Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/524

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. JUKE 2, im.

found in the fact that Mallet's pathetic ballad of * Edwin and Emma ' has made it so well known in English literature. Epitaphs in *N. & Q.' are usually out-of-the-way in- scriptions that are not found printed else- where. Full details of the poet's career, with pedigrees of his second wife, Lucy Elstob, and also of Wrightson and Rail ton, the unfortunate lovers, and an account of Bowes castle and church, &c., are given in E. Dinsdale's edition of ' Ballads and Songs by David Mallet,' 1857 (xii-328 pp. 8vo). This book is highly praised in 2 nd S. iii. 259.

RICHARD WELFORD. Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Johnson, in his 'Life' of Mallet, does not allude to any acquaintance which the " atheist " poet may have had with the village of Bowes, and his account seems to be the only authentic one. Johnson says : "Of David Mallet, having no written memorial, I am able to give no other account than such as is supplied by the unauthorized loquacity of common fame, and a very slight personal knowledge." There is also an in- teresting account of Mallet in 4 Biographia Dramatica,' by David Erskine Baker, 1782, seventeen years only after Mallet's death in 1765, but again there is no allusion to any connexion with Bowes.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

"BROCK": "BADGER" (10 th S. v. 389). The etymology of places like Brockley is ex- tremely slippery ; for in some cases Brock- really goes back to the A.-S. broc, a brook. Certainly brock is Celtic, and means "gray."

Broxbourne means "Brock's bourne," where Brock (A.-S. Brocc y JBroc) was a man's name ; just as some men have the surname Badger at this day.

I am afraid that some of the etymologies which I first gave in 1880 ought to be consigned to oblivion. I have tried to with- draw them to some extent by the publication of my * Concise Etymological Dictionary ' in 1901 an edition in which many things were bettered. I there say of badger that it is " spelt bageard in Sir T. More.' Dr. Murray shows that badger means the animal with the badge or stripe." The chief difficulty is to trace the word badge itself.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

The gradual disappearance of this animal from its favourite haunts is lessening the necessity for reference to its character and habits. Even its name is rarely heard except among naturalists, who, of course, speak of it as the badger. In certain rural parts of Scotland, however, it is not altogether

extinct, and allusions to the "brock" in such regions may even now occasionally be heard. Scotsmen who respect their traditions still understand without the aid of a glossary the reference in Burns's 'Twa Dogs' to the supercilious airs of " our gentry " : They gang as saucy by poor folk As 1 wad by a stinkin' brock.

THOMAS BAYNE.

MR. LYNN observes that brock "is un- doubtedly of Celtic origin," which I do nob dispute ; but when he adds " meaning grey," I think he misses the significance of a descriptive name. The Gaelic terms for "grey" are riabhach (reeagh) and odhar (ower) ; whereas breac, Welsh brechj means striped or brindled, which exactly fits the badger's countenance. The same adjective gave the Gaelic breacan, tartan, and probably survives in our "breeches," which are no- longer striped and chequered as that garment was when the Roman conquerors adopted the braccce or trews from their Gaulish and British subjects. HERBERT MAXWELL.

HENRY ANGELO (10 th S. v. 287). I have seen the monumental inscription of Henry Angelo, not in "a little village near Bath," but in the graveyard of Trinity Church, Gray's Inn Road. This church, though situated in St. Pancras, was, I was told, erected as a chapel of ease to St. Andrew's, Hplborn. As several writers have made mistakes regarding the date of death and the place of burial of Henry Angelo, it would be well that a copy of the inscription should be entered in ' N. & Q.' It runs thus :

"In memory of Mary, wife of Henry Angelo, of Bolton Row, Mayfair, who died 14th January, 1827, aged 68.

" Also Elizabeth and Mary, daughters of the- above, who died in their infancy.

" Also of HENRY ANGELO, husband of the above,, who died 19th December, 1835, aged 80 years."

CHARLES SWYNNERTON.

MR. THOMPSON OF THE GTH DRAGOONS (10 th S. v. 269, 316, 354). Frederick Thompson, of the family of Thompson of Kirby Hall, York, was a captain in the Enniskillen Dragoons (Burke's ' Landed Gentry,' fourth ed .).

R. J. FYNMORE.

AMERICANS IN ENGLISH RECORDS (10 th S. v. 163). The reference under Winch should be "daughter of John Custis." Evelyn of Long Ditton, Parke, Custis, and Washington all intermarried. This same error is made in Burke ; vide Ellenborough. It should be Law^Custis. When did Custis settle in Ireland? A. C. H.