Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/596

 492

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. m. JUNE 24, 1005.

of flowers, which they gracefully entwined around the waiats of the lassies. At the last bar of the music all sang ' Pop goes the weasel,' stamping their right feet in unison at the word ' pop.' I saw it danced as an interlude at the Olympic Theatre during Mr. Farren's management. The words quoted (above) were associated with the tune some time after the production of the dance, and the music soon became vulgarized."

JOHN T. PAGE.

The weasel is doubtless the dancer, as he or she " pops " through or under the arms of the others in the same sinuous manner as a weasel enters a hole, for it was at this part of the dance that all present used to sing " Pop goes the weasel." This is said to have been an old and very animated English dance, revived in the late fifties " among the higher classes of society," and taught by " that able professor of dancing, Monsieur Coulon, of Great Marlborough Street, London." It was performed in the same manner as the country dance, the ladies and gentlemen being placed in lines opposite each other. The couple at the top began the figure. They ran forward within the line and back again, each occu- pying four bars of the music, and then with- out the line and back again during the same interval. After this they formed a round of three with one of the couple next to them on the line, and turned once round to the right and once to the left, at the end making the one they had chosen pass quickly under their arms to his place, all singing " Pop goes the weasel." They then turned quickly to the other line and repeated the same figure with the partner of the last selected. After this they had to run backward and forward inside and outside the line, and repeat the figure with the next couple on the right and left. When they had passed three or four couples, the lady and gentleman at the top began, and repeated the same figure, and so on in return for all those who re- mained. It was understood that after having passed the third or fourth couple, it was not necessary to go to the top in order to pass to the outside of the line. This was done by breaking through at that part where they happened to be. This description is from The Home Circle, vol. viii. No. 193, p. 183.

J. HOLDEN MAcMlCHAEL.

I was under the impression that I answered my own query two or three years ago. " Weasel" is slang for silver plate, prize cups, and so on ; and when the gentry who patronized the Grecian Theatre in the sixties found their financial resources had come to an end, they used to " pop " the " weasel " in other words, pawn what silver they pos-

sessed. It was not originally a nursery rime, but a song sung at the Grecian Theatre by a popular vocalist of the day I believe " the Great Little" Eobson. I wrote the history of the song for The Era some time in the summer of 1899, but cannot place my hand upon the article. The song is published by Hopwood & Crew. S. J. A. F.

[H. P. L. and MR. E. LATHAM thanked for replies.]

"ENGLAND," "ENGLISH": THEIR PRONUNCIA- TION (10 th S. iii. 322, 393, 453). I ana afraid your correspondent is making a singular mistake. We can only compare Anglo-Saxon with Anglo-Saxon, and not with modern English. When he speaks of ban as being another form of Mn, and so forth, he is pro- ducing a bogus form. Bon is mere Middle and Modern English, but never was seen or heard of till about A.D. 1300, as he can see for himself by looking out the word bone in the ' New English Dictionary.' The same state- ment applies to the bogus forms holic, gost, and the rest; any A.-S. manuscript that contained such spellings would be a forgery. It is one of the methods by which late copies of early charters can sometimes be detected. The form holic is especially absurd, because, by the time that the hd- in hdlic (as it is spelt) had become ho-, the -lie (really -li<j) had become li or ly. Hence it is that out of the twenty-four forms given in the ' New Eng. Diet.' under holy, no such form as holic appears. Your correspondent gives himself away altogether when he cites hdlic as an A.-S. form, as no such form is possible. I think it is rather presumptuous in one who does not know how to spell one of the com- monest of A.-S. words to set up to correct one who has learnt Anglo-Saxon by reading and editing manuscripts. Any one who wishes to learn the difference between A.-S. and modern Englishsoundsandspellings can getmy 'Primer of English Etymology' at a small cost. I show, at p. 48, that the A.-S. a has usually become long o in modern English ; and at the same page that the A.-S. o has usually become the oo in goose. The A.-S. a and o were per- fectly distinct, were never interchanged, and were never confused at any early time. Modern English, however, confuses the sound in boar (from bar) with swore (from sivor), because of the following r.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

WILLIAM SHELLEY (10 th S. iii. 441). The question whether Richard Lyster or William Shelley was the first husband of Mary, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, first Earl of Southampton, is the subject of a brief note in Vincent's ' Errors in Brooke ' (1623),