Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/98

 78 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. JULY 2-2,1005. Jews (" in Illyria, Bithinia, and Cappadocia ") is stated to have been the conquest of the Holy Land "out of the hand of Ottaman." The anonymous author had " certaine and credible information" about it, and refers also to " letters from beyond the seas." The patronymic "Catzius" is Dutch, but Van der Aa's Dutch dictionary of biography does not seem to mention him. L. L. K. COKE OE COOK? (10* S. iii. 430; iv. ISO- There is no difficulty in this matter to any one who is acquainted with the regular his- torical development of English sounds. At ?. 48 of my 'Primer of English Etymology ' show that every A.-S. o (long o, as in note) normally becomes oo (as in boot) in modern English. Among the instances I cite do, I do ; col, cool; rod, rood ; foda, food, &c. I then note that this oo(as in cool) is shortened before a final k, formerly written c, as in hoc, a hook; hroc, a rook ; scOc, shook; cdc, cook ; boc, book. It may further be noted that Norman scribes, in the fourteenth cen- tury, whilst the word was still pronounced coke, and before the change of 6 to u had set in, frequently used the spelling coke instead of the more correct cook, especially in the genitive case. Thus the Ellesmere MS. of Chaucer has ' The prologe of the Cokes Tale,' immediately succeeded by 'The Cook of London,' as in three other MSS. But the Petworth and Lansdowne MSS. have 'The Coke of London,' for they exhibit later spellings. There was no difficulty as long as cook and coke were both pronounced like mod. E. coke. But when the regular lowering (not "hardening") of guttural vowels set in, the trouble began, and coke became ambiguous. Archaically, it represented the sound coke, but practically people came to sound it as mod. E. cook. The sound changed so gradually that at first it was hardly noticed ; but there came a time when no one could be sure about it. All therefore that we know about Coke for certain is that it really means "Cook"; but as to the pronunciation, all depends upon chronology. No doubt the appearance of the word has largely influenced the sound ; and many moderns would pro- nounce coke as coak without the slightest hesitation. The history of Cuckfield is similar: the old Coc-feld, Anglo - French Coke/eld, regularly became Cook.Jif.ld; but in this instance the influence of the following &/further shortened the oo (as in cook) to the oo in blood. All such changes present no difficulty to the student of phonetics ; but most English- men have resolutely determined that this is the last subject which they would willingly learn. It is certainly the one which they least understand. WALTER W. SKEAT. The 'Life of Sir Edward Coke,' by Cuth- bert W. Johnson, is a work of no authority, according to an amusing article of thirteen, columns in the Gent. Mag., November, 1837, p. 502, which points out the grossest blunders. I; i.rn THOMAS. ' THE OXFORD KAMBLE ' (10th S. iv. 43).— We are promised an authoritative account of this Alderbury Churchyard broadside ballad, which is mentioned in ' Roxburghe Ballads,' vol. viii. p. 181, an exemplar being in Roxb. Coll., iii. 490, and an important book-form copy, dated 1744, and holding two extra stanzas, in possession of Mr. J. W. Ebsworth. The account will describe his own three exemplars and three others. A. N. Q. NOTES ON BOOKS, 4c. Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, 177S-1SJO. With Preface and Notes by Austin Dobson. Vol. VI. (Macmillan & Co.) MB. DOBSON'S self-imposed and admirably executed task is accomplished, and his concluding volume is now in the hands of his subscribers and readers. Itiis, in some respects, the best of the series. If it is a little less fresh and winsome than the earlier volumes, it is written in a more sober period and deals with more serious matters. The change of which we are conscious is that from adolescence into middle, and, at the close, elderly life. The girl has ripened into the matron, and the difference between the earlier and the later records corre- sponds precisely to that between youth and age. Men of ripe years are generally tender and caressing in their feeling towards youth and girl- hood, and the joyous aspirations and anticipations which attend the dawn of life move most those who know best how quickly the radiance will fade. Each stage of the work has, however, its own attractions, and we may almost say, in rising from the consideration of the last, in Donne's gracious words, as we recall them :— Nor spring nor summer beauty has the grace That I have seen in an autumnal face. The volume opens and the work virtually closes with a postscript, which consists naturally, to a certain extent, of afterthoughts, and is, in part,, an apologia. Comments upon previous volumes are answered, and a defence of the heroine is undertaken against such gently questioning re- marks as have been provoked. We fancy — though this is perhaps a piece of self - delusion- —that we trace special response to observations of onr own. No very serious complaining had Mr. Dobson to face, and his defence—if such it may be called when there is no attack—may be easily accepted, while Macaulay's vindication, which is selected as the epigraph for the volumes^ is exactly just: "If she recorded with minute