word sometimes used in fondness, sometimes contempt; and derives it from Dandin, a noddy, or ninny. That the word means something diminutive is clear, from a child's book of nonsensical verses, out of date many years since ; one of which begins, " Little Jack Dandiprat was my first suitor," etc. And again, "Spicky spandy, Jacky Dandy," etc. [See note 41.] But, independent of size, the word appears to define something very slender; for, in Bulwer's "Artificial Changeling" 1653 [see note 42], 142 Special Words. in one of the complimentary sets of verses to the author, after noticing various distortions of the human figure, he mentions one having " Eares of so huge a compasse, and broad eyes, As men were swine, and tura'd to owlebies." And, in contrast : " Sometimes with lacings and with swaiths so strait, For want of space we have a Dandiprat." And again : " Sir Jeffries Babil, dilling petite A peccadillo of Barnabie's night, Things so pucil and small, the statute wise Exempt from coupling, being under size." And further, we find the word used for something of little or no value, in a dialogue between Comen Secretary and Jelowsy (see Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. i., p. 890), where Secretary says : " Yes, but take heede by the pryce ye have no losse. A mode merchaunt, that wyll gyve v marke for a goose. Beware a rolling ey, which waverynge thought make that, And for such stuffe passe not a Dandy Pratt." But to the purport of this letter, which is principally to inquire whence the word Dandiprat or Dandipart has origin. We are told, in Camden's " Remains," concerning Great Britain (1636), p. 188, that " King Henry the Seventh stamped a small coin called 'Dandi- prat,' and first I read coined Shillings." Leake, also, in his " Historical Account of English Monies" (1748), p. 182, mentions the same ; and the definition of the word in Bailey's Dictionary is, " a small coin made by Henry the Seventh ;" but in the reign of that Monarch we do not find mention of any such thing, unless it be possible that the farthing of this reign, in Snelling's "Silver Coins," Plate II., fig. 43, being very minute, might be so nicknamed. I have therefore, Mr. Urban, troubled you with the above, in hopes that some of your correspondents may have it in their power to inform us from what source the words Dandy and Dandiprat may have originated, and if from a coin, as above hinted, what it was, and whether it had rise in the reign of King Henry the Seventh, or in that of any other of the Kings of England. [See note 43.] Yours, etc., J. L. Drunkenness. [1770, //. 559, 56o.] Perhaps nothing is a stronger proof of the general infelicity of life, than the propensity of mankind in all countries and situations to drunkenness. Drunkenness does nothing more than suspend the Drunkenness. 143 sense of our real condition for a short interval ; yet this delusion is so sweet, that it is indulged at the risk of fortune, health, life, and reputation. To drink the waters of oblivion, can never be the wish of the happy ; yet even the savages of America and Africa will sell their wives and children to purchase the pernicious Lethe of art, which therefore they appear to desire with no less ardour than the inhabitants of London, where the acquisition of happiness may rea- sonably be supposed to be more difficult, as it depends upon the gratification of wants infinitely multiplied, and the possession of things for which all are competitors, and which few can obtain. If in the general estimation the substitution of frenzy for reason is desirable, it follows, that in the general estimation it is advantageous to exchange what is, for what is not. This, however, like most other gratifications, has been stigmatized as immoral, and indeed with much better reason than many, for upon the whole it certainly lessens the good of life, however small, and increases the evil, however great. We have there- fore contrived a great variety of names and phrases, most of them whimsical and ludicrous, to veil the turpitude of what is pleasing in itself, and generally connected with reciprocations, if not of friendship, yet of the lesser duties and endearments of society. I believe few people are aware how far this has been carried, or have any notion that the simple idea of having drunk too much liquor, is expressed in near FOURSCORE different ways. I send you a list of them for the amusement of your readers in your Christmas Magazine. I am, Sir, your humble Servant, T. NORWORTH. To express the condition of an Honest Fellow, and no Flincher, under the Effects of good Fellowship, it is said that he is 1 Drunk, 2 Intoxicated, 3 Fuddled, 4 Flustered, 5 Rocky, 6 Tipsey, 7 Merry, 8 Half seas over, 9 As great as a Lord, 10 In for it, 11 Happy, 1 2 Bouzey, 1 3 Top-heavy, 14 Chuck full, 15 Hocky, 144 Special Words. 1 6 Hiccius, probably from hiccuping, 1 7 Crop-stick, 18 Cup-stricken, 19 Cup-sprung. This is said to be the favourite state, and ex- pression of a great Genius, who is at present Porter to U v s ty C 11 ge, O d. 20 Hot-headed, 21 Fou, 22 Pot-valiant, 23 Maudlin ; from Magdalen the Penitent, who is always repre- sented weeping, in which she is resembled by those " who drink till the liquor flows out of their eyes." 24 A little how came ye so ? 25 Groggy. This is a West-Indian phrase ; Rum and Water without sugar, being called grogg. 26 In Drink, 27 In his cups, 28 In his beer, 29 Crank. This is a sea-phrase : a ship is said to be crank, when by excess of lading, or some other cause, she is liable to be overstt. 30 Cut, 31 Cheary, 32 Cherry-merry, 33 Overtaken, 34 Elevated, 35 Forward, 36 Crooked, 37 Castaway. A sea-phrase for being dead drunk. 38 Concerned, 39 Bosky, 40 In his altitudes, 41 Tipperary; probably from being likely to tip> or fall down. 42 Topsy frizy, 43 Exhilarated, 44 On a merry pin, 45 Half cocked, 46 A little in the suds, 47 As wise as Solomon. It is also said that he has 48 Business on both sides of the way, 49 Got his little Hat on, 50 Bung'd his Eye, 5 1 Got a drop in his Eye, 52 Been in the Sun, 53 Soaked his face, 54 Come home by the Villages. This is provincial ; when a man Drunkenness. 145 comes home by the fields, he meets nobody, consequently is sober ; when he comes home by the Villages he calls first at one house, then at another, and drinks at all. 55 Got a spur in his head. This is said by brother-jockies of each other. 56 Got a crumb in his beard, 57 Had a little, 58 Had enough, 59 Got more than he can carry, 60 Got his beer on board, 6 1 Got glass eyes, 62 Been among the Philistines. A pun upon the word _///. 63 Lost his leggs, 64 Been in a storm. This is a sea-phrase for] being less than dead drunk. 65 Been in the Crown Office. A pun upon the word crown used for the head. 66 Got his Night Cap on, 67 Got his Skin full, 68 Got his Dose, 69 Had a Cup too much. Besides these modes of expressing drunkenness by what a man is, what he has, and what he has had, the following express it, by what he does 70 Clips the King's English, i.e., Does not speak plain. 71 Sees double, 72 Reels, 73 Heels and sets. A sea-phrase used of a boat in a rough sea. 74 Heels a little, 75 Shews his Hob-nails. This is a provincial phrase for being so drunk as not to be able to stand, so that the nails at the bottom of the shoe are seen. 76 Looks as if he could not help it, 77 Crooks his Elbow, 78 Goes over the Tops of Trees. This is provincial, and alludes to the unequal pace of a drunken man, like that of stepping from a high tree to a low one, and from a low one to a high one. To these must be added one phrase that expresses drunkenness by what a man cannot do ; it is said by the sons of science at Oxford, of a man in ebrious circumstances, 79 That he cannot sport a right line. I shall not mention the additions that have been made by way of illustration to several of the terms in this list, although, taken together, they may be considered as separate phrases ; among these are VOL. II. 1 146 Special Words. I 2 3 4 As As As As drunk drunk drunk drunk as as as as a Devil, a Piper, an Owl, David's Sow, 5 6 7 8 As As As As drunk as a fuddled as merry as a happy as a Lord, an Ape, Grigg, King. Earing. [I75S. PP. 212, 213.] " And yet there are five years, in the which there shall be neither earing nor harvest." GEN. xlvi. 6. This word earing occurs in other places of Scripture, but I have pitched upon this, because this chapter, being twice read as a Sunday lesson in the publick service of the Church, this passage 'tis presumed may be the best known. The word is grown obsolete, and partly through disuse, but chiefly from its being so like in sound, and its present orthography, to the ear or spica of the corn, I have observed the sense of it to be sometimes mistaken by writers, from whence I conclude that others who are unacquainted with the learned languages must consequently be liable to the same error. Thus the Earl of Monmouth, in his translation of " Boccalini," p. IT, says, " The plowers of poetry have seen their fields make a beautiful show in the spring of their age, and had good reason to expect a rich harvest, but when, in the beginning of July, the season of earing began, they saw their sweat and labours dissolve all into leaves and flowers ;" where he evidently means by the season of earing, the time when the corn runs into the ear, in opposition to the time of ploughing. Another mistake concerning the sense of this word, incurred by Mr. Theobald, will be mentioned below. But to ear signifies to plough, and is always used in that sense by our old writers, so Isaiah xxx. 24, " The oxen likewise, and the young asses that ear the ground, shall eat clean provender," etc. So Speed, p. 416, says the Danes "grieved the poore English, whose service they employed to eare and till the ground, whilst they themselves sat idle, and eate the fruit of their paines." Dr. Wicliffe, in his New Testament (Luke xvii. 7), writes, " But who of you hath a servaunt cringe," where the vulgate version, from whence the Dr. made his translation, has arantem. The sense is clear, and the word is evi- dently the Anglo-Saxon epian, which signifies to plough, and is plainly derived from the Latin aro, and what we now call arable land, Greenway, in his translation of Tacitus's account of Germany, calls earable land, from the Latin arabalis. In this text, therefore, earing and harvest are opposed to one another, as two different extremes, just as seed-time and harvest are (Genesis viii. 22), to the former of which it manifestly answers, and the sense consequently is, "in the which there shall neither be ploughing nor harvest." Earing. 147 [1770, pp. 161, 162.] As your magazine is calculated to convey useful knowledge as well as entertainment (prodesse et delectare), be so good as to insert the following lines in your next vehicle of intelligence. A learned Doctor of divinity being asked a few days ago, " What is the meaning of that expression in Exodus xxxiv. 21, in earing-time, and harvest thou shalt rest ?" replied " That he supposed by earing-time, is meant the time when the corn begins to appear in the ear." Now lest any of the readers of their Bible be mislead by a wrong interpre- tation, please to inform them that the original word, bHH charish, is in other passages of Scripture rendered to plow ; Psalm cxxix. 3, " The plowers plowed upon my back." This will help us to understand that text in i Samuel viii. 12, " He will set them to ear his ground^ and to reap his harvest ; and this will help us also to rectify a mis- take in the eighth addition of Bailey's " Dictionary," in which earing time is explained to be harvest ; notwithstanding he says just before, very rightly, that to Ear, or Are, or Arare, signifies to till, or plow the ground." {See post, p. 185.] R. W. Firm. [1784, Part I., p. 164.] Please to inform your Nottinghamshire Correspondent, who desires to know the etymology of the vjfx&jfirm, that it is originally Spanish and perhaps is no where else used in the sense ascribed to it but by, them and the English. It is obvious that language, in its progress, admits of some variation in its meaning, and is either enlarged or contracted by accident. The word, in the original, signifies nothing more than subscription, or signing. So Nebrissensis explains the word : Firma de escritura, subscript, signatio. Firma escritura, sub- scribo, signo. In this sense it is constantly used by Cervantes, and the several places are pointed out in the first indice of the edition of 1781, and is explained in the " Anotaciones." Antwerp having been for a long time under the dominion of the Spaniards, and a great staple of commerce, it is natural to suppose that we may have adopted it from thence. As it may be proper for a trading company to have one signature, it may have been confined to such. The Portuguese affix the same meaning to the word with their neighbours. But it occurs not in the Italian or French. Franciosini, in his " Dictionary," renders Firma, la Sottoscrizione di propria mano : Sobrino, Firma, signature; Firmar, signer, souscrire. Yours, etc., A. B. 10 2 148 Special Words. Foy. [1832, Part II., /. 194.] M H. observes, " Both at Margate and at Ramsgate, there are public-houses known by the sign of the Foy Boat, the meaning of which I was unable to obtain from any person I there conversed with. No such word occurs in Johnson, Ash, or Todd. In Ash's " Dic- tionary " there is the word fey, which he explains as being derived from the Dutch veghen, to cleanse a ditch of mud. The house appears to be the rendezvous of pilots ; does it therefore mean Fee- boat, that is, the sum paid to pilots for their assistance to vessels in distress ?" [1832, Part II., p. 290.] I am induced to trouble you with the present communication, in consequence of the observations of M. H. in your last Magazine, p. 194. The word foy is in common use in the Northern counties of England, and also in Scotland. It denotes an entertainment given to a friend or acquaintance about to leave his home, or any particular place of residence. Those who are attached to him assemble to set his foy; that is, to drink his health, or to partake of a supper or other treat. Kilian, in his " Etymologicum Teutonics Linguse," very correctly defines the term. He interprets voye, "foye," as sig- nifying " Vinum profectitium symposium vise causa ;" and derives the word from the French voye, or way. It is not unusual for the owners of a fishing-vessel to give a supper, called a foy, to the crew of the season. Hence the sign of the Foy Boat, inquired after by your correspondent. JOHN TROTTER BROCKETT. Cornubiensis says that " the Foy Boat means nothing more than the passage-boat to Fowey in Cornwall " (pronounced Foy} ; but as our correspondent has given us no proof that passage-boats between Fowey and Margate ever existed, we are afraid he has been misled by enthusiasm for the quondam greatness of his native county. In Dyche's Dictionary," the word foy is explained, as " a treat given by a person to his friends or acquaintance, upon his change of, or bettering his station in life, removing to a new habitation, going or setting out upon a journey, putting on new clothes," etc. A corre- spondent, therefore, suggests that " a Foy Boat may have been one given originally to a pilot for uncommon or skilful exertions in some dreadful storm now forgotten." According to Forby's "Vocabulary of East Anglia,"yfry is the term applied to the " supper given by the owners of a fishing-vessel, at Yarmouth, to the crew in the beginning of the season." The word is probably derived from the French word foyer, the hearth or hospitable fireside. Foy. 149 [1833, Part L, p. 386.] J. G. N. remarks, "Your correspondents in Oct. Mag., p. 290, appear to have correctly explained the word foy ; but not precisely the compound Foy Boat. In a Petition of the Mariners of New- castle upon Tyne, recently presented to the House of Commons, occurs this passage : ' That some hundreds of your petitioners and their forefathers used formerly to earn a comfortable pittance, when out of ships, in foy or assistant boats, transporting vessels, which we are informed pay not a proportional tax on the labour they perform, to our loss.' It appears from this that the occupation of the Foy Boats has now failed, from vessels assisting themselves, or, in fact, performing their own labour without assistance. As this service of assistance seems to have been independent of the voy or farewell feast, and not always necessarily accompanied therewith, we must allow the word to be here used in somewhat a different sense. The Foy Boat was simply a way boat, or bateau de voye, accompanying, piloting, and assisting vessels on the way or voyage" [See note 44.] Gallop. [1791, Part II., p. 928.] This word to gallop runs through all the provincial languages, French, Italian, Spanish, as also German ; and they have taken it, probably, one from another : we may be thought to have had it from the French. As to the origin, Mons. Menage brings it from calupare* citing Salmasius for this word, who esteems it to be of Greek extraction ;f but this is going very deep, and therefore I should rather think it of Northern original, and in fact to be a com- pound word, quasi ga loop, for which see Sewel's " Dutch Dictionary." A lope way in Kent is now a short or quick way, or bridle-way. [The Anglo-Saxon is Gehleapan, to leap.] L. E. Gore. [1792, Parti., p. gig.