Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/158

 126

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. m. FEB. is, 1005.

'rich widow named Margaret Wells, of

Muggletonian sympathies. I should mention that these entries (the

one relating to Thomas Churchyard excepted)

were noted by Mr. G. H. Rodman in his report prefixed to the printed Calendar of

the Court (1864). GORDON GOODWIN.

"ORIEL." (See 4 th S. v. 577; x. 256, 360, 412, 480, 529; xi. 164; 6 th S. iv. 252, 336; 9 th _S. xi. 301, 321, 375, 491.) To the quo- tations illustrating the use of the oriel in English architecture I may add an extract from the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll of 43 & 44 Henry III. (m. 8 dorso) :

" Wyndlesora Visores. Johannes Pollard, [&c. ] affidauerunt marescallo pro .ccxlij.li. x.s. iiij.d. positis in capellam Regine faciendo ad stagnum in superiori Ballio Castri Ita quod sint ibi due Capelle vna superius et alia inferius Et in vna Torrella cum vno Oriolo facienda vltra priuatas Cameras Regine iuxta nouam Cameram."

Q. V.

"HAD BETTER HAVE BEEN." This curious locution appears in The Athenceum of 24 De- cember, 1904, p. 869. I have tried in vain to parse it. It has often enough been spoken of by grammarians and dictionary-makers, but few of them have the courage to say flatly that it is wrong, that it is an incidental corruption of high antiquity arising from the elision, in slipshod speech, of nearly all the letters in the word would. "I'd better" 'means "I would better." "I'd rather" means " I would rather." It seems futile to go back to immemorial usage. Yet Ogilvie's 'Dictionary' says, "The great antiquity of 'this construction in English forbids the supposition that the had in such phrases is a corruption of would, as has been suggested." I notice that a modern English grammar of very excellent character (C. P. Mason) evades 'the difficulty in much the same way, adding, " The analogous construction with lief is unquestionably genuine." Well, had lief <inay be genuine, as from antiquity ; but it is wrong all the same. Dr. Murray's ' His- torical Dictionary' has made a brave attempt 4o explain matters (under ' Have ') But it is a hopeless failure as far as justifying the locution is concerned. It would appear that some of the reasoning, such as it is, is derived from Dr. Fitzedward Hall, who published in the Amer. Philol. Jour. (ii. 282, &c.) a long .and wordy disquisition, bristling with archaic precedents, but in no way justifying the -syntax. Hall quotes Samuel Johnson, who says it is " a barbarous expression, of late intrusion into our language," and proceeds ito remark, " What Dr. Johnson was pleased

to think on any point of English of which the just ruling demands a somewhat indus- trious inspection of our older authors is hardly of noticeable import." Indeed !

Let us take the thing to pieces. A few examples, where the locution reaches abso- lute extravagance, will bring us face to face with it.

Thackeray is one of the worst offenders, as, "I think we had best go to-day, my dear"; "I had rather have had" ; "When he makes an appointment with Doctor Swift he had best keep it." Oddly enough, in ' The Vir- ginians ' (ch. Ixiii.) Thackeray makes Dr. Johnson say, " I had rather hear Mrs. War- rington's artless prattle," &c. ;" A man had better marry a poor nurse for good and all." The late Miss Martineau, however, leaves the great novelist far behind : " This family had better have been without milk to their coffee " ; "I knew a gentleman in America who told me how much rather he had be a woman than the man he is." An odd specimen occurs in George Gissing : "Please don't trouble. I'd much rather you didn't." "Why?" "Because / had." Even Mr. Dowden has a lapse of this sort : " lie had rather leave off eating than poetizing " (' Southey,' p. 54). Of course it occurs in Shakespeare ; but I suspect that it usually appeared in the earlier printings as an elision only, and that his editors have filled it out, sometimes even with disregard to the rhythm. For ex- ample ('Othello,' III. iii.), "Thou hadst been better have been born a dog " was probably " Thou 'dst been better," &c. I had several other Shakespearian quotations still more to the point ; but they are mislaid.

I shall be told that writers make language : rules do not. Well, if it can be pointed out to me that R. L. Stevenson or Dr. Newman ever used such hideous locutions, I shall be silenced, if not convinced that I am wrong. EDWARD SMITH.

"THRUB CHANDLER." Mr. Wheatley in his ' How to Make an Index,' on p. 73, gives the following :

" William Morris used to make merry over the futility of some cross-references. He \yas using a print of an old English manuscript which was full of notes in explanation of self-evident passages, but one difficult expression, viz., ' The bung of a thrub chandler,' was left unexplained. In the index under Bung there was a reference to Thrub chandler, and under Thrub chandler another back to Bung. (Still the lexicographers are unable to tell us what kind of a barrel a ' thrub chandler ' really

is."

I do not like to quote Mr. Wheatley with- out saying that his book has lately been of the greatest use to me. RALPH THOMAS.