Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/261

 10 S. VII. MARCH 16, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

213

" I cannot yet believe that Lamb, if seriously aware of any family interconnexion with Jewish blood, would, even in jest, have held that one- sided language. More probable it is that the fiery eye recorded not any alliance with Jewish blood, but that disastrous alliance with insanity which tainted his own life, and laid desolate his sister's."

A reference to Lamb's remarks on the Jews in his essays and letters does not seem to lend any weight to MB. BBESLAB' s theory ; and one cannot help thinking that if Lamb had any connexion with the Jewish race, he himself was unaware of the fact, and that his astonishment, if he could have learnt it, would have been as great as that of the " immortal and amenable soul who may come to be damned at last, and the man never suspect it beforehand." In his de- scription of himself in his ' Autobiography ' he refers to his slightly Jewish cast of face, but adds that he has " no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion." Further, in his sonnet on the ' Family Name ' he states that the family could not be traced any higher than his father's " sire's sire," and that

Perchance from Salem's holier fields return'd. With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord

Took His meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd.

The above lines do not strike one as being applicable to the ancestor of one for whom an Israelitish descent is claimed. Of course it might be that the Jewish strain was derived from his mother's family ; but on neither the paternal nor the maternal side is there any solid foundation of fact upon which to build the ingenious theory of Lamb's Semitic origin.

MB. BBESLAB does not give us anything beyond conjecture in support of his hypo- thesis, though possibly, from his statement that John Lamb " knew all about " the cause of the " unhappy ferment " within his brother's mind, which is assumed to be " due to Semitic in-breeding," he may be in possession of information at present unknown to other Lamb students, by whom it would be gladly welcomed. S. BUTTEBWOBTH.

" Carlagnulus " himself wrote on this question in a little autobiographical sketch given to William Upcott, and printed in p. 292. He declared he possessed a " cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion." The biographer continues :
 * The Maclise Portrait Gallery,' 8vo ed.,

"Was he, by the way, of Hebrew extraction? Maginn expresses his belief that his family was Jewish, and that his real name was ' Lonib.' But this could hardly be the case. Read his fine paper

on ' Imperfect Sympathies,' where he classes Jews with Scotchmen, Negroes, and Quakers. He was, he said, ' a bundle of prejudices, made up of likings- ancl dislikings, the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies.' He had not the nerve, he said, to enter a Jewish synagogue, he did not care to be on habits of familiar intercourse with any of that nation, and he confessed that he did not 'relish the approximation of Jew and Christian which had become so fashionable.' He thought of his favourite, Braham, that he would have been ' more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his forefathers,' and he saw ' the Hebrew spirit strong in him in spite of his proselytism ! ' No, Charles Lamb was not, consciously at least, of Jewish origin, he did not belong to that wonderful, hardly used, and greatly misunderstood people, except, indeed, in so far as we may all form part of the missing Tribes."

Pv. L. MOBETON.

Is it not a general rule that a surname taken from the name of an animal, unless- there is special evidence against it, indicates a Jewish origin in the owner ? It seems to be taken as a matter of course when I haver asked the question with regard to such a name. It is like the answer to Sir Wilfrid Lawson's question as to whether a certain; farmer in Cumberland had died from the effects of drink. His informant had heard nothing to the contrary. So I took it to be in the case of the Wolffs, the Harts, the Lambs, and other names of animal origin, though why, I know not. MB. BBESLAB'S traits of Jewish character in Lamb, too, are very striking, as well as the zeal (real or imaginary) characteristic of the convert. J. FOSTEB PALMEB.

8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

I am attracted by the suggestion of MB. BBESLAB touching the ancestry of Charles Lamb, but I think the very surname, Lamb, opposes itself to the theory that its inheritors were descendants of Spanish Jews.

ST. SWITHIN.

"HAZE" (10 S. vii. 108). Hase in the phrase quoted means the hare, which plays a great part in German mythology. PBOF. SKEAT will find the information he wants in Grimm's ' Deutsches Worterbuch.' Under ' Hase ' Grimm mentions the phrase " die Hasen backen," which has the same sense as " die Hasen brauen." Under the verb ' Brauen ' he says :

"Bis auf heute hat sich, in manigfaltem Aus- druck, eine sicher uralte Bezeichnung des Berg oder Wiese driickendenniedrigen Nebels erhalten, wobei 1>rauen fur kpchen gesetzt wird, ohne alien Bezug auf Bierbereitung ; das Volk sagt, die Wichtel, die Zwerge, die Unterirdischen brauen, wenn diese Diinste gleichsam aus ihrer Ruche empor steigen."

In short, all mists which do not rise high