} The word gore is now in common use amongst the farmers of arable land in various distant parts of England, and signifies a ridge of a triangular or wedge shape. Ridges are understood to be nearly parallelograms ; and as most fields are wider at one end than at the other, the excess in width is ploughed into Gore; i.e., ridges that do not extend the length of the field, but are determined at every dis- tance short of the whole length in points or very acute angles as at a in the Goie b : Menage, " Orig. Franc." in v. t See also " Junii Etymologicon" in v. 150 Special Words. If Nugaculus (or \V. W.) had consulted his wife or his sempstress, instead of Bailey's Dictionary, she would have told him that the chemise of every female has a gore on one side of it, to render it wider at the bottom than at the top. M . Hitch. [1799, Parti,, p. 29.] Dr. Johnson, in explaining the word hitch, says, " to hitch, v.n., to catch, to move by jerks." I know not where it is used but in the following passage ; nor here know well what it means : "Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides in a verse, or hitches into rhyme." Pope, " Im. of Hor.," b. ii., sat. I. Mr. Wakefield, in a critique on this, says that " the word in ques- tion is used in the Northern counties for getting into a place side- ways, with difficulty and contrivance. The proper term, I apprehend, is edge; so that the distich would be correctly written : " Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and edges into rhyme." With great deference to two such respectable authorities, I differ from them both. Without being able to refer to a printed authority, I can speak of the usage of the word as being quite familiar to me in the sense of a hindrance, an interruption ; the business hitches it does not go on smoothly ; there is some hitch in the way. This seems to me to give the meaning of Pope ; that one who has offended him is sure to be brought into a verse, though the doing so should be difficult, and make a hitch in the rhyme. I wish some one of your Northern friends would let you know whether the word used by them in the sense given by Mr. Wakefield is hitch or edge. The latter certainly means getting into a. place by your own effort, but with difficulty and contrivance ; the former implies a difficulty put in the way by another person. S. H. [!799> Part I.) pp. 122-124.] In my observation on the word hitch, p. 29, I said that I did not recollect any printed book which I could quote to justify the sense I gave it. I have since found one. In Mr. I. Middleton's "View of the Agriculture of Middlesex" [1798] (a book full of information), he says, p. 93, " The harrows so often hitch one on to the other, that the man is obliged to stop a fourth part of his time to set them to rights." S. H. For the information of S. H., p. 29, I beg leave to acquaint you the word hitch, in the Northern counties, has both an active and a neuter signification. I remember, when a boy, to have often shared in an amusement which may illustrate the meaning in its active sense. Hitch. 151 We described a sort of bed upon the ground with chalk, divided into several compartments. We then placed a piece of a tile in the first, and with one leg moved or jerked it from one compartment to the other, still continuing on one leg till we had gone through the whole. This motion we called hitching. In the neuter sense it means simply to hop upon one leg ; as, instead of /top, skip, and jump, we used the word hitch, skip, and jump. I apprehend Pope used the word in this figurative sense in the passage S. H. speaks of, as it forms a direct contrast with the word slide. Mr. Wakefield's explanation of the word I conceive to be erroneous. The words hitch and edge convey two distinct meanings. Dr. Johnson's definition approaches nearer the truth. I hope this explanation will satisfy the enquiry of your correspondent. A NORTHERN FRIEND. S. H. requests an explanation of "hitches in a rhyme;" for so my copy reads it. In the North of England, where I resided, the word hitch was commonly used as a verb active in two senses. " I have hitch'd it in at last." This meaning seems to derive the word from Jncjan, conari, etc. But in that sense it will not ex- plain Pope. In the other it is, I dare say, perfectly clear to most Northern ears what is meant by " hitches in a rhyme." To hitch, to stick fast. " Hitch up your hat ;" " the bird I shot is hitch'd in that tree." Mr. Pope would smile, were he alive, to see the Yorkshire dialect stepping forward as a scholiast upon his verses. But, with all due reverence to his manes, this last usage of the verb may explain his meaning ; it certainly accords with what follows : Read thus : " Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and sticks fast, or hangs ^^p t in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burden of some merry song." I do not pretend, Mr. Urban, to any skill in criticism; but, if what I have hitched in will give any satisfaction to S. H., your insertion of this will oblige a Northern friend, AN HONEST YORKSHIREMAN. The word hitch is a good deal used in the county of Durham, and is, I believe, of Saxon derivation. It simply means " hopping on one leg," and occurs in two sorts of play, or childish feats, the one called "hitch, stride, and lowp" (leap), the other, "hitch-beds." I remember noticing Mr. Wakefield's critique on the passage in question some time since, and then thought, as I do now, his emen- dation far from an happy one ; as, whoever makes the necessary and obvious distinction between verse and rhyme can be at little loss for the literal and ludicrous meaning of the word hitches as it stands in 152 Special Words. the couplet. If, however, a provincial word, which Mr. Wakefield supposed hitch to be, may with propriety be denied a place in elegant versification, would not " Slides into verse, and hobbles in a rhyme," come much nearer the sense of the poet than edges into ? You may laugh, Mr. Urban, and lam happy to make you merry ; but, in these days of liberty and equality, if the text of Alexander the Little is to be disputed, I insist upon it, Sir, I have as great a right to offer my conjectures as any other person. With regard to Dr, Johnson's explanation of the word hitch, my opinion is that both he and your correspondent S. H. are right in their respective definitions. In the first place, that to hitch is " to move by jerks," any person, holding up one leg and hopping or jumping with the other, may ascertain; and, in the second, that hitching is somewhat difficult, or, as your correspondent S. H. ex- presses himself, " does not go on smoothly." I have, in the way of "setting CRACKS" (another North-country play), hitched too often from my father's house to an old woman's school in the neighbour- hood, where learning and mustard, manners and spice (gingerbread), were ever on sale, not to know it is done at the cost of an aching leg and loss of breath. Therefore, demanding your felicitations for this very learned and liberal disquisition, I am, Mr. Urban, yours, FAR-ENOUGH-NORTH-IN-ALL-CONSCIENCE-THIS-COLD- WEATHER. I apprehend the word edge is used, in the North of England, in the sense mentioned by Mr. Wakefield ; yet, if I might be allowed to edge in a word without danger of being sent hitching away in a lame cause, I would ask if it is not possible that these two words, edge and hitch, may be derived from very different sources ; for, surely, the latter has a signification nearly, if not precisely, what your correspon- dent S. H. diffidently supposes. It seems to me that Dr. Johnson's explanation of hitch is perfectly agreeable to the sense in which, I apprehend Mr. Pope to have used it in the couplet quoted in p. 29 ; to hitch being sometimes applied, if I mistake not, in the North of England, to any person that walks lamely, who, of course, is obliged "to catch or move by jerks;" therefore, may not the words slides and hitches stand designedly opposed in the same line, each thus ex- plaining the other ? " Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, or* hitches in a rhyme." In Dodsley's I2mo edition, 1739, it is printed "and hitches.' Hitch. 153 Slides, i.e., glides smoothly along, or hitches, i.e., limps away ; meaning, that the offender is sure to be dragged into some sort of rhyme, whether his (like "Amelia's) liquid name" assists the verse to run smoothly on its feet, or the rugged harshness of its syllables obliges it to halt. Yours, etc. In consequence of a request in p. 29 I send you the following remarks. The word hitch is very generally used, in the county of Gloucester, in the sense of to stick fast, or to fasten, commonly in a neuter, but sometimes in an active sense. For instance, if you ask the unfortu- nate horseman in that county how it happened that he was dragged by his horse, he immediately replies, " because my foot hitched in the stirrup." If you enquire of the shepherd where he found his lost sheep, he answers, " hitched in the briers." The ploughman, when the horses are brought out of the stable harnessed, orders the driver to hitch them together. Again, as soon as they are carried in the field, to hitch them to the plough ; and, in the evening, bids him to hitch off. When sheep have a fresh allotment of turnips given to them, it is invaribly called a fresh-hitch, not only in this, but in some parts of the adjoining counties. When a swing-gate is thrown to, in order to fasten it, the latch of it slides up the inclined plane of the catch, and when arrived at a certain point, drops into the groove made to receive it, and then the gate is said to hitch. I confess that I have always this last sense of the word upon my mind when I read the lines of Pope which are here alluded to. The meaning, there- fore, of the passage with me is this : " Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and drops into, and sticks fast in a rhyme," there remaining insignis, or exposed to ridicule his whole life long. Pope, it is well known, resided much and wrote much (probably this imitation of Horace) in Gloucestershire, at the seat of Lord Bathurst at Cirencester, where, if he conversed at all, he must have heard the word hitch used in the above senses. Any alteration of the verse in question would, I think, be for the worse; but Mr. Wakefield's amendment appears to me peculiarly inadmissible. Yours, etc., W. L. Hunting Words. [1789, Part 11., pp. 784, 785.] Reading the other day an old French treatise upon Hunting, the title whereof is La Venerie de Jacques du Fouilloux, a Paris, 1573, I was much entertained with the singularity of his notions, and the great eulogiums he had penned in honour of the chace. In hopes it 154 Special Words. may likewise amuse some of your readers, the following notes are extracted from that book ; which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been translated, and is probably very scarce. [See note 45.] In his address to the French gentry of that time, he styles the diversion " a most dilectable labeur, a polite exercise," and affirms that " Hunters are a set of men the least to be accused of indolence." By Hunting, he means the grand parade of forcing the Stag, or running the wild Boar. The Fox and the Hare occupy a much inferior station, which he considers only as a menu divertissement, notwithstanding he allows Hare-hunting to be a pleasant amusement, and free from danger : but he seems totally unacquainted with the ardour of our modern Fox- chase; and his Reynard figures in the same rank with Wolves, Badgers, Otters, etc. There is much humour in his remarks on the character and convivial disposition of a true sportsman, whose noble occupation, he says, exhilarates the mind, gives agility to the body, and strength to the appetite ; maintaining (how true I cannot say) that it lessens our natural propensity to evil, increasing courage and resolution for dangerous exploits. He reckons Xenophon and Appian as writers upon this subject ; among the Latins, the Poet Grotius, Pope Adrian VI. with many others of more modern date ; and concludes by observing that the lovers of Diana frequently become the most intrepid sons of Mars. It has likewise thrown some light, in my opinion, upon our Hunting exclamations, such as tallio^ or tally-ho, hoix, hark forward : these are borrowed from French words which appear in this book under musical notes. The first is tya-hillaut, or thia-hillaud ; the second is derived from haut icy, or haut iccy ; thirdly, forheur, or fort-huer, is the Huntsman's cry, thus, a qui forheur. These words are mere sounds, with little or no meaning, yet their etymology has often embarrassed me ; but, allowing for our frequent corruption of French terms, I think their derivation is here plainly made out. Halloo! for the same reason originates from hah le loup, or au loup, or a !ou loup, wolves being formerly common in England as well as on the Continent, and this word served as a shout to set the dogs on a pursuit ; which ex- pression continues in use to this day, though no wolves be found either in Great Britain or Ireland since the time that a premium was ordered by law for their destruction. OBSERVATOR. Lady. [i 772, /. 256.] As I have studied more what appertains to the ladies than to the gentlemen, I will satisfy you how it came to pass that women of fortune were called ladies, even before their husbands had any title to convey that mark of distinction to them. You must know, then, that heretofore it was the fashion for those families whom God had blessed L^lrdanes Moise. 