Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/361

 n s. i. APR. so, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

353

Orkney and Shetland bruk is pure Old Norse, meaning a crowd, heap, &c. The word occurs in Orkney as early as 1154, when it is stated that Earl Erlend's body was found under a ]>ara-bruk, a heap of seaweed. The English dialect word broke, leavings or remnants of food, &c., is M.E. broke, pp. broken. The English word break is un- known to Scandinavian idioms ; the corre- sponding word in O.N. brytja, to chop or break, still survives in the Shetland dialect as brit. ALFRED W. JOHNSTON.

29, Ashburnham Mansions, Chelsea.

SIB JOHN SUCKLING (11 S. i. 281). MB. THOBN-DBUBY'S valuable notes should be welcome to every reader of Suckling, and they have already been utilized in annotating one copy of the poet's works in Mr Hazlitt's edition. In a case of this kind an editor has to encounter uncommon difficulties. Various Caroline lyrists wrote in the same key, and produced results with such a strong family likeness that indisputable evidence alone can finally establish individual authorship. The prevalence of miscellanies also tended to produce misunderstanding and confusion. Carew, Corbet, and others may possibly have been credited with work that is not theirs, just as Suckling's editors may have occasionally attributed to him what really belongs to another.

It is surprising that Mr. Hazlitt should not have discovered some of the facts now disclosed, for he seems to have examined the contemporary anthologies. Annotating the Rev. Alfred Suckling's bibliography of the poet's publications, he says: "Nearly all the printed and manuscript miscellanies of the seventeenth century contain some of his pieces.' 1 This is a comprehensive state- ment, which presumably covers a reference to Playford and the rest. With regard to ' Sir John Suckling's Answer,' the editor deserves credit for his hesitation. Under the poem itself he queries his own intimation that it is " now first printed, n while in a note to the prefatory memoir, p. xliv, he expresses a doubt as to its authenticity. "These lines,"' he writes, "with certain necessary corrections, are inserted among the Poems ; but it is very doubtful, on the whole, whether they are really from Suckling's pen, 2 ' About the cantilena " I come from England into France," he is disposed to accept Sir Henry Ellis's attribution, pru- dently observing at the same time that, if the lyric was Suckling's, " it was a very early production, even if (which is probable) it was not written quite so early as 1623."

The title ' Lutea Allison,' with which Suckling heads a frank address to a fair damsel, perplexes Mr. Hazlitt, who appends to the lyric the note, " Query, Lucia.. But is there any difficulty ? The young lady, with roses in her cheeks and cherries on her lips (as the poet gallantly avers), probably had wealth of golden hair, which would receive romantic indication through the appropriate use of the Latin epithet. THOMAS BAYNE.

SIB T. BBOWNE ON OLYBIUS'S LAMP (11 S. i. 227, 290). Full references to early printed and MS. sources for the extraordinary legend of Olibius's lamp are given, with the two forged inscriptions, by Mommsen on p. 22* of vol. v., part i., of the ' Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.' The date of the alleged discovery (at Este, in the territory of Padua) was not 1550, as in the extract from The Family Herald, but about 1500 (1498 according to one version of the story ; according to another, ' ' annum circiter millesimum quingentesimum ").

There can be no doubt that the * N.E.D.* under * Olibian ' has made a curious mistake. A similar legend occurs in the ' Gesta Romanorum,' clviii. EDWABD BENSLY.

WIBBAL (11 S. i. 290). We know from the ' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ? that the old name was Wir-healh, which see in the dictionary. The A.-S. wlr is our "wire,'* but it also was used to denote " a myrtle.'* Healh is the modern Jiaiifih, duly explained in the ' N.E.D.* Isaac Taylor suggests that W r irral meant a haugh where bog- myrtles grew. This guess is possible ; but how it can be proved is quite another story.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

[MR. T. W. HUCK and H. P. L. also thanked for replies.]

" FOBBES MACKENZIE HOUB OF ELEVEN " (11 S. i. 268). The Act for the Better Regulation of Public -Houses in Scotland (16 and 17 Viet. c. 67), popularly known as the " Forbes Mackenzie Act," was passed in 1853. It derived its popular designation from its introducer, Mr. William Forbes Mackenize, M.P. for Peebles -shire. Among other provisions it enacted that no liquor should be sold by hotel-keepers, publicans, or grocers after eleven o'clock at night. Mr. Forbes Mackenzie sat for Peebles-shire from 1837 to 1852. In the latter year he was elected M.P. for Liverpool, but was unseated on petition. He died in 1862. His father, Colin Mackenzie of Portmore, was an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott