Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/261

 ii s. viii. SEPT. 27, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

255

DISBAELI QUERIES (US. viii. 170, 216).

3. " I am bound to furnish my antagonist with arguments, but not with comprehension." The same thought had already been ex pressed by Samuel Johnson :

" Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman ; his opponent, who hac talked in a very puzzling manner, happened tc say, ' I don't understand you, sir ' ; upon which Johnson observed, ' Sir, I have "found you an argument ; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.' " Boswell, vol. viii. "(1835) p. 317.

In 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' chap. vii. 7 the Squire says to Moses : "I find you warn me to furnish you -with argument anc intellect too." EDWARD BEMSLY.

COL. POLLARD - URQUHART is wrong in assigning the " plundering and blundering " quotation from Disraeli to his speech on Gladstone's Irish University Bill. It occurs in his famous " Bath Letter," addressed to Lord Grey de Wilton, the sitting M.P. for Bath, during a contested election for that city in Octob3r, 1873, some months after the defeat of the University Bill. The actual words were, " The country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering."

ALFRED B. BEAVEN. Leamington.

On 3 Oct., 1873, Mr. Disraeli wrote to Lord Grey de Wilton regarding the Bath election contested by Capt. Hayter, Liberal, and Mr. Wm. Forsyth, Q.C., Conservative. The most notable sentences have been quoted many times:

" For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every pro- fession, and assailed or menaced every class, in- stitution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and some- times ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering."

The election was on 8 Oct., Hayter polling 2,210 and Forsyth 2,071.

THOS. WHITE.

DOWNDERRY (US. vii. 168; viii. 32, 117

158, 198). -The Irish language, akin to the

Cornish, may supply a link in the mean-

mg of the name of the watering-place at

Bt, Germans. Doire or daire (pronounced

deny ) means in the Irish language an

oak wood," anglicized derry or derri.

Did oak ever flourish in the district ? Dair

(pronounced "dar"), the common Irish word for oak, is found in many of the Indo- European languages. The Sanskrit dru is a tree in general, which is probably the primary meaning, whence it came to signify " oak," which is the meaning of the Greek drus, the Welsh dar, and Armoric dero.

It would be well to take doivn also into our study. In Irish dun, anglicized down, signifies a " citadel " or " fortified resi- dence." It is found in the Teutonic as well as in the Celtic languages : W T elsh din, Anglo-Saxon tun, Old High German zun. In present - day English it is represented by town. Was there ever a citadel near this picturesque Cornish place ? I trust W. S. B. H. will still continue his investiga- tion, and give us data.

WILLIAM MACARTHUR.

PAWLETT: SMITH (11 S. viii. 68, 133). These names are correctly Powlett and Smyth. The Rev. Richard Smyth was for at least nineteen years 1774-93 curate in harge of Crux-Easton, Hants, of which parish his uncle, Rev. Dr. Burton, who died in February, 1774, and his nephew, Rev. John Burton Watkin, were successive incumbents. Both Mr. Smyth and his uncle Dr. Burton had some connexion with Itchen- Abbas, to which parish the latter made a charitable bequest. Mr. Smyth held the living of Myddle in Shropshire from 1767 to 1797. His irst wife was Annabella, dau. and eventual leir of William Powlett, M.P. (elder son of Lord William Powlett), by Lady Annabella Bennet, by whom he had issue :

1. William Powlett Smyth, matriculated STew Coll., Oxon, 1774; afterwards assumed surname of Powlett ; resided at Somborne,

lants; was High Sheriff 1783; married by pecial licence at Netherton-cum-Faccombe, 10 Aug., 1779, to Miss Mary Dalton of lurstbourne ; was living at the time of lis sister's death in 1820, and died shortly if ter wards.

2. Camilla Powlett, married by licence at ^rux-Easton, 14 May, 1771, to her cousin he Hon. and Rev. Barton Wallop, who died

Sept., 1781 ; she died 29 Sept., 1820.

3. Annabella Powlett, married 1777 to ler cousin Charles Townshend, created Lord >ayning, who died 16 Mav, 1810 ; she died { Jan., 1825.

Mr. R. Smyth married secondly, at Leather- lead, Surrey, on Wednesday, 12 July, 1786, /Irs. Susannah Baskett of Donnington, Serks, and was buried at Newtown, near ^ewbury, 9 June, 1797.

G. R. BRIGSTOCKE.