Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/322

 204 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io«-s. iv. SEPT. 30, iws. •used is to the reader most difficult to make out. In ' Le Antichita della Citta de Roma,' printed in 1580, a comma, semicolon, colon, and full period are used in punctuation, the cir- •curaflex indicating that a word is abbreviated. Printing done at Frankfort in 1584 has all the punctuating symbols known to us, and the circumflex as a contraction mark. In •Godwin's Catalogue, printed in 1615, the •comma, colon, and semicolon are used, a full period being utilized as an abbreviating sign as well as a punctuating one,such as in " the " •for them. In "J: P: Terentii Comoediae," printed at Leipsic in 161G, comma, colon, semicolon, and period are used, the last •marking an abbreviated word, as does the circumflex. I have a volume containing questions, &c., relative to book i. of Bonaventura, printed, I think, in Italy, about the year 1591. The •contraction sign is sometimes a full period, but usually the circumflex, the punctuating marks being a colon and period—no semi- colon or comma that I can find. I may mention that a hyphened word is indicated in two ways ; thus = and a dash from right to left;'. It has been said that Caxton had the merit of introducing into this country the Roman punctuation, as used in Italy. If this was the case, I do not think it was in general use in 1491, the year of Caxton's death, with the exception of Haarlem and Merits. -Is it not a fact that printing existed at Oxford about ten years previous to 1491 ] ALFRED CHAS. JONAS. Thornton Heath. [Printing is acknowledged to have begun at Oxford not later than 1478.] " GROWING DOWN LIKE A cow's TAIL." — I .find this phrase set down in 'E.D.D.' as peculiar to Antrim and Down. Most people, 1 think, would refuse to look upon the phrase as peculiar to any dialect, and would stoutly maintain that it was in general use wherever the English language is spoken. I was amused the other day to find that the ex- pression is as old as Petronius. And doubt- less it is centuries older. I was reading Dr. Bigg's delightful book 'The Church's Task under the Roman Empire,' p. 67, and there I came upon a quotation from Petronius, •' Cena,' 44. Dr. Bigg says : " Let us listen to the Campanian farmer He is grumbling about a prolonged drought; the colony, lie says, is growing downwards like a cow's tail." Well, I thought, here the learned doctor is .playfully paraphrasing. This homely Eng- lish expression cannot surely be found in JPetronius. But there it is, all the same: "Heu, quotidie pejus: hsec colonia retro- versus crcscit, tanquam coda vituli! " The only difference is that in English the calf is represented by his mother. I should like very much to know whether this provincial Latin expression is still heard in Italy or in any other Latin country. A. L. MAYHEW. • BECKFORD AND RABELAIS.—There is towards the close of ' Vathek' a phrase which recajls, in some measure, a passage in Rabelais which has already been discussed in ' N. & Q.' The implacable Carathis sees Vathek and Nou- ronihar at the moment when the terror- stricken girl is clinging to the Caliph :— " Alors Carathis, sans descendre de son chameau, et ecumante de rage au spectacle qui s'offrait a 8» chaste vue, eclata sans management. 'Monstre a deux tetes et a quatre jambes,' s'ecria-t-elle, 'quo sixnifie tout ce bel entortillage ? N'as-tu pas honte d'eiupoigner ce tendron au lieu des sceptres des -i111 ;in : pr£adaniites?' " The passage will be found at pp. 158-9 of the edition of 1834. For the Rabelaisian and Shaksperean phrase see 9th S. vii. 162. WILLIAM E. A. AXON. WARD FAMILY.—I am afraid it is rather late to reply to a query of forty-five years ago; but I find on looking at ' N. <fe Q.' for 14 January, 1860 (2nd S. ix. 30), a MR. ALEX. J. ELLIS inquired for information relating to the Wards of Burton-on-Trent. one of whom married Anne Pole (a niece of Cardinal Pole). If MR. ELLIS is still living, I shall be pleased to give him what information I can on the matter. I may add that I shall be glad to correspond with any reader who may possess any genealogical information relating to the Wards of Burton-on-Trent, and to give in exchange any details I may have. FRANK WARD. 38, Wordsworth Road, Small Heath, Birmingham. [If the A. J. ELLIS mentioned ia the well-known linguistic scholar, he died in 1S90, as the Sup- plement to the ' D.N.B.' shows.] BOLLES : CONYERS.—I have some printed notes of the family of George Bolles and Katherine Conyers which were bound up in a Breeches Bible. They date from 1588, and would be interesting to any descendants. ED. DARKE, 14A, Great Marlborough Street, W. "TOWERS OF SILENCE."—Sir George Bird- wood, in a letter to The Times, 8 August, attributes the invention of the phrase " towers of silence," applied to the dakAumeis (vault, place of the dead, tomb), or bastion like edifices on which the Parsees of the Dis-