Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/302

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [io s. i. MARCH 26, im

immature salmon. The vagary of ir and ri is of course familiar ; cf. frith and firth, grin and gim, and the by forms of girl and grilse in the 'N.E.D.' As to the final -I, it is natural to see in it the diminutive -el, -I, i.e., the I.G. -lo- suffix ; cf. runnel, cripple (beside creep), fowl. This gives gir- as the stem, which is confirmed by the Old Low German gb'r, and this will justify us in making garcon, besides gars and Irish gossoon, of the same kindred. It is reasonable to trace in all the root of grow, green, grass, N". Scotch girs; and thus we arrive at an I.G. root, the velar or palatal breathed aspi- rate guttural and r (sonant or consonant), which of course appears by ablaut with various stem-vowels. If this be right, we ought probably to see the same root in XO^TOS, hortus, garth, yard; and it is tempting to suppose that, as happens sporadically, the I.G. had a byform which produced the Latin cre-o and cre-sco. In any case the old girl-boy will thus be the equivalent of our " Verdant Green." I would add that the idea of Mrs. Grundy as the divinity who "mores hominum naso sus- pendit adunco" is confirmed by the name Grindy, which hangs on a signpost of an inn in the parish of Thorpe Cloud, Derbyshire.

T. NICKLIN.

"ANON." In the ' New English Dictionary ' a curious use of anon has, it would appear, escaped attention. In Thackeray's ' The Four Georges' (I quote from Smith & Elder's edition of 1869), in 'George IV.,' p. 106, we have, "It was Walter Scott who had that accident with the broken glass I spoke of anon" (i.e., on p. 100). Here the word must be used of the past. T. NICKLIN.

THE LATE MR. THOMPSON COOPER. (See ante, p. 220.) Survivors until 1904 among those who contributed to the First Series of special note should be made of the fact that the late MR. THOMPSON COOPER'S earliest contribution was in vol. vii. of that series (p. 118), published on 29 January, 1853, and therefore when he was not twenty years of age, his last appearing just half a century later (9 th S. xi. 334). The subject of the first was the Irish ballad of ' Bpyne Water,' and three other efforts from his pen are in the same volume ; while he was a frequent con- tributor in many subsequent years, and often in association with C. H. Cooper, whom I take to have been his father. As one who had long known and respected this well- learned and admirable journalist, and who met him at his post of duty in the Press
 * N. & Q.' must be so rare that I think

Gallery of the House of Lords only a very short time before he ceased work and life almost simultaneously, I should like to place upon record a striking indication of his resolve to labour to the end. Because of his advanced age, the authorities of the House of Commons paid him the unprecedented compliment of offering him the use of the Ladies' Gallery lift to the Press Gallery; but he never took advantage of it, on the ground that he was still well able to perform all his duties. ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

"OUR LADY OF SNOWS." Among your various contributors will probably be found some to throw light upon the following ques- tion. A short time ago I read in a leading London daily paper an allusion to the ex- pression "Our Lady of Snows," which was called the "pretty phrase" of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. But did it really originate with him? To begin with, the expression has a very Roman Catholic flavour about it, and would naturally seem to have come from such a source. England is a rainy country, but an ordinary English Protestant writer would hardly call it "Our Lady of Showers." I am anxious to solve the question, because I came accidentally, a short time ago, on an article in the Revue Canadienne (Montreal, l er Mars, 1903) which was devoted to a Canadian poet now dead, specimens of whose writings were given. Probably this review would not circulate much outside of Canada, for the literature of the French Canadians is very little read except by themselves. The critique is entitled 'Emile Nelligan et son (Euvre,' but no regular biography of the poet is given. The poems cited are many of them very pretty, and have a peculiar nuance from the Canadian French which strikes ine, although, of course, on delicate shades of expression a foreigner cannot be a complete judge. It certainly does not appear exactly Parisian French. On p. 280 we have a poem entitled ' Notre Dame des Neiges.' In it the legend of the Virgin Mary descending upon Montreal is given. I quote the first two verses :

Sainte Notre-Dame en beau manteau d'or,

De sa lande fleurie Descend chaque soir, quand son Jesus dort,

En sa Ville-Marie,