Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/287

 to* s. ii. SEPT. 17, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

235

It is remarkable that not only have we in this book (which is probably one of a number written by Bacon and publishec by his ** private succession of hands " in con- formity with his intention announced in 4 Valerius Terminus') an anticipation of the electric telegraph, but in the 1640 edition of his 'Advancement of Learning' (another book published after his death) we find (for the first time in an English edition of the work) the alphabet of his biliteral cipher, constructed on the same principle as the Morse telegraphic alphabet in use to-day, that is, by different placiugs of two characters or signs. A. J. WILLIAMS.

Is not the first suggestion of the electric telegraph to be found in the Old Testament, Job xxxviii. 35, " Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are 1 " H. A. ST. J. M.

SEX BEFORE BIRTH (10 th S. i. 406). At 44 Frost Fair," on the Thames, m 1684, the following list was roughly printed on a handbill on coarse paper, mentioning the royal family present at the fair : " Charles, Xing ; James, Duke ; Katherine, Queen ; Mary, Duchess; Anne, Princess; George, Prince ; Hans in Kelder."

The last name is, of course, an allusion to "coming events casting their shadows before," as the Princess Anne had been married to Prince George of Denmark, 28 July, 1683. I have heard that this used to be a toast at Dutch convivial meetings. JOIIN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

Albertus Magnus heads chap. viii. of his M De signis, an vir, vel fcemina sit in utero," and proceeds to enumerate six special signs from which an answer may be deduced.
 * De Secretis Mulierum ' with the words :

E. E. STREET.

NINE MAIDENS (10 th S. ii. 128). At Little Salkeld, Cumberland, the Druidical circle is called "Long Meg and her Daughters," but there the stones number sixty-nine.

MISTLETOE.

In illustration, rather than in reply to this 'query, may I inform W. G. D. F. that I visited two stone circles this summer not far from Bakewell, in Derbyshire? One is on Stanton Moor, above Darley Dale, and consists of nine stones, about two feet high, arranged in a complete circle. The other is near Robin Hood's Stride, between Stanton and Youlgreave. Here are four stones of much larger dimensions. The guide-books say that there were formerly six. Now the

first of these circles is called "The Nine Ladies," and the other stands, according to the Ordnance map, in " Nine Stones Close."

There is some confusion between the maps and the guide-books in the topography of the Nine Ladies, which is likely to cause the visitor much unnecessary trouble. A solitary stone, apparently connected with the circle, stands about thirty feet to the west ; upon this some wag has cut a portion of the famous Pickwick inscription. Several hun- dred yards to the east of the circle is a huge block of grit in situ on the edge of the moor, bearing on its eastern face a well- carved coronet. The name "King's Stone" seems to be applied sometimes to one and sometimes to the other.

Needless to say, the student of stone monuments will find the western King's Stone the more interesting, in spite of Bill Stumps and his mark.

FRED. G. ACKERLEY.

Care of British Vice-Consul, Libau, Russia.

COWPER (10 th S. ii. 149). Macmillan's Globe edition of Cowper, with its finely sympathetic memoir of the poet by Canon Benham, will be found very useful. W. E. WILSON.

Hawick.

WOFFINGTON (10 th S. ii. 88, 174). The suggestion that Woffington can be connected with Offa is one of a kind that makes one despair of success in teaching the elements of phonetic changes in English. Briefly, there is no known instance in which, before the Conquest, a w was prefixed to o or u. But the Scandinavians before the Conquest, and the Normans afterwards, did the con- verse in hundreds of instances ; i.e., they regularly dropped an initial w before an A.-S. , which was denoted in Norman by o as well as u. Hence the suggestions made express the very converse of the truth, put the cart before the horse, and show what extraordinary confusion can exist whenever sound-laws are ignored.

Of course the W in Woffington is original, and is due to the A.-S. personal name Wuffa, whence Wuffing, the son of Wuffa, and Wuffinga-tun, the town of the Wuffings or sons of Wuffa. The names Wuffa and Wuffing are both vouched for by Beda and his translator King Alfred, 'Eccl. Hist./ i. 15.

The name of Werrington is not derived
 * rom the Domesday Uluredintone, which is

absurd and impossible, but from the A.-S. Wulfredinga - tun (town of the sons of Wulfred), of which the Domesday form is a ridiculous and incompetent Norman travesty.