Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/131

 10 s. x. AUG. s, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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article. It will no doubt reappear in time to be included in the Supplement : possibly ear\ier, as I have an impression that I mar ked it as an instance also of some word beginning with t. If one of your readers incline to treat Hakluyt with such close and acute examination as MB. DORMER (9 S. xi. 142, 163) gave to the ' Paston Letters,' he will find this, along with many other desirable additions to the ' N.E.D.'

But what is the meaning of " hawsey " ? I venture to suggest it is merely the Scottish and Northern " haw," " of a dull leaden hue" (' N.E.D.') + " sey," the Scot- tish and Northern form of " sea." Henryson in the Testament of Cresseid ' writes (257) of the lady Cynthia that she was

Of colour blak, buskit with hornis twa, And in the nicht sho liste best appeir, Haw as the leid, of colour na-thing cleir. Douglas in 1513 describes ('^Eneis,' VI. [1553] 118) how Charon,

His wattry hewit bote, haw as the se, Towart thame turnis, and addressis he, And gan approch, vnto the bra in haist.

It is perhaps hardly too bold to surmise that at this time the word " hawsey " was already used attributively or as a quasi- adjective. The third book of the ' ^Eneid ' (62-5) describes the funeral rites of Poly- dorus :

Instauramus Polydoro funus, et ingens Aggeritur tumulo tellus ; stant manibus arse Cseruleis msestse vittis atraque cupresso, Et circum Iliades crinem de more solutse.

Reference to the * Thesaurus Linguae Latinse ' under cceruleus will exhibit, not only a great number of instances in which that word means " dark," but also a note by Servius* on this very passage, enforcing the same idea. Douglas translates :

Syne, in ramembrance of the sawlis went, The dolorus altaris fast by war vpstent, Crownyt with garlandis al of haw sey hewis, And with the blaiknit cypres dedly bewis. Gale's MSS. 0.3.12, of about 1525 : Banna-

tyne Club edition (1839), i. 129. The Elphynstoun MS., written before 1527, and edited by John Small ('The Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas,' 4 vols., 1874) reads " haw see hewis." Possibly the custodians of these MSS. would have the great kindness to ascertain whether haw sey " is in fact written as one word or as two.

It seems improbable that the Low German hase in the sense of mist should be represented by the English haze. I should look for it


 * " Veteres sane cseruleura nigrum accipiebant in

rather in the Northern and Eastern " haar," which, so far as shown by the N.E.D./ appears first in the preface to Dugdale's ' History of Embanking,' published in 1662 : " The air being. . . .cloudy, gross, and full of rotten harrs." Q. V.

DODSLEY'S FAMOUS COLLECTION OF POETRY.

(See 10 S. vi. 361, 402 ; vii. 3, 82, 284, 404, 442 ; viii. 124, 183, 384, 442 ; ix. 3, 184, 323, 463.)

JOHN PRYNNE PARSES PIXEI/L (10 S. ix. 464) was the author of "A Collection of Songs with their Recitatives and Sym- phonies for the German Flute, Violins, &c., with a Thoroughbass for the Harpsichord, set to Musick by Mr. Pixell," which was published at Birmingham from Baskerville's type in 1759. Shenstone subscribed for six sets, and the musical setting of the piece entitled ' The Invitation to the Redbreast r was inscribed to him.

A second collection, entitled " Odes, Cantatas, Songs, &c., Divine, Moral, Enter- taining, set to music by Mr. Pixell : Opera Seconda," was printed at Birmingham in 1775.

John Nourse wrote in 1741 a poem entitled ' Ut Pictura Poesis,' which is printed in vol. v. pp. 93-5.

Nourse was the eldest son of John Nourse, gentleman, of Lower Weston in the parish of Weston-sub-Penyard, Herefordshire, who married in 1721 Elizabeth, the only daughter of William Gregory of Hill House, Woolhope. He was baptized in January, 1722, and matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, on 10 Oct., 1739, when aged seventeen. He was elected Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, in 1743, and took the degree of B.C.L. in 1751. He was buried at Weston- sub-Penyard on 18 Sept., 1751. He being a bachelor, the family estate passed to his next brother. A pedigree of the family is in W. H. Cooke's continuation of Dun- cumb's * Herefordshire,' iii. 213. The dates of baptism and burial have been given to me by the Rev. Edward Burchett Hawk- shaw, Rector of the parish.

Verses on " Malvern Spa, 1757, inscribed to Dr. Wall," which are inserted in vol. v. pp. 84-7, were the composition of the Rev. John Perry, another of Shenstone's friends, and were sent through him. Dodsley wrote on 11 Jan., 1757, to Perry that he had collected " near forty pounds in consequence