Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/507

 ii s. i. JUNE is, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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BRUNELLESCHI AND COLUMBUS'S EGG (11 S. i. 408). See Georg Buchmann's ' Gefliigelte Worte,' pp. 486-488 (twentieth edition). The story is told in Vasari's ' Vite ' (1550). The passage fiom Vasari quoted at 9 S. i. 386 without any exact reference is just under one -third through the ' Life of Philippo Brunelleschi.' Accord- ing to Biichmann the first writer to transfer the anecdote to Columbus was Benzoni in his ' History of the New World ? (Venice, 1565). Biichmann traces back the story so told of Brunelleschi to a Spanish phrase " Johnnie's egg " ("el huevo de Juanelo "). He quotes, however, for this no earlier passage than one from Calderon's ' La Dama Duende ' (Act II. ), where a similar story is referred to, the hero of which is "Johnnie." EDWARD BENSLY.

Eight Friends of the Great. By W. P. Courtney.

(Constable & Co.)

THE modern book of memoirs concerning half- forgotten figures, especially if they are of the eighteenth century, is apt to be an uncritical rchauff, ill-written, and repeating the mistakes which research has set right. Mr. Courtney's name alone is sufficient to inform the judicious reader that any book of his is of a very different sort. His is a master of the byways of biography, and by patient research he makes his subjects live, collecting an illuminating detail here and a date there, and setting down his results in a clear style which carries conviction. The result is a rare sort of book, worth at least ten of the com- positions now so common.

Of the ' Eight Friends ' here dealt with, three Bishop Rundle, Dr. Warner, and John Taylor have secured a corner in the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' ; the others Philip Met- calfe, Scrope Davies, Lord Webb Seymour, Lord John Townshend, and Lydia White find no place there ; but any reader of Mr. Courtney's pages will certainly agree that their lives were noteworthy. The whole volume is full of human interest, and touches at many points figures great in the world of literature or art.

Dr. Warner has been severely handled by John Forster and Thackeray, but Mr. Courtney shows that he was a very pleasant person with a decided gift for friendship. He seems a character of more worth than Bishop Rundle, one of the eighteenth-century divines who were devoted to mundane enjoyment, and equal to any amount of preferment. Metcalfe belonged to Johnson's circle, was painted by Reynolds, and had sufficient M'.-alth and taste (we like Mr. Courtney's con- junction of these two qualifications ) to be admitted to several learned societies. He was admitted, too, "to lady Jersey's" to play whist. The three words we have quoted show a peculiarit in Mr. Courtney's capital letters in which he does not appear to be consistent, for in his Preface he speaks of " Lord Webb Seymour."

The accounts of Taylor of The Sun, friend of Sheridan, and Scrope Davies, a wild Cambridge wit and friend of Byron, introduce us to some aygone humours which we still find entertaining.. Lord Webb Seymour belonged to Edinburgh at the end of the eighteenth century, and was distinguished alike for his social and scientific talents. His career, as revealed by Mr. Court- ney's patient investigation, is a striking instance of futile effort, " schemes noble to be formed, but too immense to be seriously attempted."

Lord John Townshend's record, which includes determined efforts to represent Cambridge in Parliament, does not seem to us equal in interest

that of Lydia White, an amiable and persistent blue-stocking known to many through the pages of Lockhart's ' Life of Scott.'

We congratulate Mr. Courtney on his success in animating or reanimating the lives of a group- of friends possessed of more character than many of the great. His writing is everywhere concise- and effective, and his dry humour is far more illuminating than the mass of verbiage under- which compilers conceal the paucity of their matter.

English as We Speak It in Ireland. By P. W_

Joyce, LL.D. (Longmans & Co.) WE retained such a pleasurable recollection of the two excellent volumes which Dr. Joyce gave us many years ago on the Irish names of places that we received his new book on the Hibernian dialect of English with high expectations. But we must confess to being disappointed. He who- writes on the Anglo-Irish compound should be equally at home with both its components ^ but we are led to think that Dr. Joyce is much better acquainted with Irish than he is with English. He gives us scores of phrases which are perfectly good English in everyday use, and imagines they are distinctively Irish. In his first fifty pages, for example, we find the following : " to have one's hair in a wisp " ; " to be the better of " ; " to be without a penny " ; " some- thing comes against one " (i.e., is prejudicial) f " on the head of " (i.e., on account of) ; " to walk by oneself " (i.e., alone) ; " this is the way I did it " ; " it is raining " ; " What 's the use of talking ? " " lame of one leg " ; " What in the world kept you ? " " Where in the world are you going ? " (Cicero's ubi terrarum), " to give in to " (= yield). Again, he claims an Irish right in such universal locutions as "dry as a bone,'" " cool as a cucumber," " blind as a bat," " as; poor as a church mouse," " as honest as the sun," " as warm as wool," "as many lives as a cat," "out of sight out of mind," "to beat hollow," " fox " (to sham), " cheek " (impudence), and a multitude of others common to English-speaking people everywhere.

On the other hand, Dr. Joyce errs on the side* of defect as well as excess. He fails to register- the interesting Shakespearian word renege, which still survives ; to keen ; or barn-brack (though he gives the last under the less common form borreen- brack). The final element in this word, Irish breac, speckled, explains brockey, pock-marked ,. which is here confused with brock, a badger,. We miss also black, bad of its kind, as a knot, a frost ; to idle, as a transitive verb, very common ? on the batter ; hooker ; flocoon ; gominock ; scrooge, and many others. Omadhaun, a fool