Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/140

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL FEB. 9, 1007.

by the sound of the bell borne by the leading animal, so that a shelter of some kind might be sought without delay. C. Vancouver states :

"The rapidity with which these animals descend the hills when not loaded, and the utter impossi- bility of passing loaded ones, require that the utmost caution should be used in keeping out of the way of the one, and exertion in keeping ahead of the other. A cross-way fork in the road or gateway is eagerly looked for as a retiring spot to the traveller, until the pursuing squadron, or heavily loaded brigade, may have passed by." 'View of the Agriculture of Devon' (1808), 370-71.

Even the narrow bridges erected to enable the pack-animals to cross streams without wetting their burdens not only have low parapets, to prevent the chance of the crooks coming into contact with the stonework ; but, especially in the case of the bridge being a long one, the projecting

Eiers have their external walls carried up where the wayfarer may find a temporary refuge. A good example of this kind of bridge crosses the Wye a short distance from Bakewell, Derbyshire, and adjoining the main road on the way to Ashford.
 * vel with the parapet, so as to form recesses

The children's jingle, " Bell-horses, bell- horses, what time of day," &c., is common to many counties. Curiously enough, it does not appear in that form in Halliwell's commences, " Good horses, bad horses," &c. " The Pack-Horse " as an inn sign was formerly more frequent than it is at the present day ; probably when wheeled carriages came into more general use it was Changed into that of "The Waggon and Horses." In Larwood and Hotten's ' His- tory of Signboards ' the " Bell and Horse," "Bell and Black Horse," and "Horse and Dorsiter " (dorsiter=a, pannier ; accord- ing to the ' E.D.D.' it should be dorser or dosser) are mentioned, but not " Bell- Horse," although there were probably many examples of the last named in the eighteenth and preceding centuries. A house bearing this sign formerly occupied a site on Kelsall Hill, half way between Chester and Xorthwich. It appears to have been the only "house of call " between those places. T. N. BEUSHFIELD, M.D.
 * Nursery Rhymes,' where the first line

tSalterton, Devon.

CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI (10 S. vii. 6, 57).

If, as we are taught, an infant is one who cannot speak, a Mezzofanti may be supposed to justify his name if he can deliver himself in half the languages which are worthy of being known.

In Murray's ' Yorkshire ' (p. 238) the Rev. J. Oxlee, rector of Molesworth, Hants, is said to have mastered 120 languages and dialects ; but what use he made of them all I do not know. He was a native of Guis- borough, who died in 1854, when, half-way between seventy and eighty, he was batten- ing on a benefice of 228Z. a year.

Another polyglot gentleman resident in Yorkshire was but a bad second to Mr. Oxlee. This was Dr. Mawer, whose epitaph at Middleton Tyas is thus set down in Whitaker's ' Richmondshire ' (vol. i. p. 234) :

"This Monument rescues from Oblivion the Remains of the Rev a John Mawer, D.D., late Vicar of this Parish, who died Nov. 18, 1763, aged 60 ; as also of Hannah Mawer, his Wife, who died Dec r 22 nd, 1766, aged 72, buried m this Chancel. They were persons of eminent Worth. The Doctor was descended from the Royal 1 amily of Mawer, and was inferior to none of his illustrious Ancestors in personal Merit, being the greatest Linguist this nation ever produced. He was able to speak and write twenty-two Languages, and particularly excelled in the Eastern Tongues, in which he proposed to His Royal Highness, Frederick Prince of Wales, to whom he was firmly attached, to propagate the Christian Religion in the Abissmiaii Empire. A great and noble Design, which was frustrated by the Death of that amiable Prince, to the great Mortification of this excellent Person, whose Merit, meeting no Reward in this World, will, it is to be hoped, receive it in the next Iron the Being which Justice only can influence.

According to ' Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian ' (vol. ii. pp. 158, 159), Dr. Karl Tausenau, who strove to teach me German in the fifties, was only to be excelled by Mezzofanti ; but as to that, I think the Old Bohemian was misled by his enthusiasm. He wrote that Dr. Tausenau was " one of the best and soundest classical scholars of our time, no mean Orientalist, and a fluent accurate

3>eaker of seven European languages German, zech, Italian, French, English, Magyar, and Dutcli

to wit English he spoke with rare fluency. At a

great international meeting held in London in 18ol he interpreted to the English section currente, lingud (it the expression may pass) the speeches made in five different languages ! a feat which 1 never heard achieved before or since."

ST. SWITHIN.

" MONY A PICKLE MAKS A MICKLE " (10 S vi. 388, 456; vii. 11). As " meikle " and "muckle" are simply variants, it is altogether futile to attempt the task of assigning them separate and distinctive functions. " Does not ' mickle ' or ' meickle,' " we are asked, " usually indicate quantity, while 'muckle' refers to size ? " " Meickle," as irrelevant, may be left out of the question, to which in its modified form a directly negative answer falls to be given. In translating 'yEneid,' v. 150, Gavin Douglas uses the