155 with affluence to live constantly at their mansion houses in the country, and that once a week, or oftener, the lady of the manor distributed to her poor neighbours, with her own hand, a certain quantity of bread, and she was called by them the "Leff day," i.e., in Saxon, the bread- giver. These two words were in time corrupted, and the meaning is now as little known as the practice which gave rise to it ; yet it is from that hospitable custom that to this day the ladies, in this kingdom alone, serve the meat at their own table. [See note 45*.] I am, sir, etc., etc. Liirdanes. [1789, Part I., pp. 98, 99.] In vol. liii., p. 123, S. W. desired an explanation of these words in Chatterton's " Battle of Hastings" : " Your loving wife, who erst did rid the londe Of Lurdanes" T. H. W., p. 231, says : when they [the Danes] were expelled this island, Lurdane became a word of reproach and contempt, and sig- nified " a lazy, idle fellow." Ignoramus, vol. Ivi., p. 651, suspects that it signifies false, cunning^ deceitful. He quotes Lord Lindsay's speech in confirmation of his opinion, in which he says : " Ye are all Lurdanes, false traytors " That Chatterton meant it to apply to the Danes seems very clear, though he might not perfectly understand the word. But your cor- respondent T. H. W. is right in supposing that it was a word of reproach and contempt, and means lazy, idle ; this is proved by the quotation from Boorde in your last vol., p. 1047, where the lurden- fever is plainly idleness. [See note 46.] That it was a name of contempt is shewn by Mr. Grose's quotation from Patin, in his " Military History," vol. ii., p. 345, where he says, " The armour of the Scots at the battle of Musselborough was so little differing, and their apparail so base and beggarly, wherein the lurdein was in a manner all one with the lorde all clad alyke." [See note 47.] S. H. Moise. [1791, Part II., p. 1022.] It is a common saying amongst the common people in this place [Norwich], when a person does not seem to recruit after a fit of illness, or when he does not thrive in the world, that such an one does not moise. Now, Sir, I have ransacked several of our English Dictionaries, both ancient and modern, but can find no such word, nor indeed any word that this is likely to be a corruption of ; and, as I never heard 156 Special Words. it used any where else but here, and can find no one acquainted with its etymology, I thought, perhaps, some of your ingenious correspon- dents might be able to trace its original : or, if not, that it might possibly be an addition to the long catalogue of nondescripts with which Mr. Croft's Dictionary is to abound. Yours, etc., M. [1791, Part II., p. 1119.] M., in p. 1022, wishes to know the meaning of " he does not moise" a Norfolk phrase when a person does not seem to recruit after a fit of illness, or does not thrive in the world. It appears to be the verb belonging to moison ; which, with some of its family, is still found in French. Moison has been in our language. Chaucer uses it ; and Tyrwhitt's " Glossary " explains it, " harvest, growth " Urry's, from Skinner, "ripeness." Moise moison had the same relation, perhaps, as grow growth, succeed success, etc. The Dictionary of the gentleman whom M. mentions is likely to moise, I hope ; and will, perhaps, go to press this winter with more than twenty thousand words, which are not in Johnson, supported by authorities. M. will oblige Mr. C. very much by communicating to your Magazine or your Printer any other provincial phrases ; all of which will turn out, perhaps, not to be corruptions (as M. sup- poses moise}, but the language of our ancestors, and the seeds of our own language. [See note 48.] H. C. Nunchion, [1830, Part II., pp. 591, 592.] Perhaps many of your readers have been, like myself, thought not a little quaint and pedantic, in using the word Nunchion, on the authority of Dr. Johnson, in the stead of Luncheon, which (though properly meaning only a handful of food) is commonly heard in the sense of a short meal between breakfast and dinner : such may find equal satisfaction with myself, in being able to prove that the former is correct, as not only being the learned, but as having been also the vulgar word. From the antient accounts of certain repairs made in London, in the years 1422 apd 1423, it appears that all the workmen were allowed NOONCHYNS, over and above their proper wages ; and the following entries, selected from a considerable variety, will estab- lish the certainty of the antient usage, both of the word and of that practice. The allowance was a halfpenny each day. It'm to on Rob't Dawber' for his dawbyng be vij dayes, y e day w l his noounchyns \\\}d. ob. 2S. i\d. Item to Joh'n Smyth' laborer' for ix dayes & di' day \\\}d. w l nooun- chyns & rewarde goven to serue y e same dawber 3$. 3^. Nunchion. It'm to Rob't Rowe dawber* for x dayes & di' y e day \]d. yn dawbyng of dyu'se walles $s. $d. It'm for hijs noounchyns to y e same dawber' ^\d. It'm paid to Raff Worsted' hewer' of Freston for vij dayes, y e day viijV. 4-y. Rd. It'm for his noounchyns yn y e forseide dayes w* reward zd. It'm to ij Masons, y e s'uauntes of Henr' Botston' Mason' be ij wekes to eche Mason', be y e weke 4^. 3^. w l her' noounchyns, yn y e makyng of y e walles of y e p'vie [privy] and a wall' ycleped rese- dose yn y e kechon', w l pavyng of y e same kechon' i"js. It'm to ij. Carpent's be j. day to ech' of hem, w l her' Nonsenches %\d. for to make y e forseid' goter' 17^. It'm for iij. carpenters be ij. daies ech' of hem takyng y e day &d. to make the same werke 4-r. It'm for her' noonchyns eu'y day to ech' of hem ob' $d. It'm yn a reward goven for noonchyns to y e same Tiler' and his man, be all' the tyme [29 days] $d* It'm to j. tiler be j. day & di' yn tilynge of y e forseide houses, takynge y e day w l hijs noonchyns 8^d. 13^. It'm for his s'uaunt be j. day & di' takynge y e day w l his noonchyns 6d. gd. It'm to an laborer' for y e seide ij. dayes at $^d. w' his noonshyns nd. Thus it appears that this word was antiently written Noonchyn^ Noounchyn, Noonshyn, and Nonsenche; and there cannot be any doubt that it was derived from Noon, the time of the meal ; which word, though for several ages appropriated to midday,-^ was antiently the hora nona, on the ninth hour, between two and three o'clock, the hottest part of the day. Hence it was probably at first in the form of a French verbal noun, nounacion or nouncion, as if in Latin nonatio, a NOONING :| and though I have not found any proof of this hypo- thesis, I still hope to do so : that you, Mr. Urban, and all who love propriety of speech, may henceforth eat their NOONTION in peace : which is the earnest desire of MELAS. * Perhaps a mistake for three shillings. The sums are here put in the common figures for convenience. f In the proceedings of the Court Military, Le Scrope v. Grosvenour, temp. Ric. II., " eodem die circa horam terciam post horam nonam dicti diei," is rendered in French, " a trois de la Clok apres noune." J This word, in the sense of a repose at noon, is found in the dictionaries ; but it is used in some parts of Kent for a repast at that time. 158 Special Words. Prick or Pryk. [1788, Part I!., pp. 491, 492.] A prick, or pryk, as anciently written, means sometimes, no doubt, a spur ; the spur formerly consisting of one point instead of five or more. Blount, "Tenures," p. 125 ; Grose on Spurs, in Archceologia Soc. Antiq., vol viii., p. 112, seq. Hence, to prick, means to ride, quasi, to prick the horse, or put him on : "A gentle knight was pricking on the plain." Spenser's "Fairy Queen." So Fairfax; Tasso, iii. 21, vii. 27, ix. 22 ; " Flodden Field," stanza 89 ; Percy's " Songs," i., pp. 25, 42 ; and metaphorically, pricked on {Hamlet i. i ), is urged on. I suspect, however, that both Mr. Blount* and Mr. Grosef are mistaken in interpreting the word of a spur or goad, in the terms of the " Tenure," i R. II. : " per servitium inveniendi unum equum, unum saccum, et unum pryk in guerra Wallise, quandcunque conti- gerit regem ibi guerrare ;" since, in my opinion, this passage, wherein pryk is joined with saccus, is to be explained by that in p. 26, where the party is to find " unum equum, unum saccum, et unum brochiam, in servitio Domini Regis in Wallia ad custum Domini Regis." Pryk is again joined with saccus, pp. 41 and 50, and therefore must surely mean, in these cases, a skewer, to pin up or fasten the mouth of the sack. This explanation seems to be confirmed by that passage, p. 62, where we have, " cum uno equo precii vs. et cum uno sacco precii \\d., et cum brochia ad eundem saccum." Brochia here is evidently the same as pryk, from Fr. broche, or spit, and, appertaining to the sack, can never be understood of a spur or a goad. See also p. 65. But the matter is still more clear, p. 96, where the person that de- mands the bacon at Whichenour, in Staffordshire, is required to bring " a horse and a saddle, a sakke and a pryke, for to convey and carry the said bacon," etc., and it is observable for a conclusion, that, in Ray's " North-Country Words," pp. 8, 49, a prick signifies a skewer. What is here said may serve to explain that passage, p. 32, to which Mr. Blount puts a qucere : "per servitium inveniendi unum stimulum ferreum pro uno warroke% super quoddam clothsack" from 22 R. II. ; for stimulus here is not a. spur, but, as connected with cloth- sack, must mean a skewer ; and it appears from hence, that the skewers in question were supposed to be made of iron ; and it is * Blount's "Tenures," pp. 17, 125. f Grose, 1. c. A war-horse, Blount's "Tenure," p. 107, edit. 1784, quasi war-ag, which indeed is ingenious ; but there lie two objections against it. First, it makes it an hybri- dous word, part French, part British ; secondly, a war-horse, mounted by a warrior, can have nothing to do with a clothsack ; possibly it may be misread for tarrock, a cart-horse, from carreclarius. Prick or Pryk. 159 termed stimulus, only because this is Latin for a prick^ just as a schoolboy would render it. We have shown above, that pryk and brochia are equivalent words : and therefore, when Mr. Blount expounds brochettus (p. 71) in this passage, " unum equum . . . et unum saccum . . . cum uno bro- chetto," by a little bottle or jug, he errs most egregiously. He was led, however, into the mistake by Sir Henry Spelman, Gloss, v. brochia, who interprets these words of Bracton, " inveniendi . . . unum hominem et unum equum, et sacchum cum brochia pro aliqua necessitata, vel utilitate exercitum suum contingente," on this manner, " dictum opinor a Gall, broc, quod lagenam majorem, aut cantharum, significat, plus minus 6 sextarios continentem : ut sit saccus ad de- portationem aridorum brochia vero liquidorum /" than which nothing can be more foreign from the truth Great men, you see, Mr. Urban, will sometimes err ; Bernardus non -videt omnia. [See Hazlitt's " Blount," in Glossary.] L. E. Words used for Punishment. [1825, Part l. t pp. 395-397-1 It seems to me that the practice of abolishing from polished society the use of many good old English terms, as being vulgar, has been carried too far, and that the evil has gone to that extent that much of the copiousness and perspicuity for which our language has been celebrated, is lost among the higher and middle classes of life by over-refinement ; for instance, in describing the infliction of corporal punishment by beating, we are only authorized in polished life to say, " he was beat, or flogged, or whipped ;" whereas, our language is rich in words, amply descriptive of the degree, place, instrument, mode, nature, etc., of such beating, which it would be deemed vulgar to use, and the meaning of which must therefore, in polished society, be ex- pressed, if at all, by a periphrasis ; consequently, the exclusion of such words, without the substitution in our polished vocabulary of equivalent ones, is in a degree detrimental to the perspicuity, and destructive to the copiousness, of our language. I was led into the consideration of this subject, by overhearing a boy in the streets of this town [Hull] say to his companion, " When you get home, Jack, you'll get a hiding for not going to school ;" the word hiding struck me as being expressive, and though not in general use I easily guessed its meaning ; it is evidently derived from the sub- stantive " hide," a skin, and meant that the boy would receive such a degree of flogging as would fetch the skin off. Thus I am reduced to express the meaning by a periphrasis ; for the verb " to skin," which comes nearest to the word " to hide," does not necessarily imply beating. Why not then restore so useful a word to civilized society ? This led me to the consideration of other old English terms in. 160 Special Words. general use amongst the Yorkshire peasantry, implying punishment by beating, and expressive of the various ways, degrees, instruments, parts, effects, intents, etc., of its infliction, which, although abolished amongst the upper classes, I should think ought to be restored to legitimate use, unless equivalents be found ; for, although corporal punishment is rather out of fashion in the present age, I am con- vinced the time will never arrive when it can be totally dispensed with in education, however philosophers may flatter themselves that the period is close at hand. It were impossible, were I to attempt it, to enumerate all the terms in use amongst our peasantry expressive of the various modes, etc., of administering correction by beating ; to do so, would be to write a treatise on flogging in all its branches. However, I will, give a few instances : " I gave him a hazing" This word is undoubtedly derived from the name of the instrument originally used in the beating, that is, a twig of the hazel nut-tree ; but in common parlance the term is used for a beating with any stick. "I whalloped him." This word is expressive of the effects pro- duced by the beating, and implies that each blow raised a wheal upon the place where it fell, which, being pronounced here "whale," is the root whence the verb " to whallop " is derived. I confess myself quite at a loss for the derivation of the word " to skelp," but it is expressive of that primitive mode of correction used in the nursery by a smart application of the palm of the hand to the bare (I am at a loss for a polished word to express the exact part) of the sufferer. You must perceive, Mr. Urban, the absolute necessity for retaining this word in use, as you see I cannot, even by a periphrasis, express myself without an indelicacy, whilst the original word is harmless in itself. The " slap " and the " smack " are applied with the palm of the hand ; but, unlike the skelp, it is a matter of indifference what part of the body suffers the infliction. " He basted me." This word seems to be of Norman origin, and de- rived from bastonner, to bastinade. In its English application it means "he beat me without my having the power of defending myself." " I licked him." The process of beating and that of licking with the tongue being so dissimilar in themselves, I was for some time puzzled how any analogy had been found between them ; but by con- sidering the usual application of the term " I licked him," I think I have found the connecting link. A licking, then, is a punishment by blows, given for improper conduct or behaviour ; now, we term an un- mannerly churl " an unlicked cub," in allusion to the awkwardness of a bear's cub, before the mother, by licking it with her tongue, has made it more decent in appearance and conduct. The improvement produced on the cub by the tongue, is effected on an unmannerly Punishment. 