Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/570

 472 NOTES AND QUERIES. [w» s. iv. DM. 9, the Arabic article al, the. The influence of a doubled consonant is amusingly shown in the different sounds assigned to Aladdin and Saladin, which in Arabic were Ala-al-din and Salah-al-din, and ought, therefore, to rhyme together in English ; but Aladdin has under- gone accentual shift, solely because it happened to be spelt with dd. In the sur- names Barnard iston and Osbaldistone we find the accent transferred to a penultimate which was originally a mere genitive ending. The correct modern forms of these names would be Barnardstown, Osbaldstown. The principle involved in the change O'sbaldist6ne to Osbaldistone is the same as in that of Trafalgar to Trafalgar. JAS. PLATT, Jun. PREBEND OF CANTLERS, OR KENTISH TOWN, IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL (10th S. iv. 410).—This prebendal manor came into the possession of Lord Chancellor Camden through his marriage with Elizabeth,daughter and heiress of Nicholas Jeffreys, Esq., of the Priory, co. Brecknock. Technically 1 believe Lord Camden is styled lessee of the manor. The estate, according to Lysons, is held on lives subject to a reserved rent of 2Ql. Is. 5d. per annum, paid to the prebendary, who keeps the manor in his own hands, and holds a court-leet and court-baron. The lease came into the hands of the Jeffreys family in 1670. W. F. PRIDEAUX. FINAL " E " IN CHAUCER (10th S. iv. 429).— The question is hardly a fair one, because it cannot be fully answered within a reasonable space. It might well form the subject for a " dissertation," and the writer, if he answered the question properly, would deserve a degree. I can only state, briefly, a few results. As regards this matter, we should first observe the use of the final • before Chaucer's time. For it was not his invention, but his inherit- ance. The use of it in the ' Ormulum' is fully discussed in my book entitled ' The Chaucer Canon.' Secondly, it is a question of dialect. Bar- bour, Chaucer's contemporary, hardly ever employs it; but Gower, whose dialect is more Southern than Chaucer's, employs it even more. Thirdly, it went out of use, in the Midland dialect, gradually. Chaucer's use is really archaic ; he stuck to the habits of his youth. Hoccleve is tolerably regular. Lydgate began with a rather plentiful employment of the final«, but used it less and less as time went on. During the fifteenth century the use of the final < declined rapidly, and soon became quite artificial, and by the year 1450 was obsolescent. Yet later poets used it as an ornament, in imitation of the master. For examples see my volume of ' Chaucerian Pieces.' As there was, practically, no final • in Northumbrian, Scottish poets had no reason to use it. Yet Chaucer's influence was so- great that his imitators actually adopted many of his uses, arbitrarily and incorrectly. 'The King's Quair' was edited by me for the Scottish Text Society. The discussion of the final <. with examples, occupies six pages. King James I. uses it in a purely artificial and arbitrary way, and actually adds a final i (as I have shown) to indefinite adjectives that did not possess one by in- heritance. It is part of the case against 'The Court of Love' that its grammar is that of a period when the final • was absolutely dead. I must apologize for so unsatisfactory an answer to so immense a question. WALTER W. SKEAT. 'THE OXFORD RAMBLE'(10th S. iv. 43, 78). —I heard this song sixty years ago, and remember the spirited tune, with chorus. I will send the tune to II. if he will let me have his address. Derby town, not Oxford, was, however, the scene of the adventures related in this old ditty, as I heard it: and there were other slight differences from H.'s version. W. R. HOLLAND. Barton-under-Needwood, Staffs. THE PURPOSE OF A FLAW (10th S. iv. 208, 314).—One purpose is amusingly set forth and illustrated by a paragraph in The Spectator of 9 September, p. 339. There is "an old tale of the architect of the famous temple of Chion-in, in Kyoto. When the temple was built he found it so alarmingly perfect that he was inspired with misgivings, remembering the proverb : ' Fulness is the beginning of waning.' So he purposely stuck his umbrella between the inner shafts of the front eaves, where it remains to this day as a saving defect." ST. SWITHIN. THOMAS POUNDE, S.J.(10"> S. iv. 184.268).— The following portion of a huge pedigree I have compiled of the family of John Pounde, Somerset Herald, who was " basely slain in his tabard " near Dunbar, while on a journey to the King of Scotland with a message from Henry VIII. (see Noble's 'History of the College of Arms,' p. 124), may be of use to MR. J. B. WAINEWRIGHT, to MR. A. T. EVERITT, and to H. C., who have each contributed so much interesting matter to ' N. & O.' on the family of Pounde of Beaumond (Belmont). in the parish of Farlington and county of Southampton:—