Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/309

 10" 8. IV. SEPT. 23,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 255 'trophies not his own. "In one Christmas Day," says a fragment quoted by Camder (Gibson's ed., vol. i. p. 88), "Austin baptizec above ten thousand men, and consecrated the river Swale." "Yet," says Whitaker, "the whole story, with concomitant circumstances is related of Paulinus by Bede, whose autho- rity is incontestable " (vol. i. bk. ii. ch. i. p. 69) J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. This was the river Swayle in Yorkshire. See Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History,' bk. ii. •ch. xiv. In the translation by the Rev. L. Gidley (Parker & Co.) a foot-note identifies the village as Catterick Bridge, near Rich- mond, the site of the Roman station Cata- ractonium. Paulinus was then Archbishop of York. The Swayle in Kent is not a river, but an •estuary dividing the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland. ARTHUR HUSSEY. Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent. [MR. J. RADCLIFFE refers to Bohn's edition of IBede, p. 98.] " PICCANINNY :" ITS ORIGIN (10th S. iv. 27, 128).—Spanish pequeno, Portuguese pequeno, •and Italian piccino, though not necessarily •of Celtic origin, may be uryerwandt, i.e., •originally akin, or cognate with Cymric or Welsh bychan, bechan, bach, old Irish becc, •modern Irish beag, Gaelic beag, Manx beg, Breton bie'han, i.e., little, small. According to Diez-Scheler's ' Comparative Dictionary •of the Romance Languages ' (1878, fourth edition), Italian piccino or piccolo (as well as the Spanish and Portuguese cognate) are derived from picco, pointed, and from Latin jnmctulum, a little point. As to piccaninny, a negro child, it may be -compared with Cymric bachf/en, pi. bechijyn •(from bach + dim. term. cen=cyn, can), a little boy (cf. Silvan Evans's ' Welsh-English Dictionary,' Carmarthen, 1888). H. KEEBS. This word is an English corruption in spelling. The original phrase was pequeila «t«a=little child. Any one familiar with the .Spanish colloquial habit of dropping the last syllable when a word ends with a vowel will know at once how _the English made the word. The word picayune was derived in the same way, pequeno imo=a little one (coin). JOHN MALONE. New York. As an illustration of this term being used in England, allow me to mention a small wood engraving in one of Hood's ' Comic Annuals,' date, perhaps, 1836. In this is represented a black doll suspended as a sign before a marine-store-dealer's shop, and a negro, armed with a cudgel, saying, " What for you hang de piccaninny?" Why the " piccaninny " was usually adopted as a sign by such dealers I cannot say. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Kectory, Woodbridge. PARISH RECORDS NEGLECTED (10th S. iv. 186).—My experience confirms this ; but, sad as neglect is, destruction is worse. Manor court rolls are constantly being sent to the waste-paper merchant to be reduced to pulp. Some solicitors cannot read the old deeds, 'and they think it safer to have them de- stroyed. The Local Record Committee would not face this question because they considered them the private muniments of the lord of the manor, not remembering that copyholders might have an interest in the rolls; in fact, a presentment was once made by the homage of Wimbledon that the rolls be moved from Wandsworth Church to Putney because of damp. This, I think, shows that the copy- holders have an interest in the rolls. GERALD FOTHERGILL. CHESS BETWEEN MAN AND HIS MAKER (10th S. iv. 169).—The passage which MR. C. M. HUDSON has seen is no doubt to be found in Huxley's 'Lay Sermons,' &c., in that entitled 'A Liberal Education.' In it Huxley utilizes Retzsch's picture as an illustration of his view of human life. The laws of nature are the rules of the game, and the opponent no fiend, but one just and patient but re- morseless. J. WILLCOCK. Lerwick. DICKENS OR WILKIE COLLINS ? (10th S. iii. 207, 278.) —The following is taken from Richard Herne Shepherd's 'Bibliography of Dickens,' 1880, p. 33 :— "'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.' Printed inHomehold Words, October, 1857 (vol. xvi. pp. 313, 337, 361, 385, 409). 'To the first of these japers Dickens contributed all up to the top of the second column of page 316; to the second, all up to ,he white line in the second column of page 340; to the third, all except the reflections of Mr. Idle 363-5); and the whole of the fourth part. All the rest was by Mr. Wilkie Collins.'—Forster." ROBERT PIERPOINT. AN EARLY LATIN-ENGLISH-BASQUE DIC- TIONARY (10th S. iv. 143).—DR. ABBOTT is ncorrect in stating that this stupid dic- ittempt to construct a Basque dictionary of any kind." Even if he can prove that it was written before that of Pouvreau, which also comes chiefly from Leie.arraga's New Testa- ment, and ought to be published without delay, he has overlooked the valuable glos-
 * ionary, the discovery of which he announced
 * > me some six months ago, was " the first