1 6 1 lout of the human species by blows, and the act of bestowing such wholesome discipline is consequently termed licking, in allusion to the effect produced. " I started him." To start is to apply a smart word to an idle or forgetful person, which seldom fails to rouse his faculties. " I knauped him," signifies I struck him on the head ; the word being of Saxon origin, and springing from the same root whence we have knob) the round end of a stick, etc. " I bunched him," signifies I struck him with my foot ; but I am not prepared with the derivation of this useful word. I am equally at a loss for the derivation of the word " to pummel? which signifies to strike with the fists on the body. " To clout" means to knock well about, and I should think is de- rived from the clouted or congealed blood, which usually results from a clouting. " To leather" " to strap" " to rope's-end" etc., speak for them- selves. I could instance many more, but space will not allow. [See note 49.] T. T. Puss and Grimalkin. [1799, Part If., A 1024.] It is the pride of the Gentleman's Magazine, that it embraces and adapts itself to all topics, be they ever so great, or ever so minute. Your correspondent feels no scruple in asking you, how it comes to pass, that Puss or Pussy, is the general appellation of all CATS, from their cradle to their grave ? Whence is the word derived ? What is its etymology? And by what magic is it, that every beast of that description in the kingdom, wherever and however educated, in solitude or in society, and by whatever specific title distinguished, answers so readily to the generic name? The variorum editors of Shakspeare, Mr. Urban, have not dis- dained to bestow many learned paragraghs on some other titles of this domestic animal. (Henry IV., part i.) Ex fumo lucem. The Hon. Philip Bouverie, uncle to the present Earl of Radnor, and brother-in-law to the Earl of Harborough, on the death of his friend and relation, Mrs. Pusey, of Pusey, inherited her fortune, and assumed her name and arms. I have been informed that he is now the representative of one of the most ancient families in Great Britain. His crest is a kitten seiant, in evident allusion to a cat's nick-name, of which this anecdote seems to carry the origin into very remote antiquity. Yours, etc., A FAUNIST. Allow me, by way of Postscript, to ask the derivation of another well known title of this domestic tiger, viz. Grimalkin, Gallice, Grippe- minaud ? ii 162 Special Words. [1799, Part II. , p. 1129.] I hope I shall not materially fail in my endeavour to gratify the wish of " A Faunist," in assigning, on the authority of Dr. Kenrick, the etymology of puss, or pussy, to the Latin word pusio, a dwarf; and, as cats are confessedly neither more nor less than domestic tigers, may it not be thence inferred, that the word tiger is in this instance understood in the appellation ? and being in universal use in this country, " from their cradle to their grave," will easily account for its becoming habitual to the animal's ear. In France, minon is equally prevalent as puss with us ; and, by a parity of reasoning, produces similar consequences. Grimalkin is evidently derived from gn's, Fr. grey, and malkin, Eng. an old ragged hag; and, when applied to the feline race, implies an old cat, which in that state becomes very grey, dirty, and bare of coat The French term grippe-minaud (the former word signifying to catch with the paw, the latter, any thing playful} may be aptly applied to every cat ; but I cannot consider it as the French for the particular word Grimalkin, for reasons already given. Yours, etc., J. H. Spurring. [1833, Parti., p. 290.] The Rev. Geo. Oliver says : " In my parish of Clee (Lincolnshire), the publication of banns of marriage is denominated a spurring. Query, the origin of the term ?" [1833, Part I., p. 424.] This term, in the same sense it may be observed, is in common use not in Lincolnshire alone, but also in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and in many other of the adjoining counties. Its currency is not, however, found to extend to Scotland, or the more northern parts of this kingdom. Banns, in the expression "banns of marriage," has generally been considered as derived from the Teutonic word ban, to give public notice. May it not rather, Mr. Urban, originate from the German verb binden, which in the imperfect makes band, to bind together, to join ; hence ban or banns, as a ban-dog, a bound dog, a dog tied with a chain, or fetters. Also bas banb ber ehi, the tie of matrimony. We find in German, also, the verb spuren, to follow, to pursue by the scent, probably from the Saxon word rpypian, to sparre, or spurre, to search out by the track, to ask, to enquire, to cry at the market cross; from which also is derived the common Scottish word spere, to ask. Examples of the use of this last word are so common amongst the Scottish writers, that it seems quite unnecessary to specify any par- Spurring. 163 ticular instance. It is also used by Chaucer, and others his con- temporaries. May not, then, the provincial term spurring* very naturally and probably have been originally deduced from the above- mentioned Saxon or German roots, and more recently from their Scotch derivative sperings, spurring*, askings? The publication of banns of marriage is yet, in the northern countries, denominated asking to Church. Yours, etc., OMICRON. Similar explanations of spurring have been offered by our corre- spondents W. H. Lloyd and F. B. Cler. Cant. ; the latter of whom says, " being asked in church is, I believe, a common phrase all over the nation." Stump Pie. [1827, Part /., /. 320.] Your correspondent N. (p. 194), desires an explanation of what a Stump Pie consists. Probably he has a longing for a taste of what formed a prominent dish at a certain period, at the feasts of the Knights of the Garter, I have therefore sent him a recipe to com- pose one secundum artem, and have only to observe that, if he had consulted books on the culinary art, of somewhat later date than those he refers to, he would not have been disappointed in the search. Yours, S. C. P. STUMP PYE TO SEASON. Take veal or mutton, mince it raw, put half an ounce of pepper, half an ounce of nutmegs, and half an ounce of cloves and mace ; marjorara, thyme, and savoury, cut small ; add a pound of currants ; mix them well together, and put to them two pounds of the meat ; work them up into balls as big as walnuts, with six eggs, and at the closing up put a pound of butter, dispersed among them in little balls as big as marbles. Then make a sauce with a quarter of a pint of white wine, half a quartern of verjuice, the yolks of three eggs, and a little whole mace ; putting in a quarter of a pound of butter. When they are well beaten up and thickened over a gentle fire, put it into the pye, and so closing the lid, bake it in an indifferently well heated oven. Tarring and Feathering. [1775. A S6S-] As tarring and feathering has been of late much used by way of punishment amongst the inhabitants of North America, it may not, perhaps, be unacceptable to some of your readers to inform them II 2 164 Special Words. what gave rise to that custom ; as I believe a great many are ignorant of its original, and think it a new mode of chastisement. King Richard the First, called from his great courage Coeur de Lion, or Lion's Heart, not only kept strict discipline amongst his troops, but in his navy also ; and, having made a vow to fight against the Saracens for the recovery of the Holy Land, in the year 1190, sailed over with his army into France, and had an interview with Philip, King of France, and entered into an alliance with him for that purpose ; and the two armies of France and England joined at Vezelai, according to agreement King Richard, during his stay in France, at Chinon, a small town in the government of Orleanois, and province of Tourain, standing on the river Vienne, made the follow- ing very remarkable orders for preserving peace in the navy, during this expedition to the Holy Land, viz. : First, if any one killed a man in a ship, he was to be bound to the dead man, and flung into the sea. Second, If any one was convicted to have drawn his dagger, or knife, to hurt another, or fetch blood, he was to lose his hand. Third, If any one struck another with his open hand, without effusion of blood, he was to be ducked thrice over head and ears in the sea. Fourth, If any one gave his companion opprobrious language, so often as he did it, he was to give him so many ounces of silver. Fifth, If any man stole anything, his head was to be shaved, and boiling pitch poured upon it, and feathers stuck therein, that so he might be known ; and the first land the ship touched at, he was to be set on shore. This I take to be the original from whence tarring and feathering arose, the former being substituted instead of pitch; the custom being disused for so many centuries, is now again revived amongst the Americans. Chinon, the place where these orders were first made, is also re- markable for being the place where Joan of Arc, the famous Maid of Orleans, who so often defeated the English, and was at last taken and burnt for a witch, first offered her service to Charles the Seventh of France, in the year 1429. JOHN WILSON, Corrupted Words. [1777, PP- 320-322.] Corruptions, by means of the figure we call a Crasis, have had a great effect, I believe, in all languages ; it is when the prefix adheres to the following word, which it often very easily and naturally does, in pronunciation, and afterwards is written or printed in that form. Thus the modern names of the city of Athens are Satinas and Corrupted Words. 165 Satines, from es 7s "Adjvaj; and that of Constantinople, Stamboul from h 1w xoXiv. Hence adepol, mehercule, etc., of the Romans; and, perhaps, our word endeavour, and rendevous, from the French endevoir, and rendez vous. Some attention, however, is necessary in the case, and some distinction should be made, for the Crasis is not concerned in all words that coalesce together, as otherwise, always, etc., which ought rather to be called compounds ; for I esteem it no Crasis unless there be such a mixture or coalition of letters in the word as to make the word to seem different from itself, and to be obscured or deformed by it. Thus, Birlady, a form of swearing by the blessed Virgin, much used formerly, and sometimes now, is a manifest jumble and corruption of By our Lady. It appears, from this short account of things, that vulgar, hasty, and inaccurate pronunciation has been the principal cause of this figure ; which has been more applied in our language than, I presume, is commonly thought ; and therefore I am in hopes that a regard had unto it cannot fail of giving light unto the sense and etymology of very many of our English words. The figure has also operated very remarkably in some of our English sirnames, as has been noted by our learned Camden, " Remains," p. 122; we shall therefore insert those instances amongst the rest. I observe, lastly, before I proceed on my alphabet, that it is surprising how prone the country-people of the North and midland parts of England are to the use of this grammatical figure, especially in respect of the article The, which in the shape of T or Th they will join to words which begin with a consonant, or with more than one ; causing thereby much roughness and harshness, and even difficulty of pronunciation ; o'er tK bridge, or o'er tK brig, as they speak it, for over the bridge. Now, the prefixes, or other particles, which usually coalesce with the words they belong to, so as to alter or disguise them, are these : A\ An, At, Ap, By, Di, De, Do, I, In, It, Mine, Ne, O, Saint, The, Two, Three, and To. And these I propose to go through in their order. A. An Accomplice. The monkish historians perpetually use the word Complices in Latin ; and Complice itself, as an English word, occurs in Weever, "Fun. Monuments," p. 266, and see Johnson. So that I suspect a Crasis here, and that it was first a Complice, cor- rupted afterwards to Accomplice, which in that case would require the article an to be prefixed. The word accomplish might facilitate the corruption with unthinking people. AN. A Nayii'ord. This is a common expression for a by-word or proverb, and is probably a Crasis of an Ay e- Word ; that is, a word, or saying, always and perpetually used, agreeable to the ancient use of Aye. If this be not the meaning and original of it, it will be diffi- cult to account for it A Narrow, id est, an Arrow. (See Mr. Hearne ad " GuL Neubrig,'' i66 Special Words. pp. Ixxxv., Ixxxvl) The prefix has here evidently grown and fastened itself to the noun. Jacke Napes, which Skelton gives us p. 160, seems to be Jack-an- Apes, as Littleton writes it ; but I am doubtful about this, as Nape or Knape is the same as knave or servant. (See Gloss, to Douglas's "Virgil.") A Nogler. This is the name formerly given to those people who travelled the country with Sheffield wares ; a practice now generally left off there, insomuch that the name itself is falling into oblivion, as the original of the word has long since done. I take the etymon to be this : what we call an Higler was once written an Hagler, and so you will find it in Dr. Fuller's "Worthies," p. 278. Now, an Hagler is very easily turned into a Nagler, and with a open a Nogler. Dr. Johnson omits the Higler, and describes the Hagler as one that is tardy in bargaining, from to haggle. But it seems the Higler and the Hagler is the same person, and so this sense of the latter word omitted by him. A Newt. An Eft, or small lizard, of which Newt is the common name in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. (Plott. " Hist. Staff., p. 244, 251 ; and it is used by Shakesp., "Macbeth," A. iv. sc. i.) "Newt" says Dr. Johnson, " is supposed by Skinner to be contracted from an Evet" and it certainly is so. The Saxon word is ejrete ; so that the gradation is an Efete, an Evet, a Nevet, a Newt, v consonant being turned into u, just as v in Devil is changed into u by those who pronounce it, as the vulgar often do, Deul. A Needle, anciently written a Neld, which perhaps may by Crasis be an Eld, the same as an Elfe, used by shoemakers. Nawl, i.e. an Awl, implement of the cobler, used by Beaum. and Fletcher, viii. p. 55. A Noddy ; quasi, by a Crasis, an Oddy ; a singular or whimsical person. A Nailbourn. This word is both so written and pronounced in Kent, and, answering to the Vipseys or Gypseys in Yorkshire (Camd. " Col." 901, or Ray " On the Deluge," p. 95), means a torrent which flows only now and then, or once in a few years. Now, when these torrents broke out, they were supposed to betoken famines, sick- nesses, and deaths, chiefly I presume sicknesses ; whence I conjec- ture there is a Crasis in the case, a Nailbourn being in fact an Ail- bourn, as the forerunner of Ails or diseases. It is written, however, Eylebourn by Dr. Harris, p. 240, 23, 411, and so Philipot gives it, p. 42, which perhaps may be a corruption of Ailbourn; but as these desultory torrents often abound with small eels, it is possible they might take their names from thence, quasi Eelbournes. But there will still be a Crasis in Nailbourn. AT. This particle coheres chiefly in such names of persons as are taken from situation ; as, Corrupted Words. 167 Task, which Mr. Camden thinks is contracted from At Ash. ("Remains," p. 123.) Twells. As we have the name of Atwells, or Atwett, one has cer- tainly reason to think that Twells is a Crasis for At Wells. AB or AP. We have certain names now in England, brought ori- ginally, I suppose, from Wales, in which the Ab or Ap is become a part of the name that followed it. At first they were patronymics, though they are not so now. Thus Pugh is ap Hugh ; Price or Brice, ap Rice; Pr it chard, ap Richard; Prideaux, ap Rideaux ; Sevan, ap Evan : Bowen, ap Owen ; Powel, ap Hoel. BY. Bilive, i.e. by-le-Eve ; sometimes written blive and blyve. (Gloss, to Chaucer, v. Blive.) \$ze post, p. 182.] Di. Didapper, the bird, quasi Dive-Dapper ; which is confirmed by its being called Dab-Chick in Kent. Do. Don and doff, i.e. to do on, and do of. (See Johnson in Vocibiis.