Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/157

 s. i. FEB. is, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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indeed would, be living in the whole or any fraction of a church is inherently improbable, and it really is not suggested by the MS. The scribe's hand is crabbed, his orthography free ; and in this place he so contrived to write "ag t!3 (= against) that to the eyes of the learned centuries later it took on an arithmetical guise. Before Mr. Wolf's paper assumes its final form it would be an advan- tage if a further attempt were made to secure literal accuracy in these lists. Were this done, "Wyatt the broker" would probably become "Whitt," numerous small omissions and misreadings would be corrected, and the rotundity of "Bilerman the round cooper" would have to be sacrificed to fidelity: he was only Belerman the wine cooper.

A. T. WRIGHT. 22, Chancery Lane.

"BACK AND SIDE GO BARE." I observe from the notice of Mr. Hutchison's 'Songs of the Vine ' (ante, p. 99) that the credit of writing this famous song "is withdrawn from Bishop Still." I know not to whom it is now attributed, but it has been absurdly given to one Tom Twisleton, of Burnsall, in Mr. J. Horsfall Turner's ' Yorkshire Anthology ' (Bingley, 1901). Some lines entitled ' Hus- band and Wife,' pp. 316, 317, open thus :

Wife. Wharivver hev ye been to, ye maupin owd tyke.

DRINKING SONG.

Air. " Yorkshire ale is my delight." I can not eat but little meat, My stomach is not good ; But sure I think that I can drink W ith him that wears a hood and so forth. As Tom Twisleton published a book in 1867 he must have been a nine- teenth-century delight, and if author of these lines, certainly sent them on before him.

ST. SWITHIN.

[It is assigned to William Stevenson, a native of Durham, and Fellow of Christ's College, Cam- bridge, who died 1575. We regret that Mr. Hutchi- son's name was printed " Hutchinson."]

" HOOLIGAN." This has already been ex- plained in these columns (9 th S. ii. 227, 316 ; vii. 48, 114). My object now is merely to point put how aptly it illustrates the way two distinct classes of Irish surnames get confused in English. One large class ends in Gaelic in -gain, in English in -gan, and offers no difficulty of pronunciation ex- amples, Brannigan, Flannigan, Mulligan, Egan, Geoghegan, Regan ; in Gaelic, O'Brana- gain, 'Flannagain, O'Maolagain, MacAodha- gain, MacEochagain, O'Riagain. The other class ends in Gaelic in -chain, in English in either -ghan or -han. We have, for instance,

(1) Callaghan, Mouaghan ; (2) Kernahan, Lenehan, Hoolihan ; in Gaelic, O'Ceallackain, O'Mannachain, O'Ceamachain, O'Leanachain, O'h-Uallachain. Whichever orthography is preferred, the sound in correct English usage should always be -han e.g., Callaghan should be called Callahan ; but unfortunately there is an increasing tendency among English speakers to pronounce this termination -gan t thus levelling Huallaghan or Hoolihan under the same class as Brannigan, Flannigan, Mulligan, with which it had originally no connexion.

Hooligan, by the way, has become part and parcel of the Russian language. In a recent number of a Russian comic journal, the Shut (i.e., Jester), I notice a reference to the dangers of a certain quarter of St. Peters- burg, owing to its gangs of Khuligani (plural). JAS. PLATT, Jun.

"CmswiCK NIGHTINGALES." In a letter written by Josiah Wedgwood to his friend Bentley, on 10 Sept., 1778, the following passage occurs: "As blith and gay as so many Chiswick nightingales." I believe I have heard of the species before, and con- sidering the tow position of Chiswick (" geo- graphically," as Jeames Yellowplush would say), I may assume that the nightingales in question had yellow bellies and croaked like the " fen nightingales " in Lincolnshire.

L. L. K.

MOON FOLK-LORE. The following invoca- tion, to be addressed to the first new moon of the year, is known in North Lincolnshire :

New moon, new moon, I pray to thee

This night my true love for to see,

Neither in his riches nor array,

But in his clothes that he wears every day.

Another version of the third line is Neither in his rich nor in his ray, which, if correct, may refer to " ray " in the sense of striped cloth. J. T. F.

Winterton, Doncaster.

DICKENS : ORIGINAL OF ESTHER IN ' BLEAK HOUSE.' Under "Tea-Table Talk. By the Hostess," in the Smith London Observer and Camberwell and Peckham Times of Saturday, 25 April, 1903, is the following, which may be worth enshrining in 'N. & Q.' :

'The other day there passed quietly away in a sunny corner of Nice a lady of eighty-four, says M.A.P. Her name was Mrs. Nash. She was a daughter of Mr. Elton, one of Charles Dickens's most intimate friends ; but the fact about her that will most interest readers of Dickens's works is that she was the original of Esther in ' Bleak Souse.' That most unselfish and charming cha- racter was named after Mrs. Nash, then Esther Elton, and those who best knew the dead lady