Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/26

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[10*8.1. JAX. 2,

Llewellyn Beadnell in the Ministry of Public Works, Egypt, Geological Survey Department. JOHN HEBB.

EPIGRAM ox MADAME DE POMPADOUR (9 th S. xii. 447). It has been suggested that a line of Frederic the Great against the Abbe de Bernis caused France to go against Prussia. If an epigram on Madame de Pompadour cannot be found, it may be worth while to quote the following ; for it is possible that (Jarlyle made a mistake, and confounded Madame de Pompadour with her ally, the Abbe de Bernis :

" Frederic, ;i la fin d'une Epitre au comte Gotter, oil il decrit les details infinis du travail et de 1'industrie humaine, avait dit :

Je n'ai pas tout depeint, la matiere est immense,

Et je laisse a Bernis sa sterile abondance. On a suppose que Bernis connaissait cette Epitre, et que c/avait ete le motif qui lui avait fait con- seiller a Versailles d'abandonner le roi de Prusse et de s'allier avec rimperatrice. Turgot, dans des vers satiriques anonymes qui coururent tout Paris, et qui etalaient au vif les desastres fletrissants dont la guerre de Sept Ans affligeait la France, s'ecriait :

Bernis, est-ce assez de victimes ? Et les mepris d'un roi pour vos petites rimes Vous semblent-ils assez venges ''. ''

Sainte-Beuve, 'Causeries du Lundi. L'Abbe de Bernis.'

E. YARDLEY.

BANNS OF MARRIAGE (9 th S. xii. 107, 215, 375). It is also allowable, though by no means a general custom, to publish the banns of marriage after the Nicene Creed, and on my last visit to Oxford I heard the publica- tion in this place at the church of St. Peter- in- the-East. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

"PAPERS'' (9 th S. xii. 387). Here are examples of the use of the word "papers,' the extracts being made from ' Newton For- ster,' by Marryat, published in Paris, Bau- dry's European Library, 1834, though the edition is not given :

" ' I will just speak a word or two to my father, and be on board in less than half an hour.' ' I will meet you there,' said Hilton, ' and bring your papers.' "Chap. vii. p. 50.

"Newton made all haste to obtain his clear- ance and other papers from the custom-house

With his papers carefully buttoned in his coat, he was proceeding to the boat at the jetty. " ( 'hap. ix. p. 63.

'There are my papers, sir, my clearance from the custom-house, and my bill of lading.' ' 1 ob- serve,' replied the captain, examining the papers, ' they appear to be all correct.' " Chap. xi. p. 73. MAUD CALLWELL.

" BOAST" : ITS ETYMOLOGY (9 th S. x. 444). As to boast is to some extent to " boss it," to

push or press one's own claims forward, it seems worth while to consider, among the possible progenitors of English iioosf, the verb hosier, recorded by Frederic Godefroy as a variant of the mediteval French i>outer, which he translates as meaning "frapper, heurter, renverser, presser, pousser." Gode- froy gives only one quotation showing the use of this variant of the verb. To continue the Baskish vein, one may point to boz= glad, rejoiced, in Leicarraga's New Testa- ment, 1 Cor. xvi. 17. It is certain that Baskish z had, and still sometimes has, the sound of tz as in German. Salaberry in his dictionary notes bat.-. as meaning "voiz, suffrage." Cas- tilian voz = voice would be baskonized by boz.

PROF. W. W. SKEAT connects Gothic hwopanko boast with English whoop and Dutch hop ('A Moeso-Gothic Glossary,' Lon- don, 1868). This strengthens the tendency to take boast for a derivative of vox. The word for boast in Romans xi. 18, 1 Cor. iv. 7, 2 Cor. v. 12, which are quoted by PROF. SKEAT under kioopan, is gloria in the Baskish version of 1571. In 1 Cor. xiii. 3 Leicarraga did not, like Ulfilas, read Kavxr)< >. 296). John Evelyn in his 'Sylva' (book i. chap, xviii. 8) gives a receipt for birch-sap wine, to which he attributes valuable medi- cinal properties. It is interesting to observe that in the same work he recommends syca- more-sap for brewing (chap. xiii. 2\ and,. writing of the mountain-ash (chap. xvi. 2), remarks :

"Some highly commend the juice of the berries,. which, fermenting of itself, if well preserved, makes an excellent drink against the spleen or scurvy :. Ale and beer brewed with them, being ripe, is an incomparable drink familiar in Wales."

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

London in the Time of the Stuarts. By Sir Walter

Besant. (A. & C. Black.)

THIS handsome volume is a companion to the 'London in the Eighteenth Century' of the same author, for which see 9 th S. xi. ,98 In our notice of the previous volume we described the scheme of the undertaking to which both works belong, but were far from conjecturing the extent of the materials which had been collected. Jointly the volumes in question embrace the period between the accession of James I. and the passage of the Reform Bill. Should enough matter remain, as seems to be the