} DE. In names of persons drawn from the places of their abode, or extraction, the French particle De will often coalesce with the name of the place, if it begin with a vowel. Danvers, de or ff Aimers; Daeth, de or d'Aeth, a town in Hainault; Dashwood may be sup- posed to be de or d'Ashwood ; Davill, d'Eivill (Camden, "Remains," p. 122); Doily, de Oily (Ibid. p. in); Dauney (Ibid. p. 122). Aunay is a plot of ground where alders grow : and, to name no more, Devereux is undoubtedly d'Evereux. ECHE or EACH. Hence every chone (Skelton, p. 192) ; i.e., every eche one ; which we have now contracted to every one. I. This pronoun easily coalesces, as I'm, I'll, rid, i.e. I would (Percy's "Songs," p. 81) ; Ychulle (Percy, iii., p. xvii.), i.e. J shall, ye shall. IN. Ith for in the; hence yth, Percy, L, p. 6. IT. Hence 'tis. MINE. My Neam, my Nont ; Nunde, Nont. These words are used familiarly in the North by young people to the elder sort, though there be no alliance or relation between them. ame is the Saxon for uncle, and the possessive pronoun mine has grown to it. The second is from mine Aunt in like manner, as likewise Nuncle (see Shakesp. " Lear," L sc. iv.) f and Nont. [i777 PP- 372-374-1 NE. This old negative very readily coincided with words be- ginning with a vowel or a w. Nis and Nys, i.e. ne is, or is not (Skelton, p. 62). Nill, for newill ; nilt, ne wilt (Fairfax, Chaucer). Hence will or nill (" Invective against Wolsey "). So nil'd for ne would (" Mirrour of Magistrates," P- 487)- 1 68 Special Words. JV0f, and nolt, for ne wot, or know not, written in " Machabree," folio 220, note. Nolt occurs in Fairfax, xviiL 50. None is either ne one or no one. Nere, i.e. ne were (Fairfax, xii. 81). Nould, ne would (Fairfax, v. 47 ; x. 61 ; alibi}. Nought, ne ought ; written also formerly nog/it. Nam, neam ; nart, neart; nad, ne had ; nist, ne wist : all in Chaucer. O. Ho! I take to mean O ye ! OF. Cf th\ i.e. of the. Hence ath the (Percy, i., p. 6), where the abounds by the mistake of copyist ; for, p. 9, you have athe ; for of the, twice. SAINT. This word, prefixed to the names of certain holy men, or reputed to be so, either adhered, by means of its last letter T, to the name of such saint, or the whole of it was joined to it ; especially in certain of our sirnames borrowed from the names of saints. I shall specify, first, some cases where the last letter only adheres, which mostly happens where the name begins with a vowel. Thus the French 6". Agnan or Aignan was pronounced by some in France S. Tignan (H. Steph., " Apolog. pour Herodote," iii., p. 242. Edit. 1735)- A Tantony pig ; so written in Drakes " Eborac., p. 315, meaning a pig of St. Anthony. Tawdry, i.e. St. Aw drey ; "a term borrowed from those times when they tricked and bedecked the shrines and altars of the saints, as being at vye with each other on that occasion. The votaries of St. Audrey (an Isle of Ely ^aint) exceeding all the rest in the dress and equipage of her altar, it grew into a byword upon any thing that was very gaudy, that it was all taudry, as much as to say, all St. Audrey" (" Canting Diet," v. Taudry}. Talkmund. St. Alkmond's church at Derby is commonly called Talkmund. San Telmo. The meteor called St. Elmo, in " Ulloa," ii., p. 350, is written San Telmo. S. Tathan, St. Athan or AWian ("Memorial of Brit. Piety," Append., p. 40). S. Twinnel, i.e. St. Winnoc (Ibid., p. 48). Tooley Street, Tooley Bridge, Tooley Corner, all in Southwark, from St. Olave, pronounced Olye, as Camden gives it, "Remains," p. 123. St. Tooses. St. Osithe's, written St. Tooses in Bailey's "Life of Bp. Fisher," p. 88. Mr. Camden observes, that St. Osyth is turned into Saint Tows (" Remains," ibid.}. St. Tabbe. St. Ebba was the famous prioress of Coldingham, who chose to deform herself, with her nuns, rather than be abused by the insolent Danes. See Camden's " Remains," Lc. ; also Fuller's " Worthies." Corrupted Words. 169 St. Thetha or St. Teath. St. Etha was a Cornish saint. St. Tomer. This name we have in Camden's "Remains," p. 151, for St. Omer or de Sto. Awdomaro. St. Tole. St. Aldatfs church, or St. Old's, at Oxford, is vulgarly called St. Tale's (Poynter, " Oxon. Acad.," p. 109). Town. This sirname, I imagine, may be corrupted of St. Owen, who occurs in Camden, p. 151. I come now to those instances where the whole substance, as it were, of the word Saint is incorporated with the name, as is evident from many of our sirnames being taken from the names of saints. The French San, as in Sampol, Sammarthanus, etc., coheres thus in their language. Samond, i.e. St. Amand, or de Sto. Amando. Simberd. St. Barbe, de Sta. Barbara (Camd., p. 150). Sinclair. De Sta. Clara, or de Sto. Claro, as Newcourt, in " Re- pert," i., p. 224. But q. if this be not an error. Sanliz, Senliz, Singlis. These are St. Lis, or de Sto. Lisio^ or Sylvanectensis, for which see Camd., p. 150. Sentlo. St. Lo, or de Sto. Laudo (Camd., p. 151). Sentlow. This is different from the former, being interpreted de Sancto Lupo (Camd., ibid.). Lupus is the name of a saint. Sellinger. So they commonly pronounce this name ; whereas the orthography is St. Leger, i.e. de Sto. Leodegario (Camd., p. 150). Semarton, St, Martin, or de Sto. Martino (Camd., p. 151). Semarc. St. Medard (Camd., p. 150). But one would rather think St. Marc. Seimple, Sampol. The first is the Scotch name, the second the French ; both are St. Paul. Seimpere, Sampler, or Sempere. St. Peter, or de Sto. Petro. Semour. De Sto. Mauro. THE. Bydene, i.e. by the even, or by night ("Romance of Amys and Amylion "). To thende. To the ende (Caxton, " Myrrour," cap. 5). Taylot. Glocestershire word, meaning an hay-loft. At first, no doubt, they said in taylot, for in the hay-loft ; and then converted the whole into a substantive, calling a hay-loft by that name. Tuffold, or Tovel. This means an hovel in Derbyshire, where they first said in tovel, i.e. in the hovel ; and then, by mistake, took tovel to be the substantive, for hovel. Ton and Tother : as, do yort take ton, and Til take father; meaning the one and the other. The ton (Percy, i., p. 7), where either the or / abounds ; and yet this is very commonly used, as is the tother, for which see Percy, p. 58. Tierne cross (in Somner's "Antiq. of Canterb.," pp. n, 169), is tJie iron cross. Nathless. Not the less. See Dr. Johnson. 170 Special Words. To. By cutting off the o, this sign glues itself to many verbs in Caxton and other authors ; as tabound, taccomplish, tarette it, i.e. to impute it ; toffer ; talledge hungre and thurste (Caxton, in " Myrrour," cap. 5), is to allay them. Two. This numeral will sometimes cohere with a noun, as twinter, a calf two winters or two years old. (Derbyshire.) Tovet. This, in Kent, means two pecks, and consequently is a coalition of two fat or vat. A Twibill. This is an implement that cuts both ways ; and as two is pronounced often twa, hence you have twa-bill, or twi-bill. THREE. A Trivet is an household implement of iron with three feet to stand before the fire, for the purpose of setting anything upon to dry or warm, and takes its name from the said three feet. See Tanner, " Biblioth.," in Nic Trivet. TOOT. This word means to peep, or peep out. When pease in Derbyshire first appear, they are said to toot, i.e. to out ; and hence they have the participle tooting. Thus, I conceive that tooting at Tunbridge-wells means to out, in the way of inviting and bringing guests to their master's house. [See/w/, page 192.] TRIMON. In the anonymous metrical history of the battle of Flodden-Field, lately published, it is observed, p. 32, that St. Paul, St Peter, and St. Andrew, never taught the Scottish prelates to go to war, but rather some later Popish saints, Trimon of Quhytehorn, or Doffin of Ross ; where, as St. Ninian was the great saint at Candida Casa, or Whitehern, the Editor says, we should read Ninian of Quhytehorn. An emendation is undoubtedly necessary ; this, how- ever, is not a happy one. The Scots, it seems, call Ninian, Ringen (see "Memorials of Brit. Piety," p. 131), whence I conjecture there is a Crasis here, and that the true correction is Tringen. If this be the truth, as I presume it is, it affords a pregnant instance of the use- fulness of attending to the effects of the Crasis : but, indeed, of this, in point of etymology, we have seen many examples above. SMERWICK. There is something particular in this, as the first letter, instead of the last, in Saint, coalesces ; for it means St. Mary- wick, in the county of Kerry, in Ireland (Campbell, " Lives of Adm.," ii, p. 49). [See note 50.] Of Names retained when their Origin is Disused. [1774, pp- 252, 253.] We have a species of words in our language, that is, certain names of things, which, being originally derived and borrowed from customs and practices now disused, carry with them an air of impropriety, and, for the same reason, their etymology is, in many cases, very greatly obscured. To explain my meaning by an example the word Names Retained when their Origin is Disused. 171 minster, in Saxon mmrtpe, from the Latin monasterium, we apply very generally to our cathedrals or collegiate churches, as when we say York-minster, or Southwell-minster ; and yet these churches are at present very far from having any thing of the nature of monasteries in them. But the words of Mr. Thoresby, the famous Leeds Anti- quary, are so pertinent to the subject, that I shall here transcribe them, as sufficient for the purpose of making a proper preamble to the following list, or catalogue. " Reason tells us," says this gentleman, " that, before the use of metals was found out, the Aborigines in each country would make use of stones, flints, shells, bones, etc., formed, in the best manner they could, to the various uses they designed them ; and it is usual for such instruments or utensils gratefully to retain, even in different languages, the memory of the matter they were first made of, as coch- leare, a spoon (tho' of metal), because cockle-shells were first used to that purpose. So candlestick or staff (for it is canbel-rtaek in the Saxon monuments) ; so likewise hooks (Amos iv. 2), in the original, is thorns, with which they used to pierce fish, before they had the skill of applying iron to that use. And, to give but one instance more, the sharp knives (Josh. v. 2) used in circumcision are, by our Saxon ancestors (who received their very names from the weapon called sex, or seax, cultur, gladius) stiled rtenene rex (Mr. Thwaites's 'Sax. Kept.') which in the original is knives of flint, which is more agreeable both to those parts of the world, where there was but little iron, and to that operation, wherein the Jewish Doctors say that sharp flints or stones were used."* All I shall add to these learned and judicious observations is, that the horn was anciently used for a drinking vessel, as indeed it still is in many country places, and retained the name of a horn, though made of richer materials ; whence Athenseus, from Pindar, says, '-% asyvpiuv xtparwv iriwfltc,, drinking out of silver horns ;f and that, to the list which is intended to follow, many names of places in England might be annexed, which are formed from the religious houses that once there subsisted, but are now no more ; as Monks-Horton, Monks- Risborough, etc. ; Warminster, Westminster, etc. ; Abbots-Langley, Abbots-Bromley, etc Many towns are also denominated from saints, with whom we have at this day no concern, as St. Alban's, St. Ed- mundsbury, St. Neofs, St. lvJs, etc., and again, that some saints, in great esteem anciently, no doubt, are, at this time, so rarely heard of, and so little known, that it is very difficult sometimes to investigate them. 1 now go on to the list. * Mr. Thoresby, in Leland's " Itinerary," vol. iv., p. 7. See also his " Museum." p. 566, where the same is repeated, f Athenseus, Lib. ii. i/2 Special Words. THE BARK. By this word, in the north of England, is meant the candle-box, which hangs in the common room, for the purpose of receiving the ends, or pieces, of candles. The reason of the name is that, at first, it was only a piece of bark nailed up against the wall, as sometimes one sees it now at this day ; but, in other houses, it still retains the name, though it be made of better materials, of brass or tin. BORSHOLDER. In the ancient police of this kingdom, established, as supposed, by K. Alfred, the counties were divided into hundreds and tithings, so that every man lived in some tithing. And "that," says Mr. Lam- barde, the famous Kentish antiquary, " which, in the west country, was at that time, and yet is, called a tithing, is, in Kent, termed a borow, of the Saxon word borh, which signifieth a pledge, or a suretye; and the chief of these pledges, which the western men [and we may add the northern men] call a tithingman, they of Kent name a bars- holder^ of the Saxon words bopher ealbop, that is to say, the most ancient, or elder, of the pledges."* The borsholder answers in some respects to the petty constable, and the name is still continued in Kent, though King ^Elfred's establishment is now grown obsolete. [See note 51.] A BROOM. This was formerly made of the shrub of that name, but is now ap- plied to implements of the same use, though made of birchen twigs, or hog's bristles. [1774, //. 314-316.] NAPIER'S or NEPER'S BONES. These are an instrument, invented by J. Neper, Baron of Merchis- ton, in Scotland, for the purpose of expediting the multiplication and division of large numbers ; and they keep the name of bones, though they are usually made of box : the first set, no doubt, as made by his Lordship, were of bone. BAKESTONE. The bakestone used in the north for baking of oat-cakes was at first of stone, and thence took its name. It is now sometimes made of metal, but nevertheless is still called a bakestone ; though it must be acknowledged that stones are now more commonly used for the purpose. BONFIRE. This is so called, according to Mr. Bagford in his letter to T. Hearne (Leland's " Collection," i., p. Ixxvi.), because it was originally * Lambarde's " Perambulation of Kent," p. 27. Names Retained when their Origin is Disused. 