Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/69

 ai s. i. JAN. 23, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1010.

CONTENTS. No. 4.

NOTES :Spinis,:61 Topographical Prints, 62 George IV.'s Dinner-Table. 63 M.P.s for Hertfordshire Medical M. P. s Lord Mayor's Visitors' Books Tom Brown's Second, 64 'History of Oxford Museum' Country Theatricals C. Beade and Anatole France MacGillivray Samuel Rogers, 65 Marriage Contract " Proud Preston "Ward and Day Families, 66 -" Safety-vent " Oil Martin Hawks in 1390, 67.

QUERIES: Ben Jonson in Westminster Abbey Metrical Prayer and Passion Emblems, 67 Authors Wanted Bvrne's 'The Boat-Race' Brighton Visitors in 1779 Widow Twankay Charles Kiugsley Wetheral Priory- Archdeacon of Taunton News-letters Duke of Lorraine, 68 Roman Ladies.' Language 'Edwin Drood ' Cima's ' Incredulity of Thomas 'Danger Personified St. Mar- tin's-le-Grand J. Symmons W. Welbourne J. Savage Miss Brusby " Welsh " Sir Hildebrand Oakes Penzance Market Cross -'Generation of Judges,' 69- " Mutation of Throstles " ' Racers Unhorsed 'Gamaliel Holloway, 70.

REPLIES : Bubb Dodington, 70 Montpellier as Street- Name. 71 Authors Wanted Gmmmatical Gender, 72 ' Adventures of Capt. Boyle' Mary, Queen of Scots Merimee's " Inconnue " Funeral Plumes' Vortigern and Rowena,' 73 "Tackle-house" Col. Gordon King's PlaceThree CCC Court Michael Newton, 74 'Dia- logues of the Dead ' Lord Winmarleigh Devonshire Regiment James O'Brien, 75 Jack-Knives Sir T. W. Brotherton Noah, Girl's Name Influence of Clothes- Woodbine H. Etough ' Abbey of Kilkhampton,' 76 Steerage on a Frigate " Catalogue Raisonnee "Cyrus Jay St. Gratian's Nut, 77 Pimpernel Christmas Quarrel T. E. Owen" Toby Philpot," 78 Insect Names Children with same Name March Malen, 79.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Memorials of Old Sussex ' ' Our Debt to Antiquity ' ' Verses from Old Japan.'

SPINIS IN THE ANTONINE ITINERARY.

I AM giving my attention to some of the curious guesses of our old antiquaries. In a recent examination of a book which con- tains several " derivations n of place-names from Latin, I found that hardly one example had in it any element of truth. It cannot be too widely known that many of the old ^identifications"' are, from a philological point of view, hopelessly bad and entirely misleading. The worst mistakes have been made in the blundering attempts to connect Latin names with English ones.

Just because there was a Roman station at Spinis, and there happens to be a Speen in Berkshire, the conclusion was at once rushed at that the names are identical. For do not both forms involve an sp and an n ?

The excuse was that Speen came some- where near the position wanted. I read of its " situation near the Roman roads " ; not, it will be observed, on them. That is why <e the situation of Spinae has had many

localities assigned to it." But the most ingenious argument is this :

" The. first station [meaning the original situa- tion of Spinis] may well have been at Speen Hill, though doubtless, as civilization increased, and the territory became more settled, it was moved nearer to the Kennet ford ' ' ;

by which Newbury seems to be meant.

This is amazing. It is an admission that Spinis was really near the Kennet ford, and had only been near Speen once upon a time ; much as if one were to say that Londinium is now upon the Thames, though it may once have been somewhere else. And the inward meaning is that Speen is not exactly where it ought to be, if it is to be identified with Spinis, as was assumed.

Yet even those who assumed this saw the difficulty in the total difference of the vowels involved. To get over this difficulty, one gentleman kindly explains to us that the Latin long * was pronounced like the modern English ee, so that splna was pro- nounced like the modern English speena. Unluckily, he forgot that the A.-S. Spene (which represents Speen) was pronounced with the sound of the Latin e at that date, something like a modern English Spain-a. Surely we all know that the Latin splna has come out in English as spine, and that the Latin splen has come out as spleen. Where, then, is the connexion between the I in splna and the ee in speen ? They can have no connexion whatever.

The antiquaries have overlooked one little difficulty altogether. An Anglo-Saxon scholar knows that a form like spine pre- supposes a base spon-, because e results from 6 as surely as the plural of goose (A.-S. gos) is geese (A.-S. ge#). And that is why the place-name Speen is represented in Domesday Book by Spone. Now that they have so obligingly explained the ee in Speen as resulting from splna, how do they pro- pose to explain the form Spone ? It cannot be done ; so it is overlooked and disregarded, instead of being welcomed, as it well may be.

Is it not time to give up this ridiculous " identification,' 1 which is asseverated as incontrovertible in every book that mentions Spinis at all ? It proves how rotten the system is that applauds such guesses.

I beg leave to conclude with one word of advice. Before accepting any etymology whatever, whether of place-name, surname, or common substantive or verb, the student should always test it by examining the vowel-sounds as well as the consonants. This simple test makes short work of many a specious guess. WALTER W. SKEAT.