Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/43

 ii s. in. JAN. M, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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light of the moon. I looked at the boy's book (the terrier, I suppose, read over the other's shoulder), and found that it was ' The Sorrows of Werter.' I asked him who had lent him such a book and whether it amused him ? He said that it had been made a present to him, and so he had read it almost through, for he had got to Werter's dying ; though to be sure he did not understand it all, nor like very much what he understood ; for he thought the man a great fool for killing himself for love. I told him I thought every man a great fool who killed him- self for love or for anything else ; but had he no other books but ' The Sorrows of Werter. ' O, dear yes, he said, he had a great many more."

H. G. WARD. Aachen.

FOBES'S MUSICAL ENVELOPE (11 S. ii. 508). There is a series of Fores' s Comic Envelopes in the Guildhall Library. There are nine varieties : Courting, Musical, Dancing, Racing, Shooting, Civic, Military, Christmas, and Coaching. W. B. GEBISH.

BOHEMIAN MUSICAL FOLK-LOBE (11 S. ii. 485). Tripping over a stone indicates in Hungary the site of buried treasure or lost property. L. L. K.

ALFIEBI IN ENGLAND (US. ii. 421, 532). May I add to my reply that the dates given in the ' Vita ' clearly show that the November when Alfieri left the Hague for England was in 1770. He left Turin in May, 1769. In the summer he was in Vienna ; at Berlin until November ; at Copenhagen in the winter. At the end of March he went to Stock- holm, in May to Petersburg, and thence to Berlin. He was at Spa in August and September, and from there went to the Hague.

" Finer," in 1. 4 of the second paragraph of my reply, should be finir.

J. F. ROTTON. Godalming.

LADY CONYNGHAM (11 S. ii. 508). This lady is never named in the decorous pages of standard English histories. Even her husband the Marquis secures but the briefest notice, although his midnight ride to acquaint the late Queen Victoria with her accession to the throne surely deserved for him a better fate. Details of his wife's career will need to be looked for in the newspapers of the period or in the gossipy memoirs of social life published within the last few years. If I may be pardoned for naming works probably familiar, I would venture to mention the first three volumes of the ' Greville Journal ' ; Mrs. W. P. Byrne's
 * Gossip of the Century,' Ward & Downey,

1892 ; Mary Frampton's ' Journal,' Sampson Low, 1885 ; and Jekyll's ' Correspondence,' edited by Bourke, Murray, 1894.

W. S. S.

BISHOP MICHAEL H. T. LUSCOMBE (US. ii. 349, 456). Since the reply at the latter reference I have seen a portrait of Bishop Luscombe. It is in the possession of the Rev. E. Killin Roberts, Rector of St. Andrew, Hertford, of which parish Lus- combe was formerly curate. I feel sure that MB. CANN HUGHES will obtain further information if he will communicate with Mr. Roberts. HENBY T. POLLABD.

Hertford.

"YOBKEB" (11 S. ii. 505). With all respect, I venture to differ from PBOF. SKEAT'S derivation of this word. I doubt if the prolific crop of new words referring to sport follows any scientific or known rules of philology. If they do, the derivation of " yorker " from yarker, "jerk," would certainly be at fault. In the first place, a jerk is expressly forbidden by the rules of cricket : "A ball must be bowled. If thrown or jerked, the umpire shall call ' no ball.' ' No cricketer could therefore have applied the term " yarker " to a fairly bowled ball.

A " yorker " is a ball which pitches close to the bat and passes underneath it, the batsman mistaking it for either a half- volley or a full pitch, and consequently failing to come down upon it. Till the sixties of the last century it was called a "tice," because it enticed a batsman to hit when he should not do so. In the sixties the word " yorker " was introduced, and the ball in question is now known by no other name. The permission and development of over- arm bowling may have had some influence on the cultivation of this most useful ball ; in any case, there seems no reason to doubt that its frequent use by a Yorkshire eleven gave it its present, name.

The word undoubtedly came into vogue as a noun : the verb " to york " was introduced a good deal later. JOHN MUBBAY.

50, Albemarle Street. W.

Is there not some mistake in PBOF. SKEAT'S note ? I am no authority on cricket, but I know what a jerk is, and I am sure that neither jerking nor throwing the ball has ever been allowed. Londoner, Hollander, and in German Schweitzer are well known, and not derived from verbs. " Burgher," "crowder," "butcher," "hosier," "pot- walloper," "falconer," "potter," "barrister,"