173 made of bones. (See also Bourne, " Antiq. Vulg.," p. 215, and T. Hearne's "Prsef. ad Gul. Neubrig. Hist," p. Ixxii.) However, there appears to me to be some doubt about the occasion of this name, since Stowe says ("Survey of London," p. 307, edit. 1754) speaking of bonfires in the streets, and the tables there set out with sweet bread and good drink : " These were called bonfires, as well of good amity amongst neighbours, that, being before at controversy, were there by the labour of others reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends ; as also for the virtue that a great fire hath, to purge the infection of the air." He intimates, in the same page, that these fires were usually made of wood. Let the reader judge ; but I must observe that if bones were formerly used as the fuel, they are now universally left off, tho' the name remains. [See note 52.] CANDLESTICK. This was once also called candlestaff; and it is certain that, before metals and better materials were used, nothing but a stick was employed. I have seen a stick slit at one end for the purpose of holding the candle, as also three nails stuck into a stick for the same use ; and we still call this utensil a candlestick, though it may be made of silver, brass, glass, etc. CHRIST-CROSS-ROW. The alphabet is commonly so called, though now it is often printed without a cross being prefixed as formerly. CARD, or SEAMAN'S CARD. This means the mariner's compass, the points being delineated on a card anciently, whatever they are now, and so it is called a card still HORN, and FRENCH HORN. > At first, horns were used both for blowing and drinking, and the name continued, tho' both the drinking-horn and the blowing-horn were made of better substances : ivory, silver, brass, etc. An IRON, or SMOOTHING-IRON. These were made at first of hammered iron, but now are generally made of sow metal, but are still called irons. KERCHIEF, and HANDKERCHIEF. The kerchief, as the French word couvrechef imports, was originally worn on the head, but now, though it keeps the name, it is commonly worn about the neck or in the pocket, and so there is an impropriety in terming it an handkerchief* 174 Special Words. LEAF. This answers to the Latin folium, which was applied to books, be- cause the ancients wrote on the leaves of trees or plants. The Latin liber in like manner took its name from the bark on which they wrote. We, tho' we write on paper, still keep calling the constituent parts of books, leaves. POT. A pot is properly, and in strictness of speech, a vessel made of earth ; hence a potter and a pottery ; but it is now applied to uten- sils for boiling, tho' they are composed of very different materials, as brass or iron ; as also to vessels for drinking, though they consist of silver (as the coffee-pot), or pewter. By a pot of beer we also mean a quart POLE, or PERCH. This is now a certain measure of 16 one-half feet, forty poles making a quarter of an acre; the reason of this name is that, though land may be now measured by a chain, the custom formerly was to do it by a pole of this length. The case is the same with a rod of work, which no doubt was measured at first by a rod or pole ; as likewise with the yard, the length of three feet, which was adjusted by zyerde, or virga, of that leng'h. Yerde and rod seem to me to be the same word, by a metathesis of letters, as common in our lan- guage. Hither also may be referred the cord, meaning a certain and determinate quantity of wood, when stacked, namely, as much as was usually measured at once by a cord or string. PASTEBOARD. The covers of books were anciently made of boards ; many are now remaining in their original binding made of that material. Folds of paper were afterwards pasted together for covers ; and this sub- stance, though so different from the former, preserved the name of board, being called pasteboard. POKING-STICK, or SETTING-STICK. This is now commonly made of bone or steel, but formerly was really a stick. (V. Stowe, " Chronicle," p. 1038). STIRROP. It is evident from various monuments of antiquity that at first people rode without either saddles or stirrops ; and when the latter began to be used here in this island, especially by our Saxon ances- tors, a rope was applied for the purpose of mounting, and was termed a stigh-rope, from jnjan, ascendere. That this is the true etymology of the word is evident from the Saxon name of the thing, rcijepafa, Names Retained when their Origin is Disused. 175 stapia. There is no rope, however, used at this day about the modern stirrops. Of this, and sallet-oil, I may say more to you perhaps here- after ; at present I go on. SCABBARD. The sheath used for a sword, of which Junius gives this etymon : "Videtur esse a Teut Schap, promptuarium, theca. V. quae infra annotamus in Seep, cumera. Gawino Episc. Dunkel. in Scot, trans- latione Virgiliana, circa initium xi. ^Eneid, evore scalbert dicitur eburnea vagina." I think it very plain from this passage of Gawin Douglas, that the true orthography is scalbord, corrupted since to scabbard. Now scalbord implies a board, or rather two pieces of board, hollowed for the reception of the blade of the sword, and then fastened together with glue. The two pieces would be called scales, just as the two lamina in the handle of a knife are termed by the cutlers scales. In short, the sheath of the sword was formerly, as I apprehend, made of wood, though it is now composed of leather. Mr. Ed. Lhuyd, in " Archaeol. Erit.," p. 15, writes it Sgabard. A STONE. A weight of i4lb. ; in some places only of 81b. The reason of the name is, that weights at first were generally made of stone (Deut. xxv. 13), and we see some few of the sort now; but most commonly they are made, the larger ones especially, of lead, but still go by the old name. STONE Bow. This is the cross-bow (" Wisdom of Sol.," v. 22, and Littleton's " Diet," in vote). The French call it pierrier. The reason of the term in both languages is, that formerly the bullet, discharged by the cross-bow, was commonly made of stone. STEAN-POT. This should, by the etymon, be made of stone, but is usually earthenware. TOUCH-HOLE. Our fire-arms were at first discharged by applying a lighted match to the touch-hole, and consequently by touching the hole, as is now done in firing great guns. And though that method is now left off, by means of the later improvement of the lock, the hole still keeps its old name. TREACLE. QTIPIUXVI, Theriaca, corrupted afterwards to theriacal, was originally a medicine, or compound, good against the bite of a serpent. From this theriacal comes the modern word treacle ; and though the treacle of the apothecary, and the grocer's treacle which is the melasses, are 176 Special Words. not now used with any such intention, they still keep a name bor- rowed from the first intention of the medicine or antidote. THIRDBOROW. This is a corruption of headborow, the same in the north as tithing- man, or bars/wider in the south. [See note 53.] UPSHOT. Though archery is now so much disused amongst us, the term up- shot (for which see Stowe's " Survey of London," L, p. 302), in the sense of the end or conclusion of any business, is still retained. WINDOW. The windows of houses and churches were either entirely open, or filled with lattice- work, formerly. Hence Judges v. 28, we read : " The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattess." These apertures were commonly the places where the wind entered the buildings, and so took the name of window, though now, being closed with glass, nothing of that nature attends them ; on the contrary, they are now so contrived as to exclude the wind. WARD. A term relative to a forest, and still used in places to which forests extended, though such forests are now no more. The same may be said of forests themselves, which are still so called, though they are not now properly forests. These, Mr. Urban, are all the instances I can recollect at present ; many more, no doubt, will occur to others, who perhaps may not be displeased to be put into a way of thinking on a subject that is sure to afford them some amusement Yours, etc, T. Row. [i774>//. 406, 407-] I here beg leave to add, as a supplement to what I advanced in your late Magazine on the word stirrop, that (in Matth. Paris, p. 565), the word strepa apparently signifies a stirrop. See also Dr. Watts's " Glossary " there in voce. St. Jerome, again, has strapia, for the same thing : and there is likewise such a word in Latin as struppus y for a string or thong ; whence some, perhaps, may incline to fancy (the lovers, I mean, of etymology), that the word stirrop may have come to us from some one of those barbarous Latin words ;* that the strap and stirrop had the same original, and that they meant one and * Slippa is used in Blount's " Tenures," p. 31, for a stirrop ; but I suspect it to be an error for slippa, which occurs in Camden, Col. 1023. Names Retained when their Origin is Disused. 177 the same thing. Dr. Watts, I think, was of that opinion ; and it is certain, that strepe (in Blount's " Tenures," p. 33) signifies a stirrop ; and that Dr. Littelton, on the word struppus, says, " Hinc, Angl. a strap, a stirrup." But now, as I esteem the orthography of the word to be stirrop (so Skelton writes it, p. 188), and not stirrup, as Dr. Littelton gives it,* it is more natural to think it took its name from a rope, formerly used instead of a leathern strap now in vogue : sti-rope meaning the rope by which they used to ascend or mount their horses. Thus sty signiBes to ascend in the " Mirrour of Magistrates," p. 402, where Sir Anthony Woodvile, Lord Rivers, says : " Then grew the King and realm to quiet rest, Our stock and friends still stying higher and higher." And stee-hopping is playing the hobby-horse, that is, hopping high, in Somersetshire. t Hence also the word stile, scalarium, scala, from the A. Sax. rtigle, which word stile is pronounced, in Derbyshire, stee the very name they give to a ladder in Yorkshire, the degrees of which are in many places called steles. Hence, again, the word stair comes from the Saxon rtejhep, gradus, which is derived from rcijan, ascendere, as sty, stee, stile, or rtijle, or^/^r, above-mentioned, all are. This etymology of the word stirrop is certainly much corroborated by the Saxon name of it, which I mentioned in my last paper, viz., rcijepapa, plainly shewing that it is an easy derivation from stigh-rope and manifestly ought to have the preference before any of those bar- barous words specified above. [See note 54.] I shall now take the liberty, Mr Urban, to add a word on sallet-oil; a subject intimately connected with my late paper, but for which I had then no room. People are very apt to imagine, that this sort of oil is named from its being used in mixing sallads for eating, as if the true way of writing it was sallad oil : but, sir, the oil used in cookery was always of a better and sweeter sort than that rank stuff called sallet-oil. The truth is, the sallet was the head-piece in the times that defensive armour was so much in use, and sallet-oil was that sort of oil which was used for the cleaning and brightening it and the rest of the armour. Thus you have " a .$#//a hal^unje onjmne." I conceive, there fore, that, by a very usual mode, betar is derived from becan ; and [* This and the following words should have appeared in their alphabetical order in the 6rst part of this section, but they were accidentally omitted.] Jews -harp Oreste. 207 that betars, or beters, are pieces of wood or coal for making the fire ; very useful matters in preparing the exhibition of burning in effigy the traitor Judas. Yours, etc, NOVITIUS. Jew's-harp. [1786, Part IL,p. 665.] The Jew-trump, m Jew's-harp, as it is often called (and indeed it has more of the tone of a wire-strung harp than of a trumpet) is now a boy's instrument, bought at fairs ; it however was, it seems, an an- cient instrument, for Mr. Pennant informs us (" Tour to Scotland," p. 195) that one made of gilt brass was found in Norway, deposited in an urn. The Scotch also have it as well as we. There is an evident allusion in the name to the inhabitants of Judaea ; and I observe, that in Dodsley's " Old Plays," vol iv., p. 171, Quick calls the Usurer, on account of his Jewish avarice, " a notable Jew's trump." In the plate, however, of Jewish musical instruments, presented to us by Calmet, in his Dictionary, nothing of this kind occurs ; so that I much suspect that there is corruption here of Jeu-trompc, a plaything, or Play-tromp y as it is now only used by boys for that purpose. Yours, etc., T. Row. Oreste. [1833, Part II., p. 200.] W., of Oxford, says, "Among the privileges granted to the Abbey of Waltham, temp. Ric. I., and also among those granted to the Priory of Pulton, temp. Edward III., I find the right of oreste mentioned. I shall feel obliged to any one of your philological and antiquarian readers, if he will favour me with the meaning of the term." [1835, Part L, p. 226.] In the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1833, is inserted a note from "W., of Oxford," stating that among the privileges granted to the Abbey of Waltham, temp. Ric. I., and also among those granted to the Priory of Pulton, temp. Edw. III., he finds the right of oreste mentioned, and requests an explanation of the meaning of the term. Other instances have occurred, which, in the absence of this word from the existing Glossaries, it may not be unimportant to insert. Amongst the Cart. Antiq. in the Tower, fol. 23, is a charter granted by Henry the Second to the Austin Canons of Chichester,* in which he confirms to them the privileges of ordel and oreste. F. 24 is a confirmation by Richard the First, in which the same terms are employed. Edward the First confirms to the Church of St. Peter's, York, amongst other privileges, those of ordel and orest, by a charter * Dugdale, in the Monast. Anglic, torn. I, p. 183 (first edition), prints the greater portion of this Charter from an inspeximus in Rot. Cart., 2 Edw. II. n. 31, omitting the clause in which these terms are inserted. 208 Special Words. in the 336 year of his reign, which may be seen in Prynne's Records, vol. iii., p. 1104. In the Placita de quo Warranto, pp. 18 and 19, it appears that Henry the Third granted to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem the privileges of ordel and oreste. So much for the instances ; the meaning and etymology now demand notice. Orest is synonymous with battle, a privilege which was frequently granted to ecclesiastical establishments. Excepting in charters, the only instance in which this term has been found is in the "Saxon Chronicle" under the year 1096, where it is said that Goffrei Bainard accused William of Ore, " and him hit on gefeaht, and hine on orreste ofer- corn." As no examples of its use are known in pure Saxon, and as we know that it is common in the Scandinavian tongues (Ihre, vol. ii., p. 295), it is probable that the Northmen carried the name and custom with them from Denmark into Normandy, and thence into our own island. Tontine. [1791, Art /.,/. 27.] Your correspondent Scrutator having requested an explanation of the word tontine, I'll thank you to insert the following in your next Magazine, if you think it worth noticing. PAUL GEMSEGE, jun. The word tontine is only a cant word, derived from the name of an Italian projector. This was one Laurence Tonti, a creature of Cardinal Mazarine ; who, finding the people extremely out of humour with his eminency's administration, imagined he could reconcile them by a proposal of making people rich in an instant, without trouble or pains. His scheme was a lottery of annuities, with sur- vivorship, which he proposed in 1653, with the consent of the court, but the parliament would not register the edict. Three years after he tried his project again for building a stone bridge over the Seine, when it had both the favour of the court and the sanction of parlia- ment, under the title of Banque Royale, but it failed again ; for some- body having given it the unlucky name of Tontine, nobody in Paris would trust his money in a lottery that had an Italian title. The last attempt poor Tonti made was to get his plan adopted by the clergy for the payment of their debts ; but though they acknowledged the ingenuity of it, they rejected it as unfit for their purpose. Such was the invention of the Tontine. If it is not trespassing too much upon you, I will now shew when it first came into use. When Lewis XIV. was distressed by the league of Augsburg, and granted money beyond what the revenues of the kingdom would furnish, for supplying his enormous expences, he had recourse to the plans of Tonti, which, though long laid aside, were not forgotten ; and by an edict in 1689 created a Tontine Royale of 1,400,000 T'ontine. 209 livres annual rent, divided into fourteen classes. The actions were 300 livres apiece, and the proprietors were to receive ^10 per cent, with benefit of survivorship in every class. This scheme was executed but very imperfectly; for none of the classes rose to above 25,000 livres, instead of 100,000, according to the original institution; though the annuities were very regularly paid. A few years after, the people seeming in better humour for projects of this kind, another Tontine was erected upon nearly the same terms, but this was never above half full. They both subsisted in the year 1726, when the French King united the i3th class of the first Tontine with the i4th of the second ; all the actions of which were possessed by Charlotte Bonne- may, widow of Lewis Barbier, a surgeon of Paris, who died at the age of 96. This gentlewoman had ventured 300 livres in each Tontine ; and in the last year of her life she had for her annuity 73,500 livres, or about ^3,600 a year, for about ^30. P. G. Names of Persons and Places. NAMES OF PERSONS AND PLACES. Observations on Surnames. . 