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

 ii s. XL MAY 1. 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

351

A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Spring-Squoyle, by W. A. Craigie ; St-Stan- dard, by Henry Bradley. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 5s.)

THE first thing that strikes one in this latest instalment of the great Dictionary is how largely the seventeenth century bulks as the inventor of new words, or new uses of words, comprised within these groups. If the sixteenth century revived and remade English by unfolding from within and annexing from without astonishing treasures of beauty, stateliness, melody, and colour, it was the seventeenth century which first imposed upon this admirable wealth the characteristic charm of idiom, and gave to chosen elements in it the pointedness and flexibility requisite for accurate service. Interaction be- tween spoken and printed English had then become a process of real significance, the minuter details of which are well worth the student's attention. Within these covers are the materials for a very instructive exercise of this kind.

A little more than two columns of the important article " spring " had appeared in a previous section ; we here find it extending to some nine- teen columns more including the many senses both of substantive and verb. It is a fine piece of compilation, not the least noteworthy part of which is the collection of instances for the senses (now obsolete or dialect) "a young tree" and a " copse of young trees." "Spring-garden" furnishes a small but good handful of quotations in which it appears with three meanings. The second of these is " a garden having concealed jets of water liable to be set in action by persons treading on the mechanism," for which the illustration is that from Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Four Plays ' ; one or two further instances of this would have been welcome. Under " springle " a variant from " sprinkle " we have a line from Mr. G. K. Chesterton, " permitted to springle these pages," and we wondtT whether that is not simply a mis- print. " Spruce " forms one of the most interest- ing of the " sp " articles here. The first quotation under the sense "the country of Prussia'" dates from 1378, appearing in the Durham Account Rolls ; the quotations under " attrib. in the sense of ' brought or obtained from Prussia,' " concern chiefly boards and canvas, but also (1670) " spruce ducks " and (1597 and some others) " spruce jerkyn." This " neatest and sprue est leather" for jerkins has been supposed to be the origin of the use of " spruce " for " trim, dapper " ; and no better derivation is suggested here. The first use of " spur " has been found as far back as c. 725. The most attractive historical detail in the article concerns the " spur-money " which could be demanded as a fine by the choristers of certain chapels from any one who entered the chapel with his spurs on. One quotation for this comes from our own columns, 1 S. i. 494 : " Every quorister sholde bringe with him to Churche a Testament. .. .rather than spend their tyme in talk and hunting after spur-money." An ex- pression for which more adequate illustration and authority might have been sought is " Spy Wednesday," an Irish name for the Wednesday in Holy Week, with reference, it is supposed, to Judas. " Squad " and " squadron " include

several unfamiliar uses, among them the obsolete Americanism of " squadron " as the name of the ward of a town ; and the use of the word for the anattached party of Cardinals at a Conclave. Of his latter two instances only are given: one from Q-. If., 'Hist. Cardinals' (1670), the other from- The Edinburgh Review of 1906. With " squ " isr ncreased the number of imitative words, frequent through the first part of this section. " Squabble,"" 'squall," "squeeze," "squander," "squeal," ' squirt," " squat," suggest themselves at once r and there are many others. Of the words of more dignified origin belonging here, the most important s " square " -the subject of an excellent article n which we had marked several particularly 'ood details. Another instructive piece of \*orfc ot to be passed over without mention is " squire."' 'Squarson," by the way, is left as it was attri- buted, that is, by some to Wilberforce, and by others to Sydney Smith.

Of the articles under " st," the most formidable is "stand," which runs to nearly thirteen pa ges- It is admirably arranged and illustrated, covering, as it does an immense mass of idea, history, and

Ehrase, from the translation for Mark vi. 35 a the Lindisfarne Gospel, " MiSSy .... stando monijo wses " where stando pause, delay to the modern theatrical use of the substantive foir a halt on a tour to give performances. Not so lengthy, indeed, but not inferior as collections of most interesting matter, are the accounts of " stable " in its different senses (the first quotation for the proverbial " stable-door shut, when the steed is stolen" is from Glower), and " staff," and, perhaps even better, " stage." The. part of the Dictionary for which Dr. Bradley is. responsible is conspicuous, we have often noticed, above the rest (high though the general level is) 1 for the exactness and fulness of the definitions, and the clearness with which complicated, matters are arranged in sequence.

The total number of words included here is- 2,277, illustrated by 16,128 quotations.

The Place-Names of Sussex. By R. G. Roberts^ (Cambridge University Press, 10s. net.)

WHEN the present book was placed in the hands of the writer he happened to be particularly interested in the origin of one special place-name^ in Sussex, and naturally turned first to that with some eagerness for enlightenment only to draw a blank. The name, if we mistake not, is of extreme antiquity one that draws the attention of the many visitors to Eastbourne as the penulti- mate station announcing their arrival ; yet, to our surprise, no mention was made of Po legate. This was discouraging. Still, though the blank may- be unaccountable, the reader would not be justi- fied in leaping to the hasty conclusion that the- book is a slovenly one, full of similar omissions. It is, on the contrary, a very full and scientific account of the names of this county from a strictly lin- guistic point of view. Pevensey, e.g., the pefenesea of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (anno 1087), is no longer explained as " puffin's island, "a derivation set aside (rather arbitrarily it will appear to some > in favour of a supposition that it may originally have been the isle of one Pefene, that personal name being quite conjectural.

We have noticed that, for some reason, almost all the recent books on place-names which have come into our hands refuse to recognize any