Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/189

 10 s. x. AUG. 22, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

Epigrammate,' p. 166, a different turn is given to this proverb* a woman being omitted from the list of things that are the better for a beating, and a bell and a sluggard added to it : Nux, asinus, campana, piger, si verbera cessent

Hie cubat, ilia silet, hip stat, & ilia manet. Nux, asinus, campana, piger, si verbera eogant,

Hie studet, ilia sonat, hie it, & ilia cadit.

EDWARD BENSLY.

"SCARAMOUCH" (10 S. x. 86). If DR. KREBS had taken the precaution to in- vestigate the history of the Italian scara- muccia I am quite sure he would not have ventured to identify the Italian word, together with its English equivalent " scara- mouch," with a Church Slavonic word for buffoon, existing in the eleventh century. It would have been well if he had gone to such an obvious source of information as Florio's Italian dictionary. He would have found in Florio (ed. 1688) the following information :

" Scaramuccia, Scaramugia, Scaramuzza, a skir- mish, a fight ; also the name of a jester or a fool in Italian comedies."

" Scaramucciare to skirmish, or, to play the

Scaramuccio or fool on the stage." From this it will be evident that the It. scaramuccia meant first a skirmish, and secondly the name of a jester ; and that, consequently, it is impossible to connect a word meaning in Italian primarily a " skirmish " with a Church Slavonic word of the eleventh century meaning a "buffoon."

There is no doubt that scaramuccia is the source of the French word escarmouche, which is rendered " skirmish " by Cotgrave. Much interesting information about the word " scaramouch " and its connexion with Italian comedy may be found in the ' Stanford Dictionary.' Harlequins and scaramouches are very frequently men- tioned together. It is probable that It. scaramuccia is of German origin. Etymo- logists generally connect the word with Old High German skirmen, to fence (whence O.F. escrimir). Of course the -uccia is the com- mon Italian suffix. A. L. MAYHEW.

DR. KREBS (or his authority Prof. Skeat) is in error in stating that Scaramuccio was the proper name of the Italian comedian he was something better than a mere buffoon who died in 1694. The proper name of this player was Tiberio Fiorelli. He was familiarly known as Scaramuccio from the stock character he impersonated.

W. J. LAWRENCE.

Dublin.

THE OLD OMNIBUSES (10 S. x. 86). The value of MR. R. H. THORNTON'S note is lessened by the incorrect use of the term " knifeboard " for the front seats by the driver. I remember the thirteenth seat inside, facing the dopr, but I do not think it was found in all omnibuses ; it certainly remained in some after it was abolished in others. The two seats on each side of the driver continued with the original " knife- board " on the roof, and also with its improved form, and were not superseded until " garden seats " were introduced, and the staircase to these seats caused the doors to be abolished. MR. THORNTON does not give any dates, but it would be useful to have these for the various changes. I am sorry that I cannot supply them.

HENRY B. WHEATLEY.

MR. THORNTON is in error in calling the box seats on each side of the driver the " knifeboard," which was, of course, the back-to-back seat running along the centre of the roof. I have seen an illustration showing two or three men, overflows from the box seats, squatting on the curved roof. This practice may have suggested the later provision of the " knifeboard " seats.

H. P. L.

THE DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE (10 S. ix. 350). Did not the two-headed eagle sym- bolize the union of the Eastern Roman Empire under Nicephorus, and the Western under Charlemagne ? Not that it did not exist before as an imperial emblem, since it is said to be traceable to the great empires of the Tigris and Euphrates Valley, of Babylon and Assyria. Found on Hittite monuments of Cappadocia, it is thought to have passed by way of the Turkoman provinces, by means of the Crusaders, to Europe in the fourteenth century. If so, it could not have become the badge of the Easterlings, or merchants of the Hanseatic League, until that period. But the Hanse Association existed long before the four- teenth century, being known in the reign of Ethelred as the " Emperor's Men," which would be somewhere between 840 and 877, in the reign of Charles I. (le Chauve).

A stone carving of the double-headed eagle, one head of which had been restored, and which bore the date 1669 and initials E. (or L.)R.M., was presented about February, 1892, by Mr. M. Pope, F.S.A., to the City Museum, where it may now be seen. This would appear almost certainly to represent the two eagles described by Pennant (1790,