Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/384

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NOTES AND QUERIES. cio* s. ii. OCT. 15, 190*.

"It is a cold, weeping, and rushy clay ground ; in hot weather shoots a kind of salt or alum on the clay ; it turns milk for a posset ; five or six cups is the most they drink, but the common doze is but three, which are held equivalent to nine at Epsom. In this ground are now three wells digg'd, the middlemost whereof does give a vomit. The lock- smith that dwells here on the green, told me he was much consum'd, and very ill, and went to several physicians, some of them advis'd him to drink Epsom waters, which he did, but recei v'd no benefit ; he then drank of the hithermost well, and on the second or third day it brought away four worms, the least whereof was five feet long ; one worm that he voided was eight foot and three inches long, attested to me by several of the neighbours (fide, digni) and the minister that saw it measured. About fourteen years since (1659), ploughing the ground, the horses slipped into that springy place, which was the first discovery of this water. After- wards, at weeding time, the weeders, being very dry, drinking of it, it purg'd them, by which acci- dent the medicinal virtue of them was first dis- cover'd." Black's * Guide to the Hist. Antiq. and Topog. of Surrey,' 1864, p. 96.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

About the time that the Streatham wells were in vogue there were also wells at Sydenham, in Taylor's Lane, afterwards called Wells Lane, and subsequently Wells Road. JAS. CURTIS, F.S.A.

The following appears on p. 317, vol. vi. of 1 Old and New London ' :

"There are at Streatham mineral springs which, as Aubrey informs us, were discovered about four- teen years before he wrote (A.D. 1659) The owner

of the field at first forbade people to take the water ; but before the end of the reign of Charles II. it came into common use. Lysons says that in his time (1810) the Streatham water was sent in large quantities to some of the London hospitals. The well still exists, but its fame has departed."

The Surrey volume of the 'Beauties of England and Wales,' edited by Frederic Shoberl (1813), says :

"On Lime Common in this parish [Streatham] was, in 1660, discovered a mineral water of a mild cathartic quality, which is still held in considerable esteem, and sent in large quantities to some of the London hospitals. Though there are no accommo- dations for persons who come to drink it on the spot, yet it is much resorted to by those who cannot afford a more expensive journey."

May I ask if MR. FOORD has consulted both editions of Dr. Lysons's work ? and has he searched Dr. Rawlinson's edition of the 'Antiquities of Surrey,' by John Aubrey, F.R.S.? CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Baltimore House, Bradford.

Y (10 th S. ii. 186). The substitution of y for ^ is a practice of considerable standing, and its rationale is not easy to account for.

b is not to be dismissed with an easy wave of the hand as an "abomination." The lady novelist may introduce us to a "syren," but

Daniel, in one of his finest lines, did so more

than three hundred years ago : Ah beauty Syren, faire enchaunting good, Sweet silent rhetorique of perswading eies.

' The Complaint of Rosamond,' ed. 1592, st. 18.

And why only lady novelists? As an om- nivorous reader of romance, I long ago came to the conclusion that on the whole the women novelists were rather better educated than the men. There is no occasion for the Pall Mall writer to give himself airs upon this point. Disraeli, who was a gentleman novelist, is doubtless responsible for the vogue of Sybil, though he was not answerable for the spelling. The old English form "Sibell" was possibly an effort to employ a native vowel rather than the outlandish y. But in championing the claims of the superior sex I speak on the authority of Burns, who ought to have known I have no sympathy with those young ladies who endeavour to turn a pretty name into a fine one by writing themselves " Hylda." This implies an ignor- ance of the writings of Prof. Skeat, who, I imagine, adheres to his opinion that tyro is " grossly misspelt." If Dr. Murray thinks ib is not, it must be a case of quandoque bonus, though no one will share the indignation of Horace when it is a question of our greatest living lexicographer. Cypher, the French chi/re, should, I suppose, be properly spelt sifer. Another word which must strike the- eye of those who pass hpstelries and enter restaurants is syphon, which shows that the- erudition of the publican does not go very far. As for Sydney, whether used as a sur- name or a Christian name, I fail to see the criminality of those who spell it with a y. Its early owners impartially employed either vowel. . W. F. PRIDEAUX.

It used to be the practice to write ?/ instead of i; and in the best writers we find tyger, tyro, &c. Spenser has myld, yron, lyon. The title of the poem of John Philips is ' Cyder/ In my edition of Pope I find the line :

And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet. In an edition of Thomson's ' Seasons ' dated 1807 I read, "The tyger, darting fierce." Some time ago it was shown in 'N. & Q.' that celebrated writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who must have known the right way of spelling it, wrote Sybil. And Sybil, as a family name, was generally so spelt. Hence, no doubt, the refusal of Disraeli to alter the spelling.

E. YARDLEY.

IKTIN (10 th S. ii. 249). I should suppose this to be the accusative of Iktis (IKTCS). It can hardly be anything else. I seem to