Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/287

 n s. XL APRIL 10, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

277

None of the other names has any special interest : the first, " Augustus Nordens- kjold," is, however, still of good import. But who was " H. S. Barthelemon " ? The composer of the music to Bishop Ken's ' Morning Hymn ' was a London Sweden- borgian from 1784 to the end of his earthly life, but he was F. H. Barthelemon, while the initials of his wife and daughter were re- spectively " M." and " C. M.," and his second wife, " Sarah," did not join the New Church until 4 May, 1802.

CHARLES HIGHAM.

A BUSSIAN EASTER. Henry Greville in ' Les Koumiassine ' (chap, xxvii. ) gives a very interesting account of some of the observances of Easter which were main- tained at St. Petersburg in, say, 1879. As the Roman Church has its three Masses on Christmas Eve, the Russian Church has three to celebrate the festival of Easter: one at midnight on the eve, another at da'wn, and another in the morning. When this last is ended, the priest announces three times that Christ is risen, and all the people respond, " He is risen indeed ! " each bestowing triple kisses on the person who happens to be his neighbour. At home, decorated eggs are exchanged between mem- bers of the household ; and an old-fashioned mistress kisses each of her servants, stable- boys included, three times, and is similarly saluted in return. Modern mistresses are apt to shirk the duty.

After this comes the feast, which a long fast makes uncommonly welcome ; but when all hunger is satisfied, the table is replenished, ham for ham, joint of veal for joint, and the same profuse supply is kept always ready and open to all comers till Quasimodo, or Low Sunday.

ST. SWITHIN.

PRONUNCIATION OF LEOMINSTER. Sir Wil- liam Fermor was created, 1692, Baron Lempster of Lempster or Leominster, co. Hereford, and the choice of the first form for the title would dispose one to conclude that the name was sounded like Dempster. But the one person bearing the name whom I have met was the late Rev. Lemp- ster Dryden of Ambrosden, and his relations and intimate friends invariably called him Lumpster. He was born in 1794, and in that generation many names, as well as words, were pronounced in an affected way by fashionable folk. But was the place Leominster ever pronounced Lumpster ?

The sound of eo in place-names varies much, and many who find no difficulty in Yeovil or Peopleton trip over Beoley, Cleobury, Meole Brace, Meonstoke, Meopham, Deop- ham, St. Neots, Peover, or Weobley. Cf. also George, Leonard, and Leopold. McLeod is Highland, and perhaps not a fair example. Leopold was shortened to Luppy at Oxford, but I do not think u with that sound could be substituted for eo in any of the above-named places at the present time. A. T. M.

' ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.' Messrs. Rimell & Son of 53, Shaftesbury Avenue, W., have a great literary curiosity in an edition of this classic published serially in 1772. A MS. note on the fly-leaf reads as follows :

" This work was published in London every evening at one farthing per number and called the Farthing Post, the Newsman blowing a horn at the corner of the street. My dear Mother took them all in, and carefully collected the whole entire. I consider this work to be matchless, and therefore of great value in my Family. CHAS. H. HILL."

On the back of the title-page of vol. i. there is printed the following note :

" To the Public. This Work will be published in Numbers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at the easy Price of One Farthing each Number, and so continued till the whole is finished ; which when compleated will make a handsome Volume in Quarto, and come to a very small Expence, being ^the cheapest of the Kind that ever was known."

Altogether the work makes eight 4to volumes, but the British Museum has only the first five volumes of this extraordinarily interesting edition, the existence of which is probably known to very few readers of 4 N. & Q.' JOHN LANE.

The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.

SCHOOL FOLK-LORE. In the ' Auto- biography of Samuel S. McClure ' (New York, 1914), who in the sixties attended school in a village in co. Antrim, Ireland, one reads :

" Physical punishment was a very live fact in school then. Occasionally a boy was ferruled over the hand, and we believed that if you could manage to put two hairs from your head across your palm before you held out your hand to the ruler, the pain of chastisement would be greatly mitigated." P. 15.

A similar superstition prevailed at my native town of Portsmouth, New Hamp- shire, when I was a schoolboy there (about 1850). We boys religiously believed that,, if only a hair from the head lay across the- tiand when held out, the ruler would surely break in two.