Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/182

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no* s. i. FEB. 20, IDOL

of ' Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Litera- ture' possesses some interest. The writer thus concludes :

"Gait's poems are of no importance, unless, indeed, he prove to be the author of a famous ' Canadian Boat Song ' imbued with the ' Celtic spirit ' which was printed in the ' Noctes Am- brosianas ' in Blackwood for 1829 as 'received from a friend in Canada.' As the Messrs. Blackwood have recently (1902) suggested, Gait was at that time writing them from Canada. But this par- ticular poem (long absurdly attributed to Hugh, twelfth Earl of Egliuton, 1739-1819) is so unlike Gait's other verse that direct evidence would be required to prove it his. The poem has often been quoted, almost always inaccurately, and was re- written (not for the better) by Sir John Skelton in Blackwood in 1889. The original first verse ran :

From the lone shotting on the distant island," &c. The writer in the ' Cyclopaedia ' is unfortunate in his quotation. The stanza he cites is the second in the original version; "shieling" appears in the original, and the impressive, poetic epithet " misty," not " distant."

JOHN GRIGOR. [See 9 th S. ix. 483 ; x. 64 ; xi. 57, 134, 198 ; xii. 364.]

EPIGRAM ON REYNOLDS. The following epigram upon Sir Joshua Reynolds was quoted in a letter in the Times of 30 January : Laudat Romanus Raphaelem, Gnecus Apellem, Plympton Reynolden jactat, utrique parem.

Plympton was Reynolds's birthplace. The epigram is a paraphrase of one on Milton by Selvaggi:

Graecia Maeonidem jactet sibi Roma Maronem Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.

_ Perhaps the formula is older than Milton's time. Dryden's lines on Milton are an am- plification of it. JAMES R. FERGUSSON.

" SASSABY." This zoological term, the name of an antelope, is one of the best examples I know of the readiness with which English assimilates foreign elements. Its original form, in the Sechuana language (spoken by the Bechuanas), was tsessebe, accented on the middle syllable. Old travellers wrote it sassaybe, which was still only a denizen in our tongue, preserving the correct stress. Sassaby, which looks as if it must have been moulded upon wallaby, is fully naturalized, and transfers the stress to the first syllable. It is the standard orthography of our dic- tionaries, but not one of them shows any knowledge of its history. The 'Century Dictionary' merely describes it as "South African" the 'Encyclopaedic,' still more vaguely, as "native name." It has often struck me as curious that, although the Bechuanas are British subjects, our lexico- graphers treat not only this, but all the

rather numerous Sechuana loan-words in English, in the same loose way. The ' N.E.D.' is the only one which gives a proper explana- tion of, for instance, such heads as kaama, keitloa, and kokoon, and may be trusted to deal in a similar scientific spirit with the rest, such as the tsetse fly, and the species of ante- lopes, nakong, pallah, takheitse, tola, tunio^o, &c. J. PLATT, Jun.

ANAGRAMS ON Pius X. My four anagrams on the name of Cardinal Sarto, now Bishop of Rome and Sovereign Pontiff, are perhaps not the best to be discovered ; but no one else, so far as 1 know, has extracted or pub- lished them hitherto.

1. Giuseppe Sarto=Pastor Pius, ege ! i.e., O Pius, suffer want as Sherjherd (of the Church) !

2. Giuseppe Cardinalis Sarto = Supercare ! ni das pagos liti, i.e., Excessively beloved ! unless thou committest the world to strife.

3. Pius Decimus Sarto = Edic Pastor iussum ! i.e., Pastor, speak out that which is commanded !

4. losephe Cardinalis Sarto !=Caeli Pas- toris es : hordina ! Thou belongest to the Shepherd of Heaven ! maintain order ! Ancient authority can, I believe, be found for hordina instead of ordina.

A variant of the fourth is Caeli Pastor es : his ordina ! i.e., Thou art Heaven's Shepherd. Give orders for these (people) !

E. S. DODGSON.

RICHARD FITZPATRICK AND CHARLES JAMES Fox. The erroneous statement that Fitz- patrick and Fox were at school together at Westminster is again repeated, s.n. Fitz- patrick, in the 'Index and Epitome of the Diet, of Nat. Biog.,' p. 441. Fitzpatrick was a Westminster boy, but Fox was an Etonian.

G. F. R. B.

' THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY.' I should like to be allowed to put in a plea for the official recognition of this title. The bound volumes officially issued are not only denuded of all the interesting notes that have been issued from time to time, but also of the covers to the parts. The result is that ' O.E.D.' nowhere appears, either inside or on the outside. If one asks at a public library for the 'O.E.D.' the assistant librarian looks at you with a doubtful air, and says, "Is that Dr. Murray's dictionary?" There is plenty of room for the addition of this title on the back of the volume, even supposing the word "New" is desired to be kept. I am aware that the utmost consideration was given to the selection of the title at the time the first fascicule was issued ; but then the