Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/443

 io< s. ii. NOV. 5, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

363

Sunday.* The insertion of N.S. after the date of Edward III.'s accession is also erroneous.

Among other articles of a similar nature there is a list of important battles fought on a Sunday. In passing it may be noted that the first battles of Lincoln and Bull Run, and the second of Newbury, are here referred to. I do not find that 27 July, 1689, the date usually assigned to Killiecrankie, was a Sunday ; and Carlyle definitely says that "the battle of Worcester was fought on the evening of Wednesday, 3 Septemoer, 1651." Unless I am mistaken, too, there was a cessation of hostilities at Leipzig on Sunday, 17 October, 1813 ; Louis Napoleon received his "baptism of fire" at Saarbriick on Tuesday, 2 August, 1870 ; and the fighting round Sedan began on Monday, 29 August, concluding on the following Thursday. Else- where pruning is also required, for of four entries under 'Friday and the United States,' two are inadmissible. The battle of Bunker's Hill was fought on a Saturday, 17 June, 1775; and 17 July, 1776, was a Wednesday. Im- mediately preceding this is another article on Friday, here connecting it with Columbus, and probably suggested by a note in Prescott's

Apart from a misprint (12 March for 15 March) it is noticeable for dating the dis- covery of the American continent 13 June, 1494. It is generally agreed, I believe, that Columbus then laboured under a misconcep- tion, and that the real discovery took place on a Wednesday, 1 August, 1498 ; though, if we are to credit a well-known and much- advertised publication, the intrepid voyager first saw the mainland of America on 30 May of that year, whilst still off the coast of Spain.
 * Ferdinand and Isabella,' pt. i. ch. xviii.

Coming now to year-dates, one finds, s.v

variety extended by a twelvemonth, and that of the Pensioner or Cavalier curtailed by a like period. The * Teutonic Knights ' are abolished nine years too soon ; the * Arganc Lamp' is invented five years after it was patented ; Huxley coins 'Agnostic' in 1885 though he had already done so in 1869 ; anc so forth. What may be called personal dates come off no better. Under Great,' Diego Hurtado de Mendoza is mistaken for his relative the Cardinal, who died in 1495, agec sixty-six ; and other double-barrelled misse* occur in the cases of President ''Rough am Ready " Taylor ; Bolivar, the " Washingtoi
 * Parliament,' the existence of the Addled

by another writer, included by Dr. Brewer amon^ the ' Errors of Authors ' in his ' Reader's Uanc book.'
 * It is amusing to find this mistake, when mad

f Columbia"; the "Coxcomb" Prince de igne ; and the " Wise " Frederick III. of axony. Sometimes celebrities have their ves prolonged, Fielding, for instance, s.v. Homer,' gaining fourteen, and Averroes, v. * Science Persecuted,' twenty-eight years- ore frequently they are deprived of a few months or years' existence. It is sufficiently ell known that the" Man of Blood and Iron," ere alleged to have come into the world on September, was an April fool by birth only. )e Quincey loses nine years, s.v. ' Opium- ater'; Petrarch thirty, s.v. 'Sonnet'; Sir 'hilip Sidney two, s.v. 'Bayard ' ; Goethe wenty, s.v. 'Coryphaeus'; Tartini six, s.v.. Violin ' ; Cellini nine, s.v. 4 Perseus ' ; Elie e Beaumont twenty-three, s.v. 'Beaumon- ague'; Voltaire two, s.v. 'Grand.' It would, lowever, be tedious to enumerate other in- tances where the dates given differ by a ear or two from those usually accepted, hat mysterious scapegoat the printer's devil was probably responsible for much of this ;. and it doubtless rejoiced his heart to insert B.C. before the dates of St. Augustine, cor- rupting 354 into 395 (s.v. ' Hammer '), and to- make Owen Meredith an author before his-
 * hird birthday.

There is a disposition in some quarters to- ook upon this work as an authority on ety- mology, perhaps from the assurance given in the preface to the last edition that full advantage has been taken of modern philo- ogical research. This is rather unfortunate, ior, to say the least, the dictionary is capable of improvement in this particular direction- It contains a variety of derivations that were abandoned many years ago, and some which I should imagine have never found much acceptance. At times the true etymology of a word is deliberately rejected. Thus, an early form of "Samedi" was sambati-diem, which is remarkable if the derivation from sabbati-dies " cannot be correct," and shows no approximation towards Saturni-dits ; and nod as a source of "Noddy " is not so ridicu- lous as it is made to appear. "Most im- probable " as the obtention of " Church " from a Greek word meaning "house of God may seem, it is yet favoured by philologists ; though the same cannot be said of the deriva- tion of ' Lateran,' a latente rana (quoted by Buckle from Matthew of Westminster as an example of the credulity of the Middle Ages), the name of the Laterani to whom the original palace belonged being destitute of batrachian affinities. As a pretty piece of etymology there may be instanced the statement, s.v. 'Thames,' that "Tham is a variety of the Latin amnis, seen in such words as North-