Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/204

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NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. vm. AUG. si, 1907.

THE THAMES EMBANKMENT : ITS OKI- GINATOBS. In speaking of the opening of the Thames Embankment in 1870, MB. FRANCIS says (ante, p. 103) that the ori- ginators of this scheme were Wren and Paterson. In the ' Memoirs of John Evelyn,' edited by William Bray, 1819, vol. ii. pp. 171-2, is a letter trom Evelyn to Sir Samuel Tuke, in which he tells of " his plan " for rebuilding the City after the Fire of London. " Everybody," he says,

"'brings in his idea; amongst the rest I presented

His Majesty my conception it was the second

that was seen, out Dr. Wren had got the start of me."

A foot-note says that these plans were afterwards printed by the Society of Anti- quaries. In vol. i. p. 397 we read, in a foot-note, that part of this plan of Evelyn's was

"to lessen the declivities and employ the rubbish in filling up the shore of the Thames to low-water mark, so as to keep the basin always full."

From these readings I have always under- stood that it was Wren and Evelyn who " coincided " regarding the idea for rebuild- ing the City, but that it was Evelyn who went one better in suggesting the utilizing of the debris. It would be interesting to have MB. FRANCIS'S valuable opinion on this. HAROLD MALET, Col.

ROTHEBHITHE. (See ante, p. 118.) In the review of Canon Beck's ' History of Rotherhithe,' at this reference, it is stated that " the name Rotherhithe is formed of two Saxon words Rethra, a rower or mariner, and hythe, a landing-place or haven." A more likely derivation would 'be from Ryther or Bother, a steer, the name of the place thus signifying a landing- place for cattle, corresponding with Lamb- hythe, now Lambeth, a landing-place for sheep. There is no particular reason why Rotherhithe, amongst the numerous hythes on the Thames, should be specially marked out as a landing-place for watermen or mariners. The number of mariners who landed at Edred's Hythe, now Queenhithe, was probably ten times as large as that of those who landed at Rotherhithe;

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

SARAWAK : ITS PRONUNCIATION. Unless they have actually lived in the East, English people generally mispronounce this name as Sarawak, throwing forward the stress to the first syllable. The history of Sarawak is so fascinating, as an example of what British rule can do, that it is worth remember-

ing that the correct sound is Sarawak, accented upon the penultimate. Most of the pronouncing gazetteers have it wrong. The new edition of Lippincott is in fact the only one I can find which gives it correctly. Kipling gives the right scansion in his well- known ' Lost Legion ' :

And some of us drift to Sarawak, And some of us drift up The Fly, And some share our tucker with tigers, And some with the gentle Masai.

Malays often say Sarawa instead of Sarawak, just as they say Pera instead of Perak ; but this slipshod elision of the final k is naturally not to be recommended to foreigners.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

OLD COLOTJBS IN THE NAVY : THEIB DISPOSAL. The following is a copy of an original letter, dated Navy Office, 14 Sept., 1702, and addressed to the Storekeeper and Clerk of the Survey, Woolwich :

GEXT. The Goran for Sick and Wounded have- ing desired of vis that the Chyrurgions Employed by them at the Severall ports, may be Supplyed with Old Collours, for the Use of the Sick and Wounded Seamen as may happen to be Sent on Shore ; Wee direct you forthwith to give us an acct. what Old Colours are in Store at Woolwich unfitt for any Use in the Navy. Wee are

Your affec freinds

GEO TOLLET, &c.

Note by the Storekeeper :

In Store 15.7ber 1702

c q

Old Colours 3.1.0 Answered to ye Board but

two C Weight

This battered and weather-worn bunting can hardly have formed ideal material for the use of the " Chyrurgions."

J. ELIOT HODGKIN.

CLABA REEVE. A brief obituary notice of the author of ' The Old English Baron,' which appeared in The Monthly Mirror for December, 1807, gives some particulars not included in the ' D.N.B.' :

"Died. On Thursday, 3rd Dec., at her apart- ments at Ipswich, Mrs. Clara Reeve, at an ad- vanced age. She was daughter of a dissenting minister of Suffolk : and sister to Vice Admiral Reeve. She had a very strong, clear, and well cultivated understanding, of which her ' History of the Progress of Romance ' is a sufficient proof, as of her good principles and correct taste. She pub- lished also an alteration, which softened some of the harshest improbabilities in that grand work of the terrific-marvellous, ' The Castle of Otranto,' by the late Lord Orford. She gave the altered romance the name of ' The Old English Baron ' : making, in her preface, due acknowledgment of the merit of the original. She was also the author of