Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/37

 10- s. v. JAS. 13. 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Miss Betham-Edwards's French is (after her long experience of France) perhaps better than her English. ST. SWITHIN.

[" Antiquation " appears in the 'N.E.D.' and her dictionaries.]

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ALBERT DURER'S NAME. Mr. T. Sturge Moore, in his recently published "apprecia- tion of this great artist in relation to general ideas," writes as follows :

"The German name of Durer [.'c] or Thiirer, a door, is quite as likely to be the translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic [?] blood would corre- spond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the dignity, sweetness, and fineness, which signalized Durer." 'Albert Durer' (1905), p. 57.

It is well known that the 1 artist's father

"was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little town called Gyula, eight [Hungarian] miles below Grosswardein : and his kindred made their living from horses and cattle." Ib'dem, p. 54.

The late Kev. Louis A. Haan, formerly Pro- testant pastor at Bekes-Csaba, a little town not far from Gyula, fully investigated the matter, and identified the site of the old home of Albert Durer the elder, and pub- lished the results of his investigations in a Hungarian pamphlet, which appeared in 1878 under the title 'The Family-Name of Albert Durer and the Place of Origin of his Family.' The exact site is shown on a German map attached to the pamphlet. The name of the little village, which was swept away during the Turkish wars, was Ajt6s, and is mentioned in several old deeds pub- lished by Haan (Aytos in 1456 and 1515, Ajtos in 1517 and 1518, and Ajthos in 1564). The j and y are interchangeable in old Hun- garian.

Ajt6 is the modern Hungarian, and Thiir (not Thiirer) the German, name for door, and the artist's canting arms also show an open door with two leaves on the triple mount of Hungary.

Ajtos is an adjective, and would mean nary circumstances, but probably meant something else in the name of the village.
 * ' fitted with a door or doors" under ordi-

It is clear, therefore, that the patronymic of the artist is merely a play upon the sup- posed meaning of the name of his ancestors' Hungarian home, but I fail to see in what way it is an indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. Ac- cording to Haan, the population was purely Magyar in the fifteenth century, and conse-

quently without any Slavonic or German strain in it.

Nor can I understand why " the way he [the artist] puts a little portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures," should 4 ' carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube," because his old ancestral home stood on the White Koros, and " the young horse-breeder " would have to wander several days' ride from home and to cross the wide river Theiss on his way before he reached the banks of the Danube.

Haan was still able to trace the brick: foundations of the old church and of another large building. At the present day Ajtos is- merely apuszta, i.e., a plain, bordering upon the vineyards of Gyula, which the artist spells ** Jula."

A copy of Haan's pamphlet is in the British Museum, press-mark 10601. d. 7 (7).

JL. L. K.

BEN JONSON'S 'UNDERWOODS,' XLI. In the opening stanza of this ode *To Himself ' the poet deprecates intellectual sloth, warmly assuring the person intimately concerned that knowledge having gone to sleep will speedily cease to be. He adds :

And this security,

It is the common moth That eats on wits and arts, and [ ] destroys

them both.

A word has dropped out before "destroys," and editors have been exercised about the appropriate filling of the gap. " Soon " would probably suffice ; it is in accord with the drift of the poet's appeal, and it would rhythmically satisfactory. Whalley pro- posed " quite," Gifford " so/' and either serves the purpose fairly well. In Mr. Humphry Ward's ' English Poets,' ii. 17, Prof. A. W. Ward inserts "that" as his choice, and in a foot- note gives the explanation " 4 that' conj." If this means that the word utilized is a con- junction, then the editorial explanation of the passage becomes distinctly puzzling. "That" as a relative would be defensible, only it is doubtful whether Jonson would have deliberately repeated the syntax of the previous clause. THOMAS BAYNE.

THE JUVENILE THEATRE. With reference to MR. SANDFORD'S remarks at 10 th S. iv. 414, I may say that I have several times sent articles to ' N. & Q.' about the toy theatre prints always called the juvenile theatre by the publishers ; and I have said that I have a large collection of West's and other pub- lishers'. With regard to the collection in the Print Room at the British Museum (chiefly, I think, West's), it may, as MR. SANDFORD