Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/373

 io">s. in. APRIL >>, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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naval attache, wrote it Rogestvensky. I presume the y has the sound of the English,/, which is dzh, not of the French./, which is zh in no case can it be zhd, a combination of letters which does not convey any distinct meaning to me. I may say that Admiral (then^Capt.) Rogestvensky was a member of the Xavy Records Society, and that I, as its secretary, had several letters from him.

J. K. LAUGHTON.

TO-DAY: TO-MORROW. (See ante, p. 211.) It shows great temerity to differ from PROF. SKEAT, whom we all honour and respect with good reason ; but till I know better, till he produces his evidence, though he writes so confidently, I cannot agree with him. "Do as you 're doing, and I '11 see ye the morn." Does PROF. SKEAT say this Scotticism is not equivalent to " I '11 see thee to- morrow"? To dnum dcege, I doubt not, means " for one day " ; but surely that is quite different. Again, he does not prove his case by telling us there are examples of to with the inflected infinitive. Of course ; why not 1 When the infinitive was marked by an inflexion -en, as still in German, why should it drop this when the infinitive is preceded by the article to, equal to the, as currently used in Yorkshire and in Lowland Scottish, as " t' archdeacon " ?

To-day does not mean at a day or on a day, but this day. I hope the Professor will say a little more ; some of his disciples need it. T. WILSON.

Harpenden.

MR. WILSON'S doubts (ante, p. 151) as to the prepositional nature of the to in to-day, to-morrow, and of the to which is the sign of the infinitive, are unfounded.

LIONEL R. M. STRACIIAN.

Heidelberg, Germany.

"YULOH": "LAODAH": " CIRCUM-BAIKAL." These words are worth noting. The first two are Anglo Chinese words of almost daily occurrence in the English newspapers of the Far East. The yulon is the single oar used over the stern for the propulsion of sampans and barges, after the manner sometimes called sculling in England. To yuloh is to row a boat in that fashion. The meaning is literally " push and pull wood," and as the rower stands at one side, and not at the end of the oar as in sculling, the pushing and pulling are actually what occur. Engineers assert that yulohiny is the most effective method of manual propulsion.

The laodah or lowdah is the chief boatman, generally in charge of the crew of a house- boat or small yacht. The word means "old,

big," or, to use a very common description,, "number one." The degrees of iniquity as- expressed in the characters of one's servants are : positive, house-boy ; comparative, mafoo- (coachman) ; superlative, laodah.

Circum-Baikal, as indicating that portion of the Siberian Railway round the lake, I have seen several times in American and Anglo Chinese newspapers lately.

Dun AH Coo.

Hongkew.

WOTTON'S LETTERS. It is stated at the- end of the first of the interesting articles contributed by A. S. on Father Paul Sarpi (ante, p. 45) that Wotton's letter dated 17 January, 1G37, addressed " To the Right Worthy Provost and Professor Regius of Divinity in Cambridge," was included, for the first time, in the 1685 edition of 'Reliquiae- Wottonianse.' This is not quite correct, as- the letter was printed in the 1672 edition of the 'Reliquiae.' If a careful comparison is ; made between this edition and that of 1685, it will be seen that, as far as the ' Table ' (pp. [583-4]), the latter is a page-for-page and line- for -line reprint of its predecessor. Differences in typography and spelling show that the type was reset, but otherwise the two editions are identical. To the 1685 edition was of course added the series of letters addressed to Lord Zouch which bring the pagination down to [714].

It is good news to learn (ante, pp. 201-2) that a collection of Sir Henry Wotton's letters and dispatches is about to be produced under competent editorship. The happy, if somewhat insouciant, disposition of the genial Provost of Eton renders him one of the most interesting personalities of the Jacobean age. Hitherto we have had to depend on the 'Reliquire,' and the collections issued by the lloxburghe Club in 1850 and the Society of Antiquaries in 1867 (Archteologia, vol. xl.), from the MSS. preserved respectively in the libraries of Eton College and of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. There are several inedited letters in the State Paper Office and in other depositories, and an annotated edition of Wotton's correspondence, arranged in chronological order, will be a boon to students of the literature and diplomacy of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

POLONIUS AND LORD BURLEIGH : CECIL AND MONTANO. It was first suggested, I believe* by George Russell French, in 'Shakespereana Genealogica,' London, 1868, that in the character of Polonius Lord Treasurer Bur- leigh is satirized. Polonius's precepts to