Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/405

 v. APRIL 28, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

333

variably pronounced pour as power. I have heard the same pronunciation from other Worcestershire men. On the other hand, my mother's relatives in Staffordshire invariably pronounced pour as poor. This pronunciation I have often heard in Scotland.

V.H.I.L.I.C.LV.

In the Sussex dialect there were (and to a certain extent are) two pronunciations of this word : the one to rime with shoiver, and the other to rime with poor or pure. The former may still be heard, especially amongst elderly people ; but the latter is not common now, though I hear it occasionally.

E. E. STREET.

My grandfather, Lord Suffolk, born in 1776, always pronounced pour as power.

SHERBORNE.

PROF. SKEAT omits from his very valuable note the well-known line in * Macbeth,' I. v.,

That I may powre my Spirits in thine Bare, as printed in the Folio of 1623 (according to the edition of Albrecht Wagner, Halle, 1890). The noun power (pouvoir) is spelt in the same way in the same edition of the same tragedy (IV. i.), though printed power a few lines before and elsewhere. But the spelling poure occurs also (V. ii.) in the lines

And with him poure we, in our Countries purge, Each drop of vs.

PROF. SKEAT might also have referred to the term puree, that so often occurs on the menu of meals in France.

EDWARD S. [A. H. also refers to puree.]

"PLACE" (10 th S. v. 267, 316). DR. MURRAY'S inquiry opens up an interesting subject, which I trust may be definitely settled in these columns. The earliest " Place " seems to have been a synonym for the inns and hostels of the bishops and great nobles who possessed town houses in London, and included not only the mansion, but the stables, outbuildings, gardens, and other appurtenances. Of such a kind were Ely Place, the residence of the Bishop of Ely ; Durham Place, the residence of the Bishop of Durham ; Exeter Place, the residence of the Bishop of Exeter, which after it passed into the possession of William, Lord Paget, became known as Paget Place; and York Place, the palace of Wolsey, which after its transformation into Whitehall, handed on its name to another York Place, near Charing Cross, famous as the birthplace of Bacon. It is obvious that this was a different kind of

"Place" from that which subsequently signified a row of houses. It was this term which was employed for a country house, as Cumnor Place, and was probably derived from palatium rather than from the plat-ea- after which the German plats, the French place, &c., were called. I doubt if the French word place was ever used to denote an open square in London, because when "squares" 1 were first constructed in England the idea of the residential "Place" was not extinct. Consequently the earliest " squares " were known generally as " Fields," as Lincoln's Inn Fields, Leicester Fields, &c., with one important exception. Covent Garden re- ceived the name of a " piazza," because it was intended to be built after the Italian model, with an arcade running round it; but this idea was not completely carried out. When St. James's Fields were built upon, the term " square " was applied to the area, because it conveyed a meaning to English ears that was not expressed by the foreign term "place" a word which had formerly been employed with quite a different signifi- cation. But when short rows of houses, which hardly attained to the dignity of a- street, began to be constructed, " place " was found a convenient term.

In 'London Survey 'd : or an Explanation of the large Map of London by John Ogilby and William Morgan,' 1677, which is a very early list of streets, &c., in London, there is not a single "square," and the only "place" is Duke's Place, Aldgate, which was called after the Duke of Norfolk, to whom the precinct of the priory of the Holy Trinity descended by his marriage with the heiress of Lord Audley. This "place" was built about 1550, and it is the oldest in London. It probably derives its designation from the earlier connotation of the term.

In the West End, Park Place, St. James's Street, was perhaps the first to be so named. The rate-books of St. Martin's parish show that it was built in 1683. Shortly after- wardsin 1694, according to the rate books St. James's Place was built. On the north side of the Oxford Road, Rathbone Place was, I think, the earliest to be so denomi- nated, the date of construction being, according to an inscribed stone let into a corner house, 1718. Until the brothers Adam built Portland Place sixty years after- wards, the term seems to have been very sparingly used in London. It afterwards became common. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

Can any one enlighten us as to the antiquity of Place as applied to a country house, e.g., Ashburnham Place, Sussex? As