Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/230

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NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. VIL MARCH 9, 1907.

steps were removed, when a toad was found in prisoned in the stonework in a comatose state. Th creature soon became active when removed into th sunshine. There could be no doubt that the toa had lived twenty years in its hermetically scale chamber, as all round, in perfect condition, was foot thickness of stone and cement, and the toa was found in a cavity in the centre."

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

" FURZING" CARDS. In 'The Adventurer vol. i., second edition, London, 1754, o: p. 304, the verb furze is used (in a sens omitted in the ' H.E.D.') in this phrase :

" Mrs. Overall, the housekeeper, having lost thre rubbers at wist running, without holding a swabbe (notwithstanding she had changed chairs, furze( the cards, and ordered Jemmy the foot-boy to si cross-legged for good luck)."

On p. 45 one reads " some infallible argu ments against the Pope's infallibility " p. 77, " that the Alderman's effigy shoulc -accompany his INTIRE BUTT BEER " ; p. 221 "*' she has no taste for nicknacks, anc kickshaws, and whimwhams " ; and p. 306 " horn-mad." EDWARD S. DODGSON.

REGISTRATION ACT, 28 JULY, 1812. On the fly-leaf preceding a copy of this Act

attached to the Register of Baptisms for Long Itchington, commencing 3 March

1813, is the following note in the hand- writing of the Rev. John Rennie, then vicar of the parish :

Nota Bene.

The author of the original plan on which the following Act of Parliament is framed was the Rev. John Rennie, vicar of this parish ; who had the honor to submit his manuscript copy of the same to The Most Reverend The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Charles Manners Sutton) on the fifth pt May, 1809. At a subsequent period Mr. Rennie, by order of His Grace, delivered a printed Copy of it, with some Amendments suggested by some of the Episcopal Bench, to the Right Honorable -(xeorge Rose, who was pleased to prepare a Bill on the subject, which, after undergoing a variety of Alteration,*, both in the House of Lords and Com- mons, during two Sessions of Parliament, received the Royal Assent on the 28 July, 1812."

JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

"CREELING" THE BRIDEGROOM. The fol- lowing is copied from The Standard for 18 February :

'/The ancient Border custom of 'creeling' the bridegroom has been successfully rev ived at Lander ine creel, a basket used by fishwives for carrying their fish, was placed on the bridegroom's shoulders'! and the crowd of creelers then threw stones into it until the bride mibliely kissed her husband This she promptly did, and he was forthwith released."

HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.

DAVID SCOTT, R.S.A. It is exactly fifty-eight years ago when Scotland lost the greatest artist she ever produced, David Scott. He died, after a short but agonizing illness, at his studio in Easter- Dairy, to the west of Edinburgh, and was buried at the Dean Cemetery on the 10th of March, 1849, where a tall and antique sculptured cross of stone marks his grave. At his feet, nineteen years 'later, I buried my father, Joseph Ebsworth, aged eighty years except four months. I am probably the last survivor, and certainly the most grateful and loving student, of that dead master, whom I have never ceased to revere, and kept sanctified to his memory the 5th of March, 1849, and the 10th of March that followed it, hallowed by his funeral.

JOSEPH WOODFALL EBSWORTH. The Priory, Ashford, Kent.

CARNIVAL SUNDAY IN THE GREEK CHURCH.

Whitaker, to whom we all often have to refer, marks ('Almanack for 1907,' p. 70) the Greek Quinquagesima Sunday as Car- nival Sunday in the Oriental Church. This is incorrect ; for though Lent does not begin till afterwards, abstinence from flesh com- mences the day after Sexagesima Sunday, which is therefore called 17 aTro'/cpews icLK-r], the word aTroK/oews exactly corre- sponding to our " carnival," or, as the French spell it, " carnaval." It has been often pointed out that, notwithstanding Byron's assertion in ' Beppo,' it has nothing to do with vale, or " farewell to flesh " (a notion which Dr. Murray remarks, with quiet sarcasm, belongs to the domain of )opular etymology), but is derived from the Low Latin carnelevamen= removal or putting ,way of flesh. The Greek apocreos then, >r Carnival Sunday, falls this year on the iay winch the Greeks date 25 February, and

e 10 March. Whitaker gives the following

unday. w. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

YTENE : ITS PRONUNCIATION. The pro- amciation of this well-known poetical name or the New Forest is given in Brewer's Reader's Handbook ' as " E-tee-ne." This epresents the usage of our poets. For nstanee, Gay has :

So when two boars in wild Ytene bred,

Ur on W estphaha's fattening chestnuts fed imilarly I find in Scott's ' Marmion ' :

Ytene's oaks have heard again

Renew'd such legendary strain. his pronunciation is incorrect and is a lere invention of the poets, who had no eans of ascertaining the traditional sound