Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/43

 10 s. XL JAN. 9, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Xegro Poet (or poetess)," " the surpris- ing African poetess," " the famous Phillis Wheatley," &c., not to mention " her cele- brated miscellaneous poems." In the face of this absolutely overwhelming mass of contemporary evidence in favour of the authenticity of the poems, MB. THOBNTON raises for the first time (so far as the pre- sent writer is aware) the question of their genuineness, and asserts that " the internal evidence stamps them as a literary fraud." "Is it credible," he asks, " except to a child, in less than twelve years, could acquire such a knack of versifying, and so much classical knowledge, and classical instinct too, as is here displayed ? " This argument, like that of the so-called Baconians, fails to carry conviction. ALBEBT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.
 * Judseus Apella,' that a full-blooded negro

SPEAKEBS OP THE HOUSE or COMMONS (10 S. x. 489). G. H. S. will find a complete list of Speakers of the House of Commons " from the earliest authentic records of Parliament " (1260) at pp. 247-51 of Haydn's ' Book of Dignities,' continued to the present tune (1890) by Horace Ockerby, published by W. H. Allen. This list gives, besides the dates of the tenure of office, the constituency by which each Speaker was returned to the House of Commons.

The list given in Haydn ends in 1886 with the election, for the third time, of Mr. A. W. {now Viscount) Peel. It can be completed to date by the addition of the names of Viscount Selby (Mr. William Court Gully, M.P. for Carlisle 1886 to 1905), Speaker 1895 to 1905, and of the Right Hon. James William Lowther, M.P. for the Penrith division of Cumberland, elected Speaker in June, 1905, whose impartiality, dignity, and sense of humour make everybody who is under his sway hope that he may establish a record for the long duration in his person of the exalted office which he fills.

L. A. W.

Dublin.

A list of Speakers of the House of Com- mons, with dates of appointment, appears under ' Speaker, The,' in ' The Dictionary of English History,' edited by Sidney J. Low and F. S. Pulling, and published by Cassell & Co. in 1889. For other infor- mation respecting the holders of the office G. H. S. could not do better than consult the ' D.N.B.' JOHN COLES, Jun.

Frome.

G. H. S. will find a list of the Speakers from 1660 on p. 159 of ' Whitaker's Almanack ' for 1909. F. HOWABD COLLINS.

Haydn's ' Dictionary of Dates ' gives a list of the Speakers of the House of Commons since 1789. This work also states that Peter de Montford was the first Speaker, 45 Henry III., and gives other information. R. VATJGHAN GOWEB.

I would recommend to the notice of G. H. S. a work entitled ' Parliament, Past and Present,' by Arnold Wright and Philip Smith, which I have often found very useful. It was published only a year or so ago by Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. In it will be found much interesting matter on the subject asked about. The index is full, and in it is given a list of over sixty holders of this office, besides references to many pages of the book where things connected with the Speakership are mentioned.

W. E. HABLAND-OXLEY.

Westminster.

THE TYBUBN (10 S. x. 341, 430, 494). I have refrained from saying anything on this subject hitherto, on account of its difficulty. I was also wholly puzzled to imagine how the proposed derivation from the A.-S. tweo- could be sustained. There are two fatal objections to this. 'The first is that the w would not be lost ; and secondly, even if it could be, it would give a modern Teeburn, and not Tyburn at all.

The last article says that "the elision of the letter w in tweo presents no^ difficulty, because " two is pronounced too." But the cases are not parallel : the w in tw (or other combinations) is never lost unless the sour of o or u follows. But the sound of eo had nothing of the nature of an o or u about it. This is why the old form Twiford remains Twiford still ; it never became Tiford, nor i ever likely to pass into such a form, explained more than a hundred instances ot the loss of w in the Cambridge Phil. hoc. Trans., vol. v. part 5.

If one is reduced to guessing, it would easy to suggest that, after all, Tyburn might be derived from Tye and Burn, on the same principle that beef-eater was found, after all, to be derived from beef and eater. A.tye 11 the regular Essex, Suffolk, Kent, and Sussex word for a croft or enclosure, and is ever applied to an extensive common pasture or common; see the 'English Dialect Dictionary.' The etymology is simple enough, viz., from the verb to tie, A.-& tlgan and it must be remembered that