119.] MR. CAMDEN will inform you, in his "Remains concerning Britain," that a large part of our Sirnames are borrowed from names of places. At first they were written, Robert de Marisco, Anthony aWood or at Wood (whence our names of Wood and Atwood), Richard de Gravesend, etc. In process of time, the preposition, or connecting particle, was dropt, for the sake of currency and expedition, both in speaking and writing ; and hence there has arisen a degree of ob- scurity in respect of this species of Sirnames ; for, as these additional distinctions were sometimes taken from obscure villages (obscure at least now), and known but to few, the original of the names of many persons is grown to be very intricate, and, indeed, entirely unknown to those who are not attentive to this mode of derivation. The follow- ing short list of Sirnames deduced from names of places (short, indeed, being only intended as a specimen, and containing only a few in each letter of the Alphabet), will be abundantly sufficient, both to explain my meaning, and to shew, that certain of our Sirnames, in appearance very singular, and even uncouth, have, nevertheless, a most natural and easy original, and also obvious to those who happen to live near, or to be acquainted with the names of, the respective places. 'Tis possible, indeed, that, in here and there an instance, the village may take its name from the proprietor, quite contrary to the position laid down above ; but this, I apprehend, happens very rarely, the names of the owners being usually conjoined with that of the village, being sometimes prefixed, and sometimes postponed, as Monks Ris- borough, Newport Pagnel, etc. I observe, again, that some of our Sirnames or Surnames (for the word is written both ways) are taken from places abroad, Percy, Danvers, Dawes, etc., others (though not many) from villages in 214 Names of Persons and Places. Scotland or Ireland, which, nevertheless, are now become right and legitimate English Sirnames ; but these I do not concern myself with at present, intending the list shall extend only to English towns and villages. It may be observed, lastly, that, in all probability, the stocks of such families as are denominated from places, were all once formerly growing at the respective places whose names they bear; and, conse- quently, that such families sprung originally from thence. Here follows our short list : Annesley, Nott. Ayskew, Yorksh. Aldrich, Staff. Arthington, York. Aislabie, York. Aglionby, Cumb. Barrowby, Leic. Biddulph, Staff. Beresford, Staff. Blackburn, Lane. Bowes, York. Bernardiston, Suff. Charlton, passim* Cave, Leic. Crowle, York. Cudworth, Surry. Cholmondley, Chesh. Crewe, Chesh. Daintry, Northamp. Dalton, passim. Dacre, Cumb. Dale, passim. Danby, York. Dart, Dev. Ellerby, York. Emerton, Bucks. Eden, passim. Enderby, Leic. Egerton, Kent Elton, passim. Fazakerley, Lane. Farewell, Staff. Fetherstonhaugh, North. Feckenham, Wore. Frampton, Dorset. Fulham, Middlesex. Gisborne, Lane. Gray, Essex. Goring, Sussex. Green, passim. Grafton, passim. Gresham, Norf. Hastings, Suff. Holland, Lincoln. Heath, York. Horsemonden, Kent. Hawkesworth, Nott. Hooker, Lane. Ince, Chesh. Islip, Oxen. Ingleby, Line. Irby, Line. Inglefield, Berks. Ireton, Derbysh. Kirby, passim. Kettlewell, York. Kenton, Middlesex. Kennet, Wilts. Ketleby, Line. Kimber, Bucks. Leake, Nott Layland, Lane. Lydgate, Suff. Lumley, Durham. Ladbrooke, Wanv. Lee, passim. Milton, passim. Middleton, passim. * Passim is here used generally, to signify that the name is common to all counties. Observations on Surnames. 215 Mnrkham, Nott. Musgrave, Westm. Manby, Line. Marsh, passim. Norton, passim, Newton, passim. Newbold, passim. Newdigate, Surry. Newnham, Gloc. Narborough, Norf. Otley, York. Oldham, Lane. Osbaldiston, Lane. Oglethorpe, York. Ofley, Staff. Okeley, passim. Pinchbeck, Line. Packington, Leic. Pickering, York. Paulet, Som. Poynton, Chesh. Pelham, Hertf. Russel, Wore. Raleigh, Essex. Ratcliffe, Lane. Radford, Warw. Radley, Berks. Ramsey, Essex. Stanhope, Durh. Skelton, passim. Stillingfleet, York. Stukely, Hunt. Shenstone, Staff. Sutton, passim. Thornhill, York. Thornton, York. Thoresby, York. Trevor, Wales. Tatton, Chesh. Tylney, Nott. Vernon, Chesh. Upton, passim. Urswick, Lane, Whitgift, York. Walpole, Norf. Wintringham, Line. Wentworth, York. Willoughby, Line. Windham, Norf. Yalden, Kent. Yardley, Hertf. Yarborough, Lincoln. I am, Sir, your humble Servant, T. Row. [1772, /. 178.] I send you the following instance, by way of addition to the ob- servations of Mr. Row, in your last ; which may serve to shew that other families may, probably, take their names from places, though no such places are now to be found, having changed their ancient names. Redbridge, in Hampshire, Camden tells us, before the bridge was erected, was called Redeford, Arundinis Vadum, from the reeds grow- ing at the ford, or shallow passage of the river. This place gave name to a family of note. Sir Henry de Redeford was Speaker of the House of Commons, in the Parliament held at Coventry the 6th of Henry IV. He attended the House when they presented their address for seizing the revenues of the clergy. [i772,A>. 253, 254.] I am now going to point out to you another fruitful source of our present English Sirnames, viz., of Christian names converted, by the omission of JFilius, the Latin, and fits, the French, into common 2 1 6 Names of Persons and Places. Sirnames. These are, properly, what the Greeks and Romans called patronymics ; at least, they possess much of the nature of them : and there are some of them very singular and uncouth to us at this day, insomuch that many are really at a loss for the original and the ety mology of such grotesque appellations as Godscalch, Bagot, Thurstan, etc. The Saxons, our ancestors, made little use of Scripture names, John, Thomas, etc., so that their Christian names are extremely numerous, much more so than ours ; and they seldom called a son by the name of his father, which was a right measure, as it prevented confusion of persons in many cases. Godwin, Earl of Kent, had six, or, according to some authors, seven sons, and yet not one of them bore his name. This circumstance, again, occasioned a further variety of names amongst them. The next observation is that, in regard to the difference of orthography, some persons writing Sur- name, and others Sirname, they are both right, though not in the same respect I shall explain this in few words : those who write the term Surname alledge, and they have reason, that this form, from the French Surname, must be the true orthography ; because this dis- tinguishing name, which became perfectly necessary after the use of Scripture Christian names was introduced, and there were many Johns and Thomas's in the same place, was originally written over the Christian name, or added to it ; either of which well justifies the sense of the prefix, Sur ; and for this custom they vouch many in- stances from old rolls and records. Others, however, are equally right in giving it Sirname, or Sirename ; because this so well expresses the nature of the thing, wherever the appellation comes from the name of the Sire, or ancestor, with Htz or Son understood. Both, therefore, are proper, but upon different considerations. But you will say, Are we, in writing correctly, to be always at the trouble of recollecting the original, and the nature of the name, when we are to express this addition, and to be perpetually considering whether we ought to write Sirname or Surname ? I answer, There will be no occasion for this, gentlemen being at liberty to use which they please, since it will be always understood what it is they mean. Besides that figure, which we call Catachresis, or an abuse of words, is readily admitted in all languages, and, in this case, is not only pardonable, but even reasonable. I shall add, thirdly, that many of the Sirnames, which I shall produce, appearing very odd and singular, those gentle- men that bear them, and have not thought upon the subject, will not be displeased, I flatter myself, to see these appendages, so intimately united to themselves and their own persons, clearly decyphered, and, as it is hoped, in such manner as may both gratify their cuiiosity and procure their amusement. And whoever, fourthly, will please to recollect what pains have been taken by Sigonius, Salmasius, Rosinus, and others, in regard to the Roman names, will incline to think that no apology need be made for our producing the assemblage com- Observations on Surnames. 217 prized in the following alphabet to the public ; especially when it is remembered that many Roman Sirnames, as we may stile them, were formed, as the antiquaries tell us, from their pranomina, as is exactly the case here: and that Mr. Camden, in his "Remains," has actually omitted this large tribe of our English Sirnames. I add, lastly, in regard to our list, which I intend shall follow in the next number of your Magazine, that, in names that are not very obvious (I speak of Christian names), I shall produce examples, leaving the more common ones to approve themselves ; and, as to the Sirnames, gentlemen will easily recollect families amongst their acquaintance of such names : and, I make no question, that there are many more cases of the kind than I shall mention, it being not in the least pre- tended, that the catalogue I propose to give, though tolerably large, is by any means complete. T. Row. [1772, pp. 318-320.] The Alphabet I promised in your last number, and there referred to, goes as follows : Amsel : Anselm, abp. of Canterb. Austin : Augustinus. Allen : Alein, Chron. Sax. Alanus, Earl of Bretagne. Awbrey : Alberic, fam. of Vere, Earl of Oxford. Avery : the same. Amory, or Emery : Hamalri, Chron. Sax. Almericus, or Al- maricus, or Emericus. Arnold : common. Avis and Avice : Avisia, Hawisa, and Hawisia, names of women. Anstis : Anastasius, Anastatia, Anstase. Ayscough, or Askew : Asculphus. Alphey : Alphege, abp. of Can- terb. Alpheg, Domesday. Aldelur : Domesday-book. Ancher : Ealchere, Chron. Sax. and Domesday. Anger : Ansger, Domesday. Bright : Briht, Chron. Sax. Brand : Chron. Sax. Baynard : Chron. Sax. Bernard and Barnard: St. Ber- nard. Bely: British. Bennet : i.e., Benedict Brandon : Brendanus. Baldwin : abp. of Cant. Bartram : Bertran, or Bertrand. Brian : Chron. Sax. Bardolph : A. Wood, Hist., p. 88, Domesday. Bevis : Bogo in Latin ; Bevis of Southampton. Blanch, or Blanc : common name. Blase : Bp. Blase. Bagot : Domesday-book. Baldric : Baldericus, Domesday. Belcher, Beecher : Belchard, Domesd. Berenger : Berengarius, a writer of the nth century. Berner : Bernerius, Domesday. Bise : Biso, Domesday. Blethin: British. Chown : Chun, British. Cuthbert : Saint at Durham. 218 Names of Persons and Places. Clements : Common. Coleman : Bede, and Chron. Sax. Cradock : Caradoc, British. Cadman : Casdmon, Sax., or Ca- tamannus, British. Christian : common woman's name. Clare : St. Clara. Caesar. Cnute, or Knowd : Canutus or Cnutus. Carbonell, Domesday. Chetell, Kettell: Ketellus, Do- mesday. Coif: Colfius, Domesday. Corbet : Domesday. Corven, or Corwen : Domesday. Crouch : Croce, Domesday. Calf: Domesday. Collins : son of Colin. Dudley, common. Dunstan : a Saint, abp. of Canter- bury. Dennis : Dionysius, French Saint, St. Dennis. Durand, or Durant: Durandus and Durantus. Drew : Dru, Domesday ; Drugo, or Drogo, Latin. Degory, common. Duncan, common in Scotland. Dun : Chron. Sax. if not from the complexion. Ellis : corruption of Elias. Elmer : ./Elmer, Chron. Sax. and Domesday. Everet : Everard, bp. of Norwich, and fam. of Digby. Edolph : Eadulph, Chron. Sax. and Domesday. Emery, v. Amory. Edwin : common Saxon name. Evans : Brit, for John. Eachard : Wood, Hist., p. 58, Achard, Domesday. Eddy, Domesday. Egenulph, Domesday ; Eugen- ulfus, fam. of Ferrers. Ede : Eudo, Domesday. Edern, Brit Etty, v. Eddy. Fulk : Fulco and Falcasius, Earl of Anjou. Farant : Ital. and Fr. for Ferdi- nand. Frederick and Ferry, common. Fabian : a Pope and in Domes- day. Fulcher: Dugd. Warw., p. 475, and Monast., ii., p. 231, 628. Frewen : Freawine, Chron. Sax. Giffard : Chron. Sax. Gertrude, common ; a Saint. Gethin : Brit. Gittin. Godard, common. Goodman : Godman, Ingulph, p. 52. Gerard, Gerald, and Garret : Girard, Chron. Sax. Gesil, or Sitsil, Brit. Gerald, v. Gerard. Garret, v. Gerard. Gowen, Brit. v. Walwyn. Godwyn : Earl, temp. Edw. Conf. Guy : Guido, or Wido, Chron. Sax. German : a famous Saint. Gladwin : Saxon. Gunter: Ingulph, p. 101 ; A. Wood, Hist, p. 84. Goody : Godiva, or Goditha, woman's name. Godeschal : Godescallus, P. Blc- sensis, p. 120; Camden, Col. cclix. Godrick : Domesday. Griffith and Griffin : Brit. Gamlin : Domesday and Chaucer. Gamble : Gamel, Sax. Girth : a brother of Harold's. Gosling, or Gowline, or Joscelin, Gotcelinus. Observations on Surnames. 219 Goodluck: Godlucus, Doomsday. Grimes, Domesday; hence Grims- by, com. Line. Grimbald : a Saint ; Grimbaldus, Domesday. Guncelin : Domesday. Guthlake : St. Guthlac, Domes- day. Heward : Domesday. Hesketh : Askaeth, and Has- cuith, Domesday ; so Hascoit and Hasculph, in fam. of Mu- sard. Herbert : Chron. Sax. Harvey and Hervey : Bishop of Ely, Skelton, and fam. of Bagot. Hibbert and Hubbard : Hubert. Hubald, Domesday. Hamond : Hamo, common. Harman and Herman, Chron. Sax. Huldrick, Domesday. Harold : Kings of England. Hoel and Howel, Brit. Hanselin : Anselin, Domesday. [i 772, pp. 367,368.] Kennet, Keneth, Scottish kings. Knowd, v. Cnute. Ketell, v. Chetell. Liming, Domesday. Lambert, and Lambarde, abp. of Cant. Lucy : Lucius, or Lucia. M. Paris, p. 576. Leverick, and Laverack : Leofric, and Levericus. Annal. Burton, p. 247. St. Leger ; De Santo Leodegario. Lefwin : Leofwin, common Sax. name; written also Lewen, as in Domesday and P. Bles. p. 116. Lewen, v. Lefwia Hode and Hood : Odo or Oddo, abp. of Cant, and bp. of Baieux, v. Otes, below, and Ottey. Hake : Haco and Hacun, Chron. Sax. Hamelin : Domesd. and Dugd. Bar. i. p. 75. Harding : Domesd. and Ingulph, P- 87- Hasting, Domesday. Herebrand, Domesday. Herward, Chron. Sax. Howard, Domesday. Jennet : woman's name, common in France. Jeffrey : Galfridus, common. Jordan : Dr. Thornton, p. 439. Josceline, v. Gosling. Joyce : Jodoca or Jocosa, woman's name. Ingram : Ingelramus or Engel- ramus, common. Jernegan, Domesday. Jolland : Jollan, Domesday. Ivo, or Ive, Domesday. Ithell, Brit. Levin, and Levinz, Domesday. Livin, Camden ; Lifing, Chron. Sax. Maurice, and Morris : Mauritius, the Saint. Merfin : Merefinus, Mervin, Brit. Meredith, Brit. Merrick : Meric, Brit Milicent, woman's name. Muriel, woman's name. Miles : Milo, common. Maud, and Mawd : Matilda, wo- man's name. Mallet, Chron. Sax. Mabel, Mabilia, Mabella, or Amabilia. 