Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/84

 64

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. JULY 24, 1909.

of ' Epistles in the manner of Ovid, from Monimia to Philocles,' or ' The Squire of Dames, in Spen- ser's style.' Spenser's ! And ' A song for Rane- lagh,' and ' Flowers by Anthony Whistler, esq.,' .a message-card in verse,' and ' Verses under Mr. Poyntz' picture.' Besides ' Epistles to a Lady ' and ' Epistles to Camilla and Clarissa,' and inscriptions in grottoes, and lines on fans innu- merable."
 * A prayer to Venus in her temple at Stowe,' ' On

W. P. COURTNEY.

' THE COMPLETE PEERAGE ' : CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. I append two or three notes on G. E. C.'s valuable work.

Nicholas Purcell is stated (vol. v. p. 155) to have been created Baron Loughmore by James II. " when in exile." I find, how- ever, in the "Act for the Settlement of Ire- Jand, 12 Aug., 1652," in a list of lords and

others and among the lords, one Pursel,

Baron of Loghmo. It would appear, in existence as early at any rate as 1641, to the rebellion of which year the above- mentioned Act has reference. 1 should be
 * accordingly, that the title Loughmore was
 * glad to know the Christian name of the


 * above " baron."

Vol. i. p. 131, 1. 5, for 14 March, 1664, read 14 March, 1664/5.

Vol. i. p. 184. In a document dated 8 June, 1404, and printed in Rymer's of Athole," whereas Sir James Balfour Paul 1409 as the date of creation.
 * Foedera,' Walter Stewart is styled " Earl
 * Scots Peerage') and G. E. C. both give

Vol. i. p. 200. The statement about the wives of James Tuchet, 7th Lord Audley, requires further examination. See ' Calen- dar of Inquisitions post Mortem,' Hen. VII, Nos. 601 and 646. The dates present a difficulty. T. C.

" COFFEE " : ITS ETYMOLOGY. The his- tory of this word involves several phonetic difficulties hitherto unsolved. Of course the ' N.E.D.' is right in stating that the European languages got the name about 1600 from the Arabic qahwah, not directly, but through its Turkish form kahveh. The Turkish form might have been written .kahve, as its final h was never sounded at any time. Sir James Murray draws atten- tion to the existence of two European types, one like the French cafe, Italian caffe, the other like the English coffee, Dutch koffie. He explains the vowel o in the second series as apparently representing au, from Turkish ahv. This seems unsupported by evidence, and the v is already represented by the ff,
 * so on Sir James's assumption coffee must

stand for kahv-ve, which is unlikely. The change from a to o, in my opinion, is better accounted for as an imperfect appreciation. The exact sound of a in Arabic and other Oriental languages is that of the English short u, as in *' cuff." This sound, so easy to us, is a great stumbling-block to other nations. A learned German professor once confided to me, with tears in his eyes, that after years of study and long residence in England he was still utterly unable to dis- tinguish between the words " colour " and " collar." In fact, he pronounced them both with o, and most foreigners do the same. I judge that Dutch ko/fie and kindred forms are imperfect attempts at the notation of a vowel which the writers could not grasp. It is clear that the French typ? is more correct. The Germans have corrected their koffee, which they may have got from the Dutch, into kaffee. The Scandinavian lan- guages have adopted the French form.

Many must wonder how the hv of the original so persistently becomes ff in the European equivalents. Sir James Murray makes no attempt to solve this problem ; indeed, so far as I know, it has never been discussed by any philologist. I would point out that in Turkish there is a dis- position to substitute / for h. An example is kergef, the Turkish form of Persian kdrgeh, a workshop. Another is zilifddr, Turkish for Persian silahddr. (This, by the way, is the same word Byron spells selictar.) It does not 'seem credulous to assume that kahve might readily become kafve, then by assimilation kaffe. Some of the lesser lan- guages of Europe retain the original Turkish v Finnish kahvi, Hungarian kdve, Bohemian kdva, Polish kawa. In Servian and Croatian they say indifferently kafa or kava. The odd-looking Roumanian ca/ed and Russian kophei are due to stress upon the last syllable.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY : THE WESTERN TOWERS. Dean Stanley wrote (' Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey,' 1896, p. 476) that, according to the Chapter Book, the western towers were finished 1738/9 (17 February). He added in a foot-note that Wren restored the lower part of the towers and made a design for the whole, but that after his death in 1723 " the upper part was completed by Hawks- more, and after his death 1736 probably by James."

This is confirmed by Wyatt Papworth (Longman's ' History of the three Cathedrals