Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/554

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xii. DEC. 4,

as " partridge." To these I would add a word that has lately cropped up in these columns, viz., " bedral " from A.-S. bydel, a beadle.

Whether or not this will be proved in th long run to be the true derivation and so far examples seem to be wanting it is at any rate sound etymology. N. W. HILL.

New York.

[Our New York correspondent, in saying tha " MR. WHITWELL has succeeded in finding an earlier instance of the negative expression non cut prit than the one cited in the ' N.E.D.,' " seems to have misread MB. WHITWELL' s reply, ante p. 174, as the instance is the same.

From what edition of Prof. Skeat's ' Etymo- logical Dictionary ' does MB. HILL quote ? In the 1901 edition Prof. Skeat makes no reference whatever to *' culpate," '' cartridge," or " part- ridge," but gives the cul-prist derivation, with the ' N.E.D.' as authority.]

SCOTT'S ' SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS ' (10 S. xii. 409). This poem is given (p. 733) in the " Oxford Complete Edition n of Scott's Poetical Works, published by Mr. Frowde. It is full of interesting allusions. In view of the recent disturbance in Persia the refer- ence seems very apt to

A sort of Eastern Parliament Of feudatory chieftains and freeholders, Such have the Persians at this very day, My gallant Malcolm calls them couroultai.

Couroultai, more scientifically written qurul- tai, is a Turkish word for a council or assembly.

" Serendib," of course, is the corruption of an Indian name for Ceylon, and is wrongly accented throughout the poem as Serendib, instead of Serendib. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

Scott's ' Search after Happiness l will be found in his ' Poetical Works, J Edinburgh, Adam & Charles Black, 1853, p. 661, where it is stated that the poem was first published in The Sale Room, No. V., 1 Feb., 1817.

GIRALDA.

[MR. W. D. MACRAY and PROF. SKEAT also thanked for replies.]

GOVERNORS or ICELAND (10 S. xii. 229). Count J. D. Trampe was possibly Count Jens David Carl Valdemar Trampe (b. 2 Sept., 1841), son of Capt. Count Jens Erik Poulson Trampe, Danish R.N. (b. 25 Oct., 1799, d. 10 Jan., 1857). I cannot identify Frederick, Count Trampe, without knowing his full name, many members of the family having this Christian name among others.

I am sure that State Councillor H. R. Hiort-Lorenzen, Copenhagen, would gladly give particulars if your correspondent wrote to him. RUVIGNY.

" TAGLIONI "- = GREATCOAT (10 S. xii. 366). A stage-coach as well as a greatcoat is said to have been named after Maria Taglioni, the famous ballet-dancer (born at Stockholm, 23 April, 1804; died at Marseilles on her birthday in 1884). She was a great favourite, and probably people on the look- out for a popular name chose hers. It is also possible that the name for the presumably long greatcoat may have been suggested by the fact that Taglioni, with a charming modesty, always wore skirts to her ankles.

I. M. L.

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER IN AMERICA : " POPE NIGHT " (10 S. xii. 364). An excellent account of this celebration in America, written by Mr. Henry W. Cunningham, will be found in the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts for March,. 1909, xii. 288-95. ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Giovanni Boccaccio : a Biographical Study. By

Edward Hutton. (John Lane.) THE men who do the delving in documents, the resolute searching among authorities, and fortify every statement as far as possible with exact references, are not usually those who compose the biographies which are read. Other people enter into the results of their labours, and popu- larize their discoveries people who have the gift of writing, and a vivid sense of the humanity which lies behind the dry document.

We are fortunate, however, in this case in laving a " Life " by a writer who wields a vigor- ous and picturesque pen, and, further, has made a deep study of the available authorities and documents. Mr. Hutton's Life is likely to lold the field for many a year, and it fills a real gap in English letters, for Boccaccio has as yet received no satisfactory appraisal in English. Yet he has left his mark in our own poets, and, ipart from his wonderful achievement in the Decameron,' played an honourable part in the plendid revival of that scholarship which is the leritage of the cultivated world, and knows no national restrictions.

That often misapplied term " a labour of love ' r s clearly applicable here, and it is Mr. Hutton's enthusiasm for his subject which has enabled him ,o vivify the details he has carefully collected in hese pages. Some of his data are bound to )elpng to that region of inferential biography which sanctions many unlikelihoods ; but he lowhere, in our opinion, abuses the privilege of air deduction, and throughout he uses with kill Boccaccio's own works. The narrative has a ufficient setting in the history of the time, and he quotations introduced in Italian or Latin ire no more than are needed to keep the reader in ouch with the temper of the times, and the style >f the men, who did so much to make them vhat they were Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio.