Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/193

 ii s. i. MAR. 5, i9io.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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221 of ' Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale (John Lane, 1910). It looks as if he were wearing Wellingtons or Bluchers. I do not know i these were, or are, made indifferently for either foot ; but I have noted a reference in ' Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour * (chap, xli.) to Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey's " shapeless tops, made regardless of the refinements of right and left," which "dangled at his horse's sides like a couple of stable -buckets."

HIPPOCLIDES.

EASTER ON 27 MARCH. Much has been written in ' N. & Q.' about Easter falling on particular days, e.g., Lady Day or St. Mark's Day ; but it does riot appear that attention has been drawn to what occurs this year, viz., the coincidence of the eccle- siastical and civil anniversaries of the Resurrection. As is well known, an early and very generally accepted tradition placed the date of the Crucifixion on the 25th of March (the anniversary of the Annunciation), and consequently that of the Resurrection on the 27th. The REV. JOHNSON BAILY in 1878 (5 S. ix. 416) stated that " March 27 is often in calendars described as ' Resur- rectio Domini,' from a belief that the resurrection of our Lord actually took place on that day." This belief was held by Dante, as appears by ' Conv.,' iv. 23. When Easter so fell, it was considered to have fallen in its most proper place. Matthew Paris, in closing his history at the end of the year 1250, remarks that that was the first time that. in a jubilee year Easter had occurred " suo loco proprio, videlicet sexto Calendarum Aprilis " ; and he commemo- rates the event in the following verses : Virginia a partu jam mi lie volumina Phcebus Cum bis centenis et quinquaginta percent Anmia ; sed visum non est sub tern pore tanto Aprilis sexto fuerit quod Pascha Calendas Dum quinquagenus orbem percurreret annus ; Hoc tamen evenit anno, cui terminus hie est.

R. D. WILSON.

" PEIN OF THE HARTE " = HALTER. There is a curious slip in the ' N.E.D.' under ' Heart,' I. 2 = life. I find there a quotation from Hall's ' Chronicle,' 1548 : " Com- maundyng, upon pein of the harte, that no man should once pass the sea with hym." The conjunction of the words " pain " and " heart " probably diverted the distributor of the quotation from the real meaning of the expression. It is evidently the Englished sur peine de la hart, i.e., of the halter (Littre, 16th-cent. quotation). I do not find ' Harte' in this sense in the * N.E.D.'

I turn to ' Halter.' No etymology is given -beyond cf. with L. capistrum, halter. But capistrum is only a halter in the sense of a head-stall ; cabestre is the Provencal word. And there is no hint of a possible connexion between " halter," the rope for a criminal's neck, and "halse " or " hawse," the neck itself. The origin of hart is un- known to Littre. It means : 1, a withy to bind faggots ; 2, a withy strong and supple enough to hang a man with ; 3, the hang- man's rope. I surmise it to be related to our " garth " or to the Dutch garde, both of similar meaning. EDWARD NICHOLSON. 115, Rue N. D. des Champs, Paris.

" HEORTOLOGY. 2 ' One may regret not to find a record of this term, adopted from ancient Greek, in the ' Oxford Dictionary ? : nor is its corresponding French equivalent heortologie in Littre or in Darmesteter- Hatzfeld. As every Greek scholar knows, it signifies an introductory guide to the^ calendar of holy festivals observed by the Christian Church. A manual of this kind would serve to give an answer to such questions as, for instance, that concerning a ' Fourteenth-Century Calendar l which appeared at the head of the Queries on 12 February. H. KREBS.

[A notice of the translation of Dr. K. A. H. Kellner's ' Heortology ' appeared in The Athen&um of 25 September, 1909.]

It would be futile, as it would be pre- sumptuous, to attempt the textual editing of the Waverley Novels. They suffer nothing from such lapses as those by which the sun is made to set over the German Ocean and Rosneath is called an island. But there are verbal slips that need not be allowed to remain, and no genuine admirer of Scott would demur at their silent removal. A fresh perusal of ' Anne of Geierstein ' has just brought two of these under considera- tion.
 * ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN ' : Two READINGS.

In the fourth paragraph of chap. viii. it is said that the face of the Burgess of Soleure " became flushed like the moon when rising in the north-west." This could be easily rectified by the substitution of setting for " rising," or of north-east for " north-west." Scott probably intended to use the latter of the suggested terms.

The other flaw is near the end of the ninth chapter, where a sentence begins, " Young Philipson, who, like Chaucer's Squire, was should have been instituted with the knight, and it would be only an act of grace to alter
 * as modest as a maid. ? ? The comparison