Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/21

 10 s. x. JULY 4,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

13

(1 Cor. xv,i. 18) and "not your's, but you" (2 Cor. xii. 14).

In * The Book of Lessons,' which is due to the Cambridge University Press, the blunder is not made, for blunder I take it to be, having been nourished in that belief; but I find that people of education often write " Your's truly " or " Sincerely your's," and so, to my thinking, spoil a creditable letter. ST. SWITHIN.

DUNGHILL PROVERB (10 S. ix. 227, 413)' Some twenty-seven years ago dunghills were commonly to be seen in front of the houses in the streets of the villages round Morat in Switzerland. At times they were neatly, almost artistically arranged, and my impression is that a plaitwork of braided straw formed a border to them in such cases ; but frequently they were mere " muck- heaps."

In the kingdom of Wurttemberg I also observed dunghills before the doors in parishes near Tubingen.

Probably most English villages were in a similar condition early in the nineteenth century. A lady who was born in 1823 once told me that dunghills used to lie " all along the way" through a certain village when she first remembered it. But she did not speak of the place as in any way exceptional ; others were as bad. M. P.

With reference to the saying, " Where there's muck there's money," " muck " does not, of necessity, mean manure. So long as I can remember, it has in the West Riding of Yorkshire generally meant dirt.

The expression is often used as a sort of philosophical retort in Sheffield, when atten- tion is drawn, by a visitor, to a particularly dirty-looking manufactory where " spoon- buffing " is carried on, for instance. " What a dreadful place ! " the stranger may ob- serve. Such a remark meets with an instant response, which, rendered in the recognized dialect of the district, reads : " Ah, my lad, but tha' knows where there 's muck there 's money ! " This, of course, implies that although the particular trade may be a dirty one, it is a money-making one.

HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

W. HEATH, ARTIST (10 S. ix. 385, 473). I am glad to see MR. HERBERT CLAYTON'S note about the Heaths, a family of artists. I only wish he could have given a few more details and dates.

If what he says is correct that most of the early artists were etchers, then I can

only say that they were very inferior etchers, spoiling all the fine work of the paper drawing by their inexpert and clumsy etching. This I judge by the print would not only be from the biting in,* but the want of skill in drawing on the metal, which before 1840 was always copper. After about that date or 1850 it was nearly always zinc. I am referring to the prints for the juvenile drama.

There is no doubt, I believe, that when wood engraving came in the artists did not engrave the drawings they made on the wood. Is there a book in which these matters are discussed ? Jameson published hundreds of juvenile theatre prints, and on some the names of artist and etcher are stated. I will quote the following inscrip- tion on one in full, as it has other interest :

"Theatrical characters N 3. Mr. Laurent as Rolla in the celebrated spectacle of Cora, as per- formed at The Royal Circus. Founded on the first part of Kotzebue y s .Death of Rolla, recently per- formed under the title of Pizarro, published by J. H. Jameson, 13, Dukes Court, Bow Street, Covent Garden."

There is no date, but the water-mark is 1810. It is drawn by J. F. Roberts, and etched by C. Tomkins.

At the Truman sale of prints at Sotheby's Mr. Sabin bought for stock about twenty of Jameson's theatrical portraits for eleven guineas ; they had notes by George Cruik- shank stating whether or no he was the artist. RALPH THOMAS.

"MAKING BUTTONS " (10 S. ix. 467). This phrase occurs in Middlemen's ' The Spanish Gipsy' (Act IV. sc. iii.), where Sancho exclaims, " O Soto, I make buttons ! ' ' meaning, apparently, " I am in a dreadful funk." Halliwell, in his 'Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,' quotes from Florio, ed. 1611, pp. 209, 276, his tail makes buttons, i.e., he is in great fear.

BLADUD.

" GUIDE," ITS DERIVATION (10 S. ix. 171, 494). Surely we are entitled to some better explanation of guide than the statement that it is from the " German weisen, to- show." How did the German s pass into d? The 'H.E.D.' (or 'N.E.D.') gives the correct solution. The E. guide is merely borrowed from the French guider ; and the French guider begins with a gu, which regularly represents a Teutonic w. Guider represents a derivative from a Teutonic base wit-, which is preserved with sufficient clearness in the Old Saxon verb witan, to pay heed to. The idea of " seeing to "