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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. AUG. is. iw*.

vlk'-ing, the i in vik as in give, although with a trifle longer sound. HERMAN STALBERG.

Union Club, New York.

[The pronunciation of Viking has been discussed at considerable length in 'N. & Q.' See 7 th S. x. -367, 492 ; xi. 32, 134 ; xii. 255.]

WESTMINSTER HALL FLOODED. (See 8 fch S. vii. 265.) At the above reference a corre- spondent quoted from Sir Richard Hutton's minster Hall in 1629. I was reminded of this when reading an account of the thunder- storm which visited London on 25 July. The rush of water was so great that the sewers proved inadequate to carry it away, and some of the streets were turned into minia- ture rivers. From the descriptive account in the Daily Mail of 26 July I extract the following paragraph :
 * .Reports,' 1G56, an instance of flooding West-

' ' Palace Yard was flooded, and the water ran over the greater part of the floor of Westminster Hall, giving the place the appearance of a swim- ming bath prepared for all-night sitters. The wet, which got to the hot-water pipes, sent up clouds of steam, and statues of the monarchs enveloped in vapour appeared very curious."

JOHN T. PA.GE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

PLAYS AT ST. ALBAN'S GRAMMAR SCHOOL. In the accounts of St. Alban's Grammar School, 1557-1750, which Mr. Charles H. Ashdown is transcribing for the Home Counties Magazine, occur the following entries of plays acted by the boys :

Item, payd the Drummer for Drumminge when the boyes broake up the 15 th of lOber, 1662,

Item, payd the Musicke for playeinge the sevrall fecenes when the boyes acted the Two Commodies of Lingua and The Jealous Lovers at two of their breakings up, 00 10.<?. QOd.

Item, given to the boyes that acted, 00 05s. OOd.

'Lingua ' is in Hazlitt's ' Dodsley,' vol. ix., -and was written before 1603 and printed in 1607. 'The Jealous Lovers' is by Thomas Randolph, 1632. F. J. F.

"GIVING THE HAND" IN DIPLOMACY. At 5 th S. vi. 106, under the reference * Diplomatic Etiquette,' is an extract from the official instructions to Lord Buckinghamshire, when appointed in 1762 Ambassador to Russia, in the course of which the order of Charles II. was repeated that Ambassadors should not " give the hand in their own house to Envoys," but " take the hand of Envoys in their own house." No explanation of these terms was Added, but it is furnished by "A Foreign En- voy," nearly thirty years later, in a letter to the Westminster Gazette of 12 July, as follows :

"To 'give the hand,' in the diplomatic language of the seventeenth century, does not mean to shake

hands, but to allow somebody to walk or sit on the right-hand side that is to say, to take precedence. Thus, when Charles II. forbade his Ambassadors to 'give the hand in their own house to Envoys,' he thereby simply directed them to maintain' their habitual precedence over Envoys, even when the Envoy was the Ambassador's guest, and might therefore expect to sit on the right side of his host. This is quite plain by the wording of the instruc- tions, which at the same time direct Ambassadors to 'take the hand of Envoys,' i.e., to take prece- dence over them."

POLITICIAN.

' THE DUKERY RECORDS.' This is the title of a new Nottinghamshire book which is now in course of distribution to subscribers. It is the output of one of the oldest con- tributors to *N. & Q.' MR. ROBERT WHITE, of Worksop, who is still, in his eighty- sixth year, engaged in literary work. 4 The Dukery Records' is in every way a most notable Nottinghamshire book, and the greater portion of its pages is taken up with the result of researches in many unaccus- tomed places. Many notable things are shown for the first time, and points which in Notts history have puzzled antiquaries are now made clear. The book contains treasures of high historical value. MR. WHITE himself is the publisher. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

CRICKET UMPIRES' GARB. A correspondent of the Guardian of 20 July claims for the late Rev. Henry Pearson Bainbridge, Vicar of Ganton, who died on 2 July, the credit of being the originator of the long white coats worn by umpires : " They were adopted as forming a good background for the players " (p. 2018). This note may solace many in- quirers. ST. SWITHIN.

CAPE DUTCH LANGUAGE. It is curious that one of the two sister languages of our great South African empire, the Taal, or Cape Dutch, has until the last few years received no recognition from our gram- marians. It was only in 1901 that a well- known and capable philologist, Miss A. Werner, of King's College, published a short grammar. This charming little book is frankly elementary; for the advanced student, if he can read German, a volume has just been published in Hartleben's two-shilling series (Leipzig, 1904), ' Praktisches Lehrbuch der Burensprache,' which I can recommend. The compiler, Dr. N. Marais-Hoogenhout, goes fully into the peculiarities of Cape Dutch accidence ; but an even more welcome feature of his work, for practical purposes, is the appendix of thirty-three extracts for reading practice, drawn from modern Afri-