Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/333

 10 s. vii. APRIL G, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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authenticated, would place the controversy in a new light. Unfortunately, however, the authority is of a description to which no attention or credit is due. A Mr. Rodney, of whom, we believe, no one in this part of the world ever heard, writes a letter to the Editor of an American paper, in which he tells a long story about the American General Lee confessing himself the author, and detailing a number of circumstances respecting the causes of the concealment. We merely notice this circum- stance to shew that a controversy which has so long remained enveloped in mystery is not at all eluci- dated by this new attempt to discover the author of the letters of Junius."

The following cryptic paragraph was in the same journal of the 26th of the same month :

" The discoverers of Junius seem to wish to add to the mysterious history of that author's writings, by selecting the most unlikely men, and the most improbable proofs they can find. Writers, perhaps, of superior talents, would disdain the imposition, and discourage it in their injudicious friends." ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

' CRANFORD ' (10 S. vii. 188, 235). The story of Sidi Nouman and Amine, who

"drew from a case, which she had in her pocket, a sort of ear-picker, with which she began to take some rice, and carried it to her mouth by single grains, for no more would it take up at a time," is to be found in ' The Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' translated by the Rev. Edward Forster. The edition quoted is " carefully revised and corrected, with an explanatory and historical introduction, by G. Moir Bussey," and was published by J. J. Chidley, 123, Aldersgate Street, in 1845. LEIBION.

SPELLING CHANGES (10 S. vi. 403, 450, 493 ; vii. 51, 171, 218). It may be an item of interest to know that the movement for a uniform spelling (whose advantages I think greatly overrated, and its disad- vantages underrated) is not without con- siderable backwaters. When T was assist- ing the late Charles Dudley Warner on his ' Library of the World's Best Literature,' he and his main staff, myself included, unanimously decided, while adhering other- wise to the ' Webster ' canons of spelling, to use the " re " termination for all words of Romance or classical derivation, as sabre, sceptre, sepulchre, sombre, theatre, &c. Here aesthetics vanquished habit ; for all were reared in or familiar with the Webster spelling, and all thought it very ugly and tasteless in this regard. Sepulcher alone was enough to make one forswear science and spell by the rule of thumb. I confess inability to understand the logical necessity of spelling somber because we spell poker ;

and I know that filing off all the saliences of our words would make the language so much more slippery to grasp, both for foreigners and our own children, that the loss would outweigh all the alleged gains of greater ease.

FORREST MORGAN. Hartford, Conn.

The following, taken from a letter in The Times, 16 Oct., 1906, may be of interest in connexion with this discussion :

Alexandre Dumas fils m'ecrivait un jour une invitation de 12 lignes ; chaque ligne etait ornee d'une faute d'orthographe. Comme je lui en faisais la remarque, il se mit a rire et s'ecria : " L'ortho- graphe, cher ami, cela ne regarde pas les ecrivains ! C'est le metier de protes." (Les protes sont ceux qui corrigent les epreuves dans les imprimeries.) Dumas estde 1' Academic !

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

NOLLEE DE NODUWEZ, Membre de la Spciete des Gens de Lettres de France. Paris, 10, Cite Rougemont.

HENRY SMYTH. 32, Stanmore Road, Birmingham.

I thank COL. PRIDEAUX for noticing my paper. I am certainly unaware that Presi- dent Roosevelt has withdrawn his proposed simplified spellings. The Lower House, Congress, has resolved that their papers are to be spelt in the old orthodox spelling, if that can be called orthodox which varies with every printing office, Oxford, e.g., printing peny for penny in editions of the Prayer Book. But we may say without offence of a foreign Parliament that it was elected to make laws for the State, not laws of grammar. T. WILSON.

Harpenden.

[We cannot devote more space to this subject.]

"BULK" AND BASKISH " BULKA " (10 S. vii. 227). MR. DODGSON suggests that there may be some connexion between the obscure English verb " to bulk " and Gaelic mulcaidh. As to that, T should not like to venture an opinion ; but mulcaidh^ which means " to push," is evidently the same word as Latin mulcere, " to stroke," from which comes our term demulcent? applied to soothing medicines.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

"HAZE" (10 S. vii. 108, 213). In the province of Hanover country people say,, when a mist is rising, " Der Hase braut " (the hare is brewing) ; in Further Pomerania (Hinterpommern), " Der Fuchs badet sich." This latter analogous saying proves that by Hase the animal is meant. Both are equally current. One need not see in these phrases a survival of old creeds ; they are