Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/32

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. iv. JULY s, 1911.

those of other countries. Referring to the early struggling days at Jena of the eminent Bohemian antiquary Shafarik, Prof. Leger observes :

" II tait admis que les 6tudiants pauvres pouvaient mendier en route chez les pasteurs, les professeurs, les hauts fonctionnaires, et leur r^clamer une hospitalittf qui 6tait bien rarement refused."

I am not aware of any similar understanding among members of universities in Great Britain. FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

SPIDER STORIES. The following stories relating to spiders are interesting ; we should have them, however, on better authority before we accept them without reserve :

" The sexton of the church of St. Eustace at Paris, amazed to find frequently a particular lamp extinct early, and yet the oil consumed only, sat up several nights to perceive the cause. At length he discovered that a spider of surpassing size came down the cord to drink the oil. A still more extraordinary instance of the same kind occurred during the year 1751 in the Cathedral of Milan. A vast spider was observed there, which fed on the oil of the lamps. M. Morland