Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/141

 10 s. xii. AUG. 7, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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is attached to the catalogue. Possibly a catalogue may be found either in the British Museum or in the Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Bathoe was a well- known bookseller of the period. He may have purchased the collection en bloc, and then catalogued it and sold it piecemeal.

W. ROBERTS. 47, Lansdowne Gardens, Ulapnam, S.W.

THE STORM SHIP (10 S. xi. 488 ; xii. 32). I do not think that the legend of " the Flying Dutchman " is peculiar to Germany. The story of the two Philip Vanderdeckens, father and son, the former having sworn to weather the Cape of Good Hope even if he had to try till the Day of Judgment, is elaborated in Marryat's novel ' The Phantom Ship,' first published in 1839.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

"BOSTING" (10 S. xi. 508; xii. 75). At the latter reference we have a quotation for bostillyng, with the remark, " not in the 'N.E.D,'"

But the 'N.E.D.' has the sb. bossell, a kind of boss ; and bosselated, " formed into small protuberances, from F. bossele, pp. of bosseler, to mould into small protuberances." This seems to prove that bostill is formed from the F. bosseler, with an excrescent t after s. See also bossment, the formation of a hump, and bossy, projecting in rounded form ; " with bossy sculptures graven," Milton, ' P.L.,' i. 716. Also boss, " raised work." In boss, " in high relief ; F. en bosse."

When a vessel is " dinted in," it presents a boss on the inside, but a depression on the outside ; hence boss, adj., " hollow." Note also boss, verb, " to make to project, to fashion in relief, to beat or press out into a relieved ornament, to emboss, to furnish with bosses."

Further, we have boast, verb, " in masonry, to pare irregularly with a broad chisel and mallet ; in sculpture, to shape (a block) roughly before putting in details." This is said to be " of uncertain etymology ; F. bosse, swelling, relief, as in ronde bosse, ' full relief,' has been suggested ; but with little apparent fitness."

With all submission, I think it is quite right. For the oa points back (as in roast). to original O.F. short o ; and just as bosse- lated was made from bosseler (which seems to be also the origin of bostillyng), there is here also a strong probability that the t in boast is a mere English addition.

For besides the F. bosseler, we also find the simple verb. Moisy's dictionary of the

Norman dialect has bosser as a variant of bocher, v., " f aire bosse, faire saillie ; en v. fr., bocoier avait ce sens " ; and he give* a quotation for it. The Norman bocher also meant bossuer, to dint in ; and Cotgrave has the frequentative bosseler, " to dindge or bruise, to make a dint in a vessell of metal." And of course bocher is from the Norm. dial.. boche, variant of bosse, a boss.

I see no difficulty in connecting all the- above words. If so, boasting merely means WALTER W. SKEAT.

Josiah Wedgwood in a letter dated Etruria, 3 July, 1775, writes to his friend Bentley :

"I think we can manage to model them [the Greek and Roman heads], and Mr. Tebo has nothing else to do. He is not equal to a Figure, but I can. make him bost out and others tinish these heads."

L. L. K.

Miss LA ROCHE, LADY ECHLIN : SIR F. B. DELAVAL (10 S. xi. 501 ; xii. 38, 70). In The Monthly Review of November, 1782, vol. Ixvii. p. 395, the publication of the following pamphlet is noticed :

"The Trial of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, Knight of the Bath, at the Consistory Court of Doctors' Commons, for adultery with Miss Roach. Insti- tuted by Lady Isabella Delaval, wife of Sir Francis. 1/6. Etherington."

The Monthly Review proceeds to criticize this pamphlet as follows :

"What is here called the Trial of Sir F. B. Delaval happened in 1755. In this meagre catch- penny publication we have nothing but the deposi- tions, from which the reader will rather infer that the trial was instituted by the Knight against the lady "

A further explanation of the incident, on the authority of Miss Ambross's ' Life of Anne Catley,' is given in The Rambler's- Magazine, vol. vii. p. 500.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

MYSTERIOUS NAVAL FOE (10 S. xi. 347, 455). i n looking over a volume of the ' D.N.B.' I came by accident on the answer to my query. The article on John Willett Payne says that Payne, when in command of the fifty-gun ship Leander, met on the night of 18 Jan., 1783, near Guadeloupe, an enemy's ship carrying seventy or eighty guns. After a severe action the ships parted. The enemy, when sighted during the evening, hoisted Spanish colours, but her shot which lodged in the Leander were of French casting. A Spanish ship could hardly have used French shot, and a French ship would not have sought to put the Leander off her guard by hoisting Spanish colours, as