Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/472

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. DEC. 12, WH.

. removed in 1895. It is widely felt that the present would be a most suitable moment for these emblems of our maritime supremacy to reappear on our money. The ship was first seen on the coinage in 1797, but was used on medals in conjunction with Britannia a century before. The lighthouse dates from 1860.

The addition of Britannia probably in imitation of a somewhat similar figure found on some Roman coins we owe to the admiration excited by the figure on the reverse of the medal struck to commemo- rate the Peace of Breda in 1667, and the extraordinary efforts which England had made to increase her navy, enabling her

" to put to sea, after the lapse of a few weeks, the best fleet, in regard to ships, artillery, and rew, till then possessed by this country."

On this medal Britannia is shown seated at the foot of a rock, looking on the ocean. Her left hand rests on her shield, her right grasps a spear. A large man-of-war is leaving the coast, and a fleet lies in the offing. Legend : FAVENTE DEO. Obverse : bust of Charles II., laureate.

The figure of Britannia on the medal is a portrait of Frances Stuart, a reigning Court beauty at this period. Pepys says (Diary, 25 Feb., 1667) :

" At my goldsmith's did observe the King's new medall, where in little there is Mrs. Stewart's face, as well done as ever I saw anything in my "whole life, I think."

Britannia was transferred to the coinage in 1672, the figure facing left. In 1821 it was reversed, and the helmet first added.

J. LANDFEAR LUCAS. Glendora, Hindhead, Surrey.

" MISER." The following illustration of the archaic and classical use of the word is too long for a dictionary, yet it should be recorded somewhere : Wei then let see what reason or what rule Can miser rnoue to march among the rest. I mean not miser he that sterues his Mule For lack of meat : no that were but a iest. My Miser is as braue sometimes as best, Where if he were a snudge to spare a groate, Then Greedy minde and he might weare one coate.

But I by Miser meane the very man

Which is enforst by chip of any chaunce

To step aside and wander now and then

Til lowring lucke may pype some other daunce.

And in meane while yet hopeth to aduaunce

His haples state, by sword, by speare, by sheeld :

Such bulwarks (lo) my Mysers brayne doth

buylde. Gco. Gascoignc, ' Woorkes,' pp. 128-9 (1587).

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

CELTIC PLACE -NAMES IN LINCOLNSHIRE. Mr. W. F. Rawnsley in his recently pub- lished ' Highways and Byways in Lincoln- shire,' in dealing with the Isle of Axholme, repeats the assertion often made by pre- vious writers on local topography that the nomenclature of the district shows many Celtic elements. The word " Celtic " should always be regarded in such matters as a danger signal warning us of possible in- accuracies to come, and this case is prob- ably no exception. Mr. Rawnsley says (p. 208) :

" The whole region is full of Celtic names, for it evidently was a refuge for the Celtic inhabitants. Thus we have Haxey, and Crowle (or Cruadh = hard, i.e., terra firma), also Moel (=a round hill), which appears in Melwood.''

As regards Melwood, which was the seat of a Carthusian priory, it is to be remarked that moel, which as an adjective means " bald," has, when a noun, the meaning " bald hill " (i.e., a hill bare of trees), not " round hill." Hence moeZ-wood is a contra- diction in terms. Moreover, Melwood is a comparatively late form of the name. In thirteenth- and fourteenth-century charters I find the forms Methelwude (B.M. Add. Ch. 22,567), Medelwde (Add. Ch. 19,819), Methelwud (Add. Ch. 19,820), Melewde (Add. Ch. 20,849), Methelwude (Harl. Ch. 48 I. 40), Methelwode (Add. Ch. 20,610). In Add. Ch. 20,612 the Priory (of the second founda- tion) is described as " vocata le Pryoure of the Wode." The forms above quoted quite rule out moel as an element in the name, and suggest (but I do not press this or any other alternative explanation) that the mel of Melwood is a shortening of middle or, rather, of an old form of the word (see the 'N.E.D.,' s.v.).

The derivation of Crowle from cruadh is foimd, like the etymology of Melwood, in J. K. Johnstone's ' The Isle of Axholme : its Place-Names and River-Names ' (Ep- worth, 1886), from which book, indeed, Mr. Rawnsley may well have got both explana- tions. Mr. Johnstone says :

" Crowle, older forms, Crule and Croule, from Celtic cruadh (pronounced croo), ' hard,' whence cruadhail (pronounced crool), 'hard land' = terra firma . . . . cf. Cruell in the parish of Aghaboe in Queen's County."

I know nothing of Irish, but I confess this fails to inspire me with confidence. How are we to explain the presence of a Goidelie word like cruadh in the East of England ? Moreover, an Irish scholar tells me that even the derivation of Cruell from this root, though given by Joyce, is very doubtful,