Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/479

 10 s. VIIL NOV. 16, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

397

gers and small Parcels of Goods. Each Passenger is to pay Qd. and every Parcel of Goods that weighs not above 15 Pound Weight 3(1. This Chaise sets out from the George at Hampstead exactly at 8 a Clock in the Morning, and 4 in the Afternoon ; and returns from the George at Holborn-Bars at 10 in the Morning, and 6 in the Afternoon. Thus by ping out and coming in at a fix'd Time, will prevent Passengers waiting : And all Goods sent DV this Carriage will arrive at a certain Hour, without being exposed to any Rain or Dirt."

A. F. R.

EBBIN, A CHRISTIAN NAME (10 S. viii. 329). Though I have studied names for some years, I have never met with Ebbin .as a Christian name, I should say it is a shortened form of Ebenezer. I knew a lady some years ago in Wincanton, Somerset, 'whose husband's name was Ebenezer, but whom she usually addressed as Ebbi. May it not be that Ebbin and Ebbi are shortened forms of one and the same name ? I have sometimes heard the lady call her husband " Eb," which is shorter still, and illustrates the common tendency to abbreviate words, and at the same time the truth of the saying that man is naturally a lazy animal.

J. BROWN.

48, Gwydyr Mansions, Brighton.

A boy at school with me was named Ebenezer, and we called him " Ebbin " for "short," and " Nezer " at other times. When we had to put his name down, he was always " Ebbin." Perhaps this may help Mr. Street. The "christened" names were then more singular than is now the case, and Biblical names were common. I knew a " Job Ebenezer." THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

I once knew of a gentleman who had the -Christian name of Eben, and I believe his lather also bore the same name. I have .always understood it was a corruption of Ebenezer, though when it originated I do not know. I may state that neither of the gentlemen bore the name in full, but only the contraction. CHARLES DRURY.

[MR. HOLDEN MAcMiCHAEL also thanked for reply.]

SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOOL : SOME EARLY MASTERS (10 S. viii. 323). The 'Concertatio Ecclesise ' mentions a Simon Hunt, priest, as having died in exile (before 1588). The ' Douay Diaries ' record one of this name as having matriculated at the University of Douay ; my note does not say when, and I have not at present access to the diaries. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &a.

The Oxford English Dictionary. Niche Nywe. (Vol. VI.) By W. A. Craigie. (Oxford, Claren- don Press.)

THIS double section has been enlarged by twenty- one pages, so as to complete the letter N. The words recorded are 4,323, as against Johnson's 379, and the number of quotations reaches the high figure of 19,586. More than once we have been asked why the devil should be called "Old Nick." We get no definite answer here. The word is " probably the familiar abbreviation of the name Nicholas ; but there is, it is added, no evidence to connect it with " Nicker," a water-demon or kelpie. The brothers Smith, on the strength of ' Rejected Addresses,' get a separate heading for the onomato- poeic " nickety-nock." If all the modern words of this character are to be <( inserted, ^the 'Dictionary' will have a good many "aira Ktyoptva, for present-day writers, such as Mr. Kipling, are fond of similar inventions. Leslie Stephen appears as the sole authority for " nicknameable, but puts it in in- verted commas, which is a minor kind of obelizing. For "Nicotina"we should have been inclined to add a quotation from Parkinson's ' Paradisus ' (1629) : "Nicotiana, of one Nicot, a Frenchman, who, seeing it in Portugall, sent it to the French Queene, from whom it received the name of Herba Regia." Of "niddering" we are told that the modern currency of the word is due to Walter Scott, and that it should really be "nithing." Under "Niger" we do not find "Niger morocco," which is now a well-established term for a delightful form of binding. The quotations under "niggardly" are admirable from the literary point of view, in- cluding passages from Goldsmith, Matthew Arnold, and RusKin. The article on "nigh" is an example of the excellent analysis of shades of meaning, in which the ' Dictionary ' easily excels any other we know. We are familiar with "nigh as nigth" in dialect, the last word, we presume, meaning " near- ness." There are many compounds of "night," nouns and adjectives. "Night-hours" is used by Mr. Meredith in the amusing chapter of 'One of our Conquerors,' in which the two maiden ladies are disturbed by the sad behaviour of their little dog Tasso, and seems to us as fairly entitled to a separate heading as many forms included.

The nightingale is well represented, as far as earlier writers go ; but Shelley (1821) is the latest poet quoted, and is succeeded by ' The Penny Cyclopaedia' (1840) and a scientific reference (1894). We think this a little hard on later bards. Did not Matthew Arnold write in his ' Philomela ' : Hark ! ah, the nightingale The tawny-throated ?

while Tennyson talks of a " hundred-throated nightingale.

There is no quotation from a modern book of any importance for the Russian "Nihilist," though such would have been easy to procure in any respectable library. " Nippitate," of obscure origin, is a curious word for good liquor. Under "nocturne" we read of Whistler writing to Leyland (1880), "I can't thank you too much for the name 'Nocturne' as the title for my moon-