Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/306

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIIL SEPT. 28, iw.

This gives the minimum weight of the half- sovereign as greater by | gr. than half the minimum weight of the sovereign.

The 1843 weights appear to make an extra allowance for wear in the case of the half- sovereign, so that two half-sovereigns may weigh J grain less than one sovereign ; but the 1862 weights make an equal difference the other way.

Were these weights correct at their sepa- rate dates ? and, if so, when and why was the change made ? One-eighth of a grain either way makes in 1,OOOZ. a difference of a little over II.

According to W. Toone's ' Chronological Historian,' " an issue of gold coin to be called Sovereigns, of the value of 20s., took place, and were [sic] made current by pro- clamation " on 1 July, 1817.

According to P. Kelly's ' Universal Cam- bist,' second ed., 1821, vol. i. p. xxx, the new sovereigns were minted in 1816, there being .46|| sovereigns to the pound Troy.

When were half-sovereigns issued ?

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

CHAUCERIANA : ' THE NONNE

PREESTES TALE,' LL. 367-371.

(10 S. viii. 202.)

I THINK your correspondent is the first who has failed to understand my simple explanation of this not very difficult passage. That his proposed "explanation" is quite impossible I will shortly prove.

His quotation contains two bad misprints. The word " whe," in the third line, is a misprint for " were " ; and the word " begin," in the fourth line, should (as he says him- self) have been " began."

He tries to get a new sense by entirely ignoring the presence of the word " also." In modern English prose Chaucer says : " When the month of March was complete, and thirty-two days had also passed since the beginning of March " ; that is to say, the month of March and thirty-two days more had passed. If to the thirty-one days of March we add thirty-two days more, we are landed in May. And that is all. It is really a very elementary sum in arithmetic, and most people have hitherto succeeded in getting it right, with the admitted exception of the scribe of the eccentric Harleian MS., who states that, besides March, two months and two days had passed, and thus succeeds in landing us in June !

I will now prove that the proposed ex- planation is wholly wrong, and could not have proceeded from any one who has even a moderate acquaintance with Middle Eng- lish phonology and grammar.

We are told that bigan does not mean "began," but means "begone" or passed away; in fact, that "Sin March bigan " = post Martium prceteritum. Such a construc- tion is quite impossible in Middle English. To begin with, "Sin" does not mean post in the prepositional sense, but is always an adverb ; and such a phrase as " since March begone " is not only impossible in modern English, but never existed at any date whatever. Secondly, bigan for " begone " is only possible in Northumbrian or in texts strongly marked with Northern peculiari- ties ; and that is how I " prove that Chaucer could not possibly have used gan = gone."

Next, I read as follows : " If such proof be forthcoming, then bigan must be changed to bigon." First, I may remark that the MSS. have the same spelling bigan in 1. 370 as in 1. 367, meaning, of course, the same thing, viz., " began." The change to bigon will not help us at all, because it then ceases to be a past tense, and becomes a past participle ; and the construction of sin with a past participle is impossible.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

Dr. Richard Morris in his edition of ' The Nonne Preestes Tale ' (Clarendon Press, 1869) notes : " The day spoken of is May 3, as one month (April) and two days are past since March ended." But, curiously, he avoids " the trouble about bigan " by omitting the word from his glossary.

H. P. L.

BILL STUMPS HIS MARK (10 S. vii. 489 ; viii. 95). The inscription at the latter reference, not having been discovered until 1880, was necessarily absent from vol. vii. (' Inscriptiones Britannise ') of the 'Corpus tnscriptionum Latinarum,' that volume having appeared in 1873. It is given, how- ever, with a facsimile, in the seventh volume of the Ephemeris Epigraphica(~No. 827 pp. 278-9), among the " Additamenta Quarta ad Corporis vol. vii." edited by Dr. Haverfield. With one or two exceptions, Dr. Haverfield agreed with Zangemeister's reading of the inscription, and for the inter- pretation referred to the German professor'/} article in Hermes. In some few* points absolute certainty seems unobtainable, but no one, I imagine, who has carefully^studied