22O Names of Persons and Places. Mauger: Malgerius, Rapin i., p. 165. Madocks, or Madox : Madoc, Brit. Morgan, Brit Macy, or Massey, Domesday. Maino, Domesday. Maynard, Domesday, Camden, P-73- Murdac, Domesday. Murfin, v. Merfin. Neale, Nigellus, bp. of Ely ; Niel, Chron. Sax. Noel : Natalis. Camden, p. 128, thinks it may be from the time when born. Norman, Chron. Sax. Ingulph. p. 10 ; Dugd. Bar. i., p. 8. Otwell : Ottuel, Chron. Sax. Omer : Eomer, Chron. Sax. Au- domarus, a Saint. Orson : Urso, Domesday ; Dugd. Mon. iii. p. 261. Urse, whence Fitz-Urse. Otes : Otho, or Odo, v. Hode. Ottey: a nick-name from Odo, or Eudo, v. Hode. Oswald : a Saint. Owen, Brit Audoenus, or Euge- nius. Osborne : Rapin i., p. 168. Os- bern, Chron. Sax. Oger, Domesday. Olave, the Saint, and in Domes- day. Orme, Domesday. Other : Ohter, Chron. Sax. Ougthred, v. Uctred. Parnel : Woman's name, Petro- nilla. Pigot. Ingulph. p. 87. It may be a surname, meaning speckled, Camden, p. 129. Paine, or Payne : Paganus, Domesday; Spelm. Gloss., p. 443- Paganel,or Painel : Spelm. Gloss., P- 443- Percival, common. Pascal, several Popes. Camden, p. 128, thinks it may be, in some cases, from the time when born. Paulin : Paulinus, abp. of York. Picotte, Domesday. Pipard, Domesday. Pontz, or Poyntz, Domesday. Puntz, v. Pontz. Pritchard : Brit, ap Richard. Price : Brit ap Rice. Pugh : Brit, ap Hugh. Powel : Brit, ap Hoel, or Howel. St. Quintin : Quintinus, the Saint. Rothery : Rodericus. Rudd : Rhudd, Brit. Rolie : Raoul, the French of Ra- dulph, Ralph, Raulf, and Ralf. Ralph, v. Rolie. Reynard and Rainer, Domesday; Reynardus, Camden, p. 73. Reynold : Sax. Regnold and Re- genold, etc. Rose, woman's name. Randal and Randolph, common Christian name. Raymond, Earls of Provence. Remy : Remige, Remy, from Re- migius, a Saint. Rolf, Domesday. Rotrock, Domesday. Sitsil, v. Gesil. Seymour: St. Maur, Semarus, Domesday. Star and Stor, Domesday. Sewal and Sewald, Siwald, Domes- day. Seward: Siward, Sax. Earl. Siwald, v. Sewal. Silvester, several Popes. Sanders and Saunders, nurse- name from Alexander. Sebright : Saebyrht, Chron. Sax. ; Observations on Surnames. corrupted of Sigebert, Camden, p. 87. Sampson, common. Sehvyn, Saxon. Sidney, common. Savery : Savaricus. Searle : Serlo, very common for- merly. Sayer: Saerus, M. Westmin., p. 280 ; Domesday. Sankey : Sancho, Span. Staverd, Domesday. Swain : the king. Sentlo : de Sancto Lupo, or de Sancto Laudo. Semarton : St. Martin. Seimple, or Sampol, i.e., St. Paul. Sampiere, or St. Piere : St. Peter. Samond, or Samon : de Sane. Amando. Simberd, or St. Barbe : de Sancta Barbara. Sinclair : de Sancta Clara. Sinliz, Singlis, or Sanliz : De Sancto Lizio. Toly : a crasis for St. Olye, i.e., St. Olave. St. Tabbe, i.e., St. Ebbe : Cam- den, p. 123. St. Tows, i.e., St. Osythe : Cam- den, ibidem. Tristram, common. Thurstan, abp. of York. Tancred, common. Theobold, abp. of Canterbury. Terrick and Terry : Theoderick. Tudor: Brit. Theodore. Talbot, Domesday. Tovy, Domesday. Turgod, or Thoroughgood : Tur- gotus, Ingulphus. Thorold : Dugd. Baron, and In- gulph. Vincent, many writers. Vivian : Wood, Hist, ii., p. 390. Uctred, or Oughtred : Chron . Sax. and Domesday. Ulmer, Domesday. Walter, common. Wulstan and Wolston, a Saint. Walwyn, or Gawen : Brit. Warin : Guarinus. Wishart : VViscard, or Guiscard. Wade, Domesday. Walerand : Walaram, Chron. Sax. Here ends my imperfect list ; and I shall only observe upon it : ist, That the families bearing names of this kind are generally old, our earliest distinctions being by the Fiiz, afterwards dropped or omitted. 2ndly, The British or Welch, as likewise the Scots, had their ap and ab, wtf^and mac, in the same manner as we had our Fitz, but in many cases have left them off. 3rdly, I think it very remarkable, that, in Dr. Fidde's " Life of Cardinal Wolsey," Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, is called Dr. Edmunds, and Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, Dr. Stephens. These prelates, indeed, had no children ; but these instances may serve to show, nevertheless, with what facility Christian names would pass into surnames, in cases where there were children. I am, Sir, etc. T. Row. 222 Names of Persons and Places. [1772, //. 468-470.] Names are a part of language, and have always been considered as such : but this is subject to flux and reflux : "Multa renascentur quoe jam cecklere, cadentque Qua; mine sunt in honore vocabula." Hor. [De Arte Poetica, 70.] And not only that, but when new arts, trades, customs, or professions, are introduced into a country, they naturally prove a mint of new words and new names; and trades, occupations, conditions, and stations of life, are known to be no inconsiderable source of our English Sirnames.* Thus, in time of war, there is always a coining, or adoption at least, of new words and terms of art, a naturalization of some foreign modes of expression, and the like : hence platoon, canton, battalion, manoeuvre, and a thousand more. And it can hardly be imagined, what a large influx we have had into our mixed language, of words and terms unknown to our ancestors, since the Restoration, or even since the Revolution ; banking, stock-jobbing, taxes, excise, together with long and frequent wars, and the cultiva- tion of arts and sciences, having produced, in the short space of one century, a most immense crop of mere modern diction. Now, it must be supposed, to return to names, that, since they depend, in this manner, upon the fashions and customs of times, whenever any old practices are laid aside, or grow into disuse, such names will, in process of time, be attended with some degree of obscurity, especially to the inadvertent and inconsiderate. This is particularly noted by Mr. Camden.t And 'tis certain, that, at this day, we have many names amongst us, which, being taken from customs and practices now obsolete, from archery or hawking, for example, are very unintelligible to many. I think the case was no other amongst the Romans ; Virgil deduces the name of the Julian family from Juhis, the Sergian from Strgestus, and the Cluentian from Cloanthus ; but this is all adulation, poetical licence, and invention, and to me plainly shows, that the meaning of those names was, in the Augustan age, entirely lost and unknown ; nay, it appears from ALL Spartianus, that, in his time, they knew not well what to make of the agnomen Ccesar. It has happened again, sometimes, that the arts or customs have continued in being, and yet the professors and users of them have, through the common and daily alteration of language, acquired new appellations ; thus he, whom Chaucer and Shakespeare call a ship- man, is now a mariner ; a parker is now termed a keeper, that is, a park-keeper ; and so on. And this mutation, or modern change of names, will necessarily prove the parent of some obscurity in respect of the older designations, seme of which, by this means, may become * See Camden's Remains. f Ibid. Observations on Surnames. 221 \j difficult to enucleate. This observation, Mr. Urban, will cause me to divide this memoir into two branches, one to include such sir- names as are borrowed from trades, occupations, professions, and conditions of life, as here and in this country are now gone into desuetude ; and the latter to contain those, which, though the trades, etc., do continue with us to this day, yet the occupiers of them are now differently styled. I am in hopes that both branches, as they import matters of some curiosity, may contribute to amuse and enter- tain some of your readers at least. Sirnames derived from Trades, Occupations, Professions, and Condi- tions of Life, now obsolete. Archer : there is a noble family of this name. Arrowsmith : so named from the old trade of making the heads of arrows. Armitage : corrupted from Hermitage. Abbot. Arblaster : Balistarh:s in Latin. Billman : the bill was an instrument much used in war, and by watchmen. Bowes : De arcubus, Campbell's "Lives of the Admirals," iv., p. 267. Bowman : Ibidem, Butts : the place of exercising with the bow and arrow. Boulter : from bolting or sifting flour ; or, perhaps, a maker of arrow- heads, v. Shotbolt. Bowyer : he that made or sold bows. Broadspear : the spear is now little used. Breakspeare, v. Broadspear. Benbow, quasi Bend-bow. Campbell, iv., p. 267. Cardinal. Crosier : the ancient pastoral staff of our prelates. Forester, and by contraction Forster ; an officer of account whilst the Forest laws were in force. Foster : from fostering or nursing ; the first of which is now little used. Fortescu, quasi Strong shield. The shield is now out of use. Friar. Fletcher : he whose business it was to finish, or put the feathers to the arrows, from the English word \.Q fledge ; or, perhaps, a maker of arrows, from the French flcche. Forbisher : in Latin Forbator, v. Spelman's Gloss, in voce ; called from furbishing, i.e. cleansing and brightening of armour. It is not the Saxon ppmunge, as Spelman derives it ; but is the French fourbir, whence they have the term Fourbisseur, in the same sense. Falkncr : a falconer. 224 Names of Persons and Places. Hawker : one that sports with hawks ; and not from hawking or pedling, though, in some cases, perhaps, from this last. Hookeman : the hook was anciently a warlike instrument. Minors : this, I suppose, may be taken from the friars minors, or grey friars, but quere ; for see Camden, p. 150. Moigne, or Monke : the French is La Moine, as appears from the genealogy of Gen. Monke. Massinger : denominated, I suppose, from the mass. We have a good comic poet of this name. Masters: De monasteriis. Camden, p. 150. Nun. Prevost : Lat. prcepositus, but immediately taken from the French. Pike : an instrument of war now disused ; but q. pike, the fish, as Camden, p. 130. Prior : this has relation to that monastic officer. Pope : he has nothing to do here now. Pyle : so called from the head or pile of the arrow. Pilgrim. Palmer : a pilgrim returning from Jerusalem, and ' carrying a palm- branch. Parmenter : Pergamendarius, a maker of parchment. A. Wood, " Hist. et Antiq.," p. 90. Pointer : a maker of points, formerly much worn ; or, perhaps, one that pointed arrows. Strongbow. Campbell, iv., p. 267. Stringer : he had his employment in the trade of bow-making ; or, perhaps, in making the strings only. Stringfellow : same as the former. A name common in the north. Spearman, v. Broadspear. Shakespeare, v. Broadspear. Shotbolt : the bolt was the head of an arrow, but a square one. Talsas, or Talsace : the name of a shield ; but this, I think, died with the person. See Camden, "Remains," p. 129, Dudg. "Baronage," i., p. 31. Valvasor, or Vavasor : the name of a certain rank or order. See Spelm. Gloss, v. Valvasores. Ward : a common name ; but the thing has been much, though not intirely, disused, since the abolition of the court of wards and liveries. Wards there are yet of the court of chancery. I am, etc., T. Row. [1772, //. So, S"-] My second series was to consist of such sirnames as were borrowed from trades, occupations, and callings, as formerly bore different names from what they now do, and consequently are involved thereby in some obscurity, and difficult sometimes to be interpreted Observations on Surnames. 22 A Series of Sirnames, taken from Trades, etc., which Trades, etc., or the Occupiers of them, have now changed their Names. Banister : balneator, from French baina, a bath, a keeper of a bagnio. Boulenger, Baxter : now called a baker. Barker: a dealer in bark, or a filler of bark, as this kind of labourer is now called. Bond : pater -familias, whence comes husbond or husband. Chaucer : now a hosier, from French chausser. Clothman : a draper now. Castellan : warden or governor of a castle, from Lat. castellanus. Cartwright, v. Wright Despencer, v. Spencer. Doorward : now a porter. Franklin : now a gentleman. Foster : a nurse. See in the other series. Fowler : now a bird-catcher. Greaves, v. Reve. Goff : British, a smith. Gough, v. Goff. Howard : a high or great warden. Camden, p. 138. Heyward : now a hedger, from Fr. hate, in Lat. haia. Hereward : now a general. Knowler : common in Kent, and meaning a toller of a bell Kempe : now a soldier. Latimer : an interpreter. Leach : a physician. Cow-leach, a cow -doctor. Horse- leach, Hirudo. Monger: a chapman. Used in composition, wood - monger, pupil-monger, etc. Milward : a miller. Milner: ditto. Parker: a keeper, i.e. park-keeper. Paramour : a lover, or a beloved. Palfriman : a groom. Reeve : a steward or bailiff. Greaves, the same, jepep. Revel : a play, interlude, or mas- querade. Spigurnel : a sealer of writs. Thornten's Antiq. of Notting- hamshire, p. 267. Salter : a seller of salt, with other matters of the kind. Spicer : a dealer in spices, now a grocer. Scrivener: a writer, now almost obsolete. Spelman : now a scholar, or learned man. Spenser and Despenser : a steward. Spurrier: the trade is now in- volved in that of the sadler. Sowter : now a sow-gelder. Staller: constable, or standard- bearer. Shipman : a mariner. Sherman, or Sharman : a cropper of cloth. Somner, /. e. Summoner. See Bishop Kennel's Life of Mr. Somner. Now an apparitor. Storer : now a warehouse-keeper, Taverner : now a vintner. Tubman : a cooper. Venner : a hunter. Fr. veneur. Wright : Faber Lignarius. We use it not now but in composi- tion, as, ship-wright, cart-wright ', (now termed a wheeler), wain- wright, etc. Woodruff, i.e. Wood- reeve, a wood- steward. Woody er : one that deals in 226 Names of Persons and Places. wood, a wood-buyer, or wood- Webster : a weaver. monger. Ward : one that keeps guard at Woodward : a wood - reeve, v. any place. See also in the Woodruff. other series. Walker : a fuller, or dresser of Wainwright. See Wright above. cloth. I am, etc., T. Row. [1786, Part II., p. 1016.] Many surnames have been local, or deduced from different places, as the following from towns in France : Courtney, Corby, Bollein, St. Quintin, Gorges, Paris, Rheims, Cressy, Lyons, Chaloner, etc. From the Netherlands came the names Gaunt, Bruges, Tournay, Rosbert, Grandison, etc., etc. From places in England and Scotland there are many ; scarce a town or village but have afforded names to families, as Derbyshire, Lancaster, Essex, Murray, Clifford. Gordon, Dacre, Whitney, Ratcliffe, Cotton, Crew, Winnington, Seaton, Hamilton, Cleydon, Leigh, Lumley, Douglas, Markham, Carie, Car- minow, Killegrew, Willoughby, Wentworth, Tremaine, Roscarrec \ and most Cornish families, of whom there is this very old Rhyme : " By Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Cner, and Pen, You ir.ay know the most Cornish men." Rivers have likewise given names to many , as Trent, Tamar, Tine, Derwent-water, Teys, Calder, etc. Many from trees ; as Alder, Oak, Aspe, Box, Beach, Coigners (that is Quince), Pine, Hawthorn, Hasle- wood, Thorne, Broom, AVillows, which, in former times, had AT pre- fixed to them, as At Ashe, At Elme, etc. In respect of situation to other places rise these usual names : North, South, East, West ; and likewise Northcote, Southcote, Eastcote, and Westcote. Hill, Wood, Field, Ford, Ditch, Poole, Pond, Town, or Ton, likewise give names to many families. Many derive their names from their different occupations or professions ; as Taylor, Potter, Weaver, Baker, Smith, Sadler, Carpenter, Salter, Grocer, Spicer, Wheeler, Wright, Cartwright, Shipwright, Brazier, etc. Many, like- wise from offices which they assumed : as Cook, Steward, Marshal, Porter, Butler, Clarke, Proctor, Parker, Page, Fowler, Falconer, etc. Many names have been taken from the qualities of the mind : as Good, Thorough -good, Goodman, Goodchild, Bold, Hardy, Proud, Meek, Sad, etc. Some from the habitudes of the body : as Strong, Armstrong, Low, Short, Broad, Big, etc. Flowers and fruits have given names to many : as Rose, Nut, Pear, Peach, Lily. Others from beasts : as Lion, Hog, Roe, Bear, Buck, Badger, Lamb, Fox. Some from fishes : as Herring, Trout, Burt, Whiting, Bream, Crab, Pike. Others from birds : as Lark, Crow, Swan, Sparrow, Wren, Parrot. Observations on Surnames. 227 Many by the addition of SON : as Williamson, the son of William ; Harrison, the son of Harris ; with many more of the same kind. These few observations