Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/393

 io*s. i. APRIL 2M80*.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

321

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL S3, 190!,.

CONTENTS. -No. 17.

NOTES -.Scotch Words and English Commentators, 321 Stamp Collecting, 3:22 Easter Day by the Julian Beckon- ing Kentish Easter Custom, 324 Antiquary Drake in Mexico Links with the Past South African War Irving's 'History of Scotish Poetry,' 325 "Pita" Cornish Putting Heads Together, 326 Lobishome John Bcton, 327.

QUERIES: "A past" Women Voters Birds' Eggs, 327 "Wax to receive" Birch Families Elizabeth and Foreign Decorations Marriage of Lord Dunkeld Napo- leonic Conspiracy in England 'Die and be Damned' A. Garden, M.D., 328 Step-brother W. Gibbard Wel- lington's Horses Fettiplace Collins Golden Ball Regis- ter Lament Harp Sun audits Orbit Wilkie's Journal Keade Heraldry, 329.

REPLIES : " Smallage," 330-Shakespeare's Grave Foot- ball on Shrove Tuesday 'Edwin Drood ' continued, 331 -Smothering Hydrophobic Patients Hell, Heaven, and Paradise Cosas de Espaiia, 332 Snake- lore Crouch Imaginary Saints Architecture, 333 Cottiswold W. Stephens Leche Family Melancholy Epitaphs- Japanese Monkeys Samuel Haynes, 334 Copper Coins Charles the Bold German Quotation Wreck of the Wager " Mustlar ": " Muskyll "" Eternal feminine," 335 W. Miller, Engraver Chelsea Physic Garden Im- mortality of Animals Herondas Engravings Pope and German Literature Dean's Yard, Westminster, 336 Thompson Cooper Dahuria " Anon " Irish Ejacula- tory Prayers Nine Parts of Speech " To mug," 337 ' Recommended to Mercy ' Batrome Knight Templar "First catch your hare" Heraldic Reference in Shakespeare First Edtion of Horace, 338.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'New English Dictionary '-De La More Reprints Gay's ' Old Falmouth ' Thurston's ' Lent and Holy Week ' Atchley's 'Parish Clerk ' ' Inter- mediaire' ' Folk-lore.'

SCOTCH WORDS AND ENGLISH

COMMENTATORS.

(See ante, p. 261.)

THE interesting communication under this heading reminds me that Burns is not the only sufferer in this way. Last year a school edition of Scott's 'Rob Roy' was issued by a well-known London firm, originally hailing from Edinburgh. The notes abundantly prove how hard it is for an ordinary English- man to avoid blunders in explaining Scotch words, phrases, and allusions. An exhaustive list of omissions and of erroneous or mis- leading annotations would fill several pages and tire every reader's patience, but perhaps space may be found for a few of these.

Names of dishes of food are often difficult to explain, and we cannot congratulate the editor on interpreting "crowdy" as "thick pottage made of oatmeal," or " reisted haddock " as " roasted." It was a " smoked " haddock that the Bailie promised Frank, which might, of course, be roasted. Again, "bag puddings" are simply "puddings boiled in a bag or cloth," but our editor must say " puddings encased in pastry." Nor is he 'happier in stating that " MacCullum [sic]

More" is "the Scotch title of the Duke of Argyle." He is also inconsistent. On one page " take the bent " is correctly given as " take to flight," while on another " taen the bent" is incorrectly explained as "crossed the slope." One would imagine " ayont " to be well known as equivalent to " beyond," yet we are told it means "beside" in " the auld wife ayont the fire." Scott uses " penny-fee," as Burns does in * The Cotter's Saturday Night,' to mean " wages," but our editor has mixed it up with " arles," and says " the amount paid to a servant when hired." The word " mint " is not uncommon in the sense of "aim, purpose, threaten," but here it is wrongly explained as " make, pronounce." When such simple words are misunderstood we need not be surprised that when real diffi- culties crop up, the editor takes full ad vantage of them. There is a peculiar use of " set up " in several Scotch phrases, where the locution expresses contempt for one who is too pre- tentious or puts on airs of distinction. Scott has it twice in ' Rob Roy,' and twice our editor stumbles, in explaining " Set hi* 11 up and lay him down!" as "taking him all round, "and "Set up their nashgabs !" as "begun their insolent talk." In both cases he ignores the mark of exclamation, and does not see that the verb is imperative. The Bailie says in regard to the ability of the members of Glasgow University to speak Greek and Latin, "they got plenty o' siller for doing deil haet else." All that our editor does is toex-

S'ain " haet " as " smallest thing conceivable." ow can this be dovetailed into the original so as to give sense? "Haet" is "hae it," i.e., "have it"; and so "deil haet else" is " devil another thing " a strong negation.

Neither is our editor at home in Scotch history. One of the losses enumerated by Andrew Fairseryice as resulting from the Union of 1707 is that of " the riding o' the Scots Parliament." The only expla- nation given is " proclaiming the Parlia- ment open." As a matter of fact there was a picturesque procession on horseback, a faint shadow of which appears in Edinburgh every May, when the Royal Commissioner rides in state from Holy rood to open the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Rob Roy's exploits, says the Bailie, are such as might be told "owerat the winter-ingle in the daft days," and all the illumination granted us is that " daft days " means "merry times." True, but in old Scotland the term " daft days "connoted the Christmas holidays, as any one may discover from Robert Fer- gusson's poem on the subject. In another passage Andrew refers contemptuously to