Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/409

 10 S. XL APRIL 24, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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relating to persons in Virginia in the early days. If the MARQUIS DE RUVIGNY finds that Maximilian Woodroffe was in Virginia, it is to be hoped that he will record the fact in ' N. & Q.' ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.

" GLOSE " OR " GLOSS," FRENCH VERSE- FORM (10 S. xi. 187). The late Mr. Gleeson White in his well-known selection of

p. Ixviii, after saying that the " glose " may be almost looked upon as a Greek form of the " rondeau redouble," adds that, " owing to the impossibility of collating the mass of periodical literature of the last ten or fifteen years, it would be rash to say that the glose has never appeared in English, but not one has been discovered to include in this book. ' '
 * Ballades and Rondeaus,' &c. (1887),

A. R. BAYLEY.

A familiar and immortal example of this is in Lewis Carroll, only he repeats the line at the beginning instead of the end of the verses. " I never loved a dear gazelle," " with variations," after the manner of tunes with "variations," published in

delightful specimen. FORREST MORGAN.
 * Rhyme and Reason,' is a perfect and

Hartford, Conn.

ENGLISH TOPOGRAPHICAL POTTERY (10 S. xi. 230). Nothing is now known at Etruria of this catalogue, probably merely a list of quantities furnished by the manu- facturers, without any details of the views and the artists, and consigned with the service to Russia. A few " trial " plates, &c., of this service are extant (two at Etruria Museum), but the views are unnamed. Here is also one pencil drawing made for this service. A. T. B.

Bessell's Green, Sevenoaks.

"HORS D'CEUVRE" (10 S. x. 229, 255). Napoleon Landais in his ' Grand Diction- naire,' 14th ed., Paris, 1862, gives phonetic spelling for the pronunciation of words, according, of course, to the French sounds of letters.

Of " Hors-d'oeuvre " he says " H s' aspire." "" Ordeuvre " is the pronunciation given.

Much of the effect of " s'aspire " may be gathered from what he says about " Henri " and " Henriette," s.v. " Henri " :

" H s'aspire. . . .(anri). . . .Par analogic, h .s'aspire 6galement dans le nom propre Henriette. Cependant, 1'usage est moins absolu a cet 6gard. Moliere dans ' les Femmes Savanteo ' 1'emploie ans aspiration :

Henriette me tient sous son aimable empire,

Et 1'Hymen d'Henriette est le bien ou j'aspire.

That "aspire" occurs here is merely a coincidence.

It appears probable that Moliere saw that " Henriette " with the H not aspirated suited the rhythm. If he had stuck to the aspirated H, he would have had to write " de Henriette," thus adding a syllable.

The main effect, and I think the only one to English ears, of the so-called aspira- tion of the French h is that elision and liaison are prevented, e.g., " de Henri," not " d'Henri " ; " les halles," pronounced as two words, the s in each case being silent, not " lezalles," as one word.

As to the sound of the aspirated h, Lan- dais says in the treatise on the letter pre- ceding the words in h that it adds a guttural force to the vowel which follows it. This peculiar sound cannot apparently be given in phonetic spelling, for these spellings begin always with the following vowel, whether the h is aspirated or not.

Certainly the sound is not that of the English aspirated h. One cannot imagine a Frenchman saying, " Chez Henri on trouve des hors d'oeuvre delicieux," and giving the h the English effect, or, on the other hand, pronouncing the words thus " Che- zanri on trouve dezordeuvre delicieu."

The authority of the ' New English Dic- tionary ' notwithstanding, I venture to think that " an hors d'oeuvre " is better than " a hors d'ceuvre."

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

SHREWSBURY CLOCK : " POINT OP WAR " (10 S. viii. 8, 96, 195, 313). CAPT. HARRIS'S definition of " point of war " at the last reference, as a "point to be remembered one of the things necessary to be known to every soldier," does not seem quite to fit the case. Rather I should say it is the archaic use of " appoint " or " appointment " (pointment). The ' N.E.D.' defines the aphetic form of " appoint " in its secondary sense as to fix, ordain, decree ; hence !' pointment," being abbreviated into " point," would mean here the command or appointed order or signal to be given at different stages in the drill of soldiers ; and this is precisely the sense required, as in the following quotations from Shake- speare :

Tullus Aufidius,

The second name of men, obeys his points

As if he were his officer. ' Coriolanus.'

That good fellow,

If I command him, follows my appointment. 'Henry VIII.'

N.. W. HILL. New York.