Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/97

 ii. JULY 23, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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possible, especially in the light of the fact that roots ending in liquids seem naturally to take the termination ensis, e.g., Lug- dun(um), Lugdunensis ; Tarracon, Tarra- conensis ; Attalea, Attalenses ; Hispania, Hispaniensis as well as Hispanus, though of course, on the other hand, Lycaonia gives Lycaones. I note the fact that we first learnt to know nearly every non-European people with the suffix -ese, through the accounts of Portuguese writers ; and therefore I think that on this analogy alone Natalese may perhaps pass current.

The question has some interest to me, inasmuch as I have just proposed the use of the term Natalensis in a Latin inscription intended for the monument to be erected at Maritzburg to the Natal Volunteers who fell in the Boer War.

One would like to know whether the ez, e& in Portuguez and Aragones (Navarrese being Navarro in Spanish) is derived from the Latin rw's, found in Italian names like Siennese, or is akin to ez in words like Perez, said to be of Basque origin. H. 2.

TlDESWELL AND TlDESLOW (9 th S. xii. 341,

517 ; 10 th S. i. 52, 91, 190, 228, 278, 292, 316, 371, 471 ; ii. 36). Fifty years ago old- fashioned educated folks always spoke of "Burlington," but the unsophisticated natives of the East Riding (whose pronunciation is often a guide to the true ancient form) called it "Bollinton" or "Bolli'ton." " Bollinton- bav mackerel " was a common street crv.

W. C. B.

What is MR. ADDY'S authority for saying that the place-name Collompton (sometimes spelt Cullpmpton and possibly anciently Culmton) is derived from Columba 1 To a Devonshire man it looks a more grotesquely impossible derivation than any of the wild guesses of amateur philologists pilloried in your pages by PROF. SKEAT. The town stands on the Culm, a tributary of the Exe, and that fact has, I believe, been considered sufficient to account for the name without any refer- ence to the name of the missionary saint. Moreover, on the banks of the stream are Uffculme, Culmstock, Culm Davy, and Culm John, which, from their position, would appear to take their names from the river. And if so, the origin of the name of Collompton would be almost, if not quite, certainly the same. FRED. C. FROST, F.S.I.

Teignmouth.

PIGEON ENGLISH AT HOME (10 th S. i. 506). Barrage was some months ago strongly protested against in the Times Toy a corre-

spondent : first because it was importing a French word into the language quite un- necessarily ; and next because it was wrong, as the suggested lock and weir would not be a bar.

But our journalists seem to prefer using French words in other instances. For ex- ample, they use the word queue, utterly unpronounceable to an Englishman without foreign education. The look of the word is barbaric. The word that would convey some meaning in English and be understood is rank. There was a rank outside the pit door.

RALPH THOMAS.

" LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD " (10 th

S. i. 488). If, as your correspondent says, the sense of our Lord's words is clear, I am puzzled to find any difficulty in connexion with the setting. The command was adapted to the spiritual condition of the man to whom it was given. It was a test of faith. He had heard the call and was inclined to obey it, as soon as he could conveniently do so ; but Christ would have him cherish the stir of life within his soul without delay, and relegate the duty of burying his parent to others who had no impulse of the same vitality. ST. SWITHIN.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Cambridge Modern History. Edited by A. W. Ward, Litt.D., G. W. Prothero Litt.U, and Stanley Leathes, M.A. Vol. VIII. The French Revolution. (Cambridge, University Press.) JF the seventh volume of ' The Cambridge Modern History' is the most stimulating that has yet appeared, the fact is, perhaps, easily comprehended. It is merely banal to say that the French Revolu- tion constitutes the greatest political and social upheaval of all times. Its roots, as is clearly shown, are deep in the soil of previous ages, while its branches spread over all civilization. The dreams of philosophy and the conjectures of specu- lation were put in the French Revolution to a practical test, and the world had its first oppor- tunity of studying closely the results of the systems it had permitted to exist, and the conditions it had, so to speak, "chanced." Great forces are always at work, and in days of liberty, and, in a sense, of leisure, such as the present, we are able to study the slow but perceptible progress and influences of human thought. Without prosecuting longer reflections that nave no definite end, it may be affirmed that the account of the period between let it be said the appointment of Calonne to the controller - generalship and the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire will always be one of the most stimulating and edifying in history. Of this and the enveloping period an account is given which, although it occupies close upon nine hundred pages, must be regarded as condensed.