Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/392

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [IIS.IIL MAY 20,1911.

as "a sailor, wife's name unknown," and apparently childless. It is now the Kev. William who is left childless. Surely this is an error. W. D. PINK.

JUNIUS: NEW EDITION. Such a work would be of great assistance to students of the eighteenth century. It should be based upon the " Author's Edition," pub- lished in 1772, and should include the private communications to Woodfall, the Wilkes and Home correspondence, and the " Veteran letters," but the rest of the epistles inter- polated by Dr. Mason Good ought to be ex- cluded unless some evidence of their authen- ticity can be adduced. By way of introduc- tion there might be an impartial summary of the arguments for and against the various claimants to the authorship of the letters. The book would afford a splendid oppor- tunity in elaborate documentation to a scholarly editor. There is no satisfactory modern edition of this great classic.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

CHOTTA ROUSTHWEL. In a rare little French book issued in 1833 or 1834, the ' Choix de Morceaux Fac- Simile ' of Eugene Cassin, there is an account of a very curious work in the Georgian language. ' The Man in the Tiger Skin ' is a poem describing the misfortunes of a prince who, exiled from India, finds a refuge in the Arabian deserts. He clothes himself in the skin of a tiger which he has slain.

The poem contains proverbs, moral reflec- tions, apologues, &c. M. Brosset translates some into French in the work above named. Here, are examples turned into English :

"It is a great pleasure to narrate past mis- fortunes that have been endured."

" The remembrance of past griefs is agreeable, but that of pleasures now denied is a true sorrow."

" One said to the Rose : ' I am astonished that you, having received the gift of beauty, should arm yourself with thorns against those who wish to gather you.' ' You take,' replied the Rose, ' the sweet for the bitter : that which costs dear is always thought to be the. best, and beauty at a low price would not be regarded as worth the trouble of the search.' If the Rose, a being not endowed with reason, could speak thus, it must be true that we must sow in sorrow in order to reap in joy."

There are many references to the author Chotta Bousthwel, in the * Bibliographie analytique des ouvrages de Marie-Felicite Brosset' (St. P<tersbourg, 1887), but this little lithograph in facsimile of the hand- writing of that great scholar is omitted.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

DUTCH WORDS IN ENGLISH. In Steven's ' Historjr of the Scottish Church, Rotterdam ' (1832), occurs the following passage on p. 334 :

" The Church remained for one hundred and twenty years as a double charge ; but in 1798, when Mr. Greaves died, a handopening was refused, on account of the then very unsettled state of public affairs ; and the ministerial duties, being n part curtailed, devolved, with his own consent, upon the surviving clergyman."

The word handopening, which perhaps s only to be found here, is simply the Dutch word signifying " permission to nominate a clergyman."

The Dutch word Hoogmogendheid is ren- dered " High Mightiness " in an address presented to King George I. on his way through Holland to England in 1714 (ib., p. 267) :

' That there may be always a good under- standing and hearty friendship between your most Sacred Majesty, and their High Mightinesses the States-General."

The s of the English word " hollands " (Hollandsche jenever] seems to be an attempt at reproducing phonetically the Dutch adjectival ending -sch(e), wfcich is pro- nounced ~s(e). H. G. WARD.

Aachen.

" CAPPING " AT SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES. The Globe of 4 April published the follow- ing:

" When a student of a Scottish University re- ceives his degree the ceremony is always referred to as ' capping.' The term is so familiar that no one thinks of inquiring into its origin. The venerable principal of St. Andrews, Sir James Donaldson, who, although a layman, holds among other distinctions a doctor's degree in divinity, explained the custom at the last graduation ceremony. Here are his words : First of all the imposition of a cap on your heads is borrowed from the practice of the old Romans. Whenever they emancipated a slave they placed a particular kind of cap on his head, and from that moment he became a free man. In our ceremony it intimates that you have passed from the stage of being in a subordinate position and under guidance to the condition of being your own masters. You are no longer to be directed in everything ; you are to choose your own mode of life. This ceremony has often awakened the deepest feelings among the very greatest of those who have just received such a final recognition as you have this day received from the universi- ties in which they studied. Luther regarded it as the happiest moment of his life."

A very different scholastic use of the word cap was furnished, under ' ' ' Cap ' in the Hunting-Field,' " at 9 S. xi. 297.

A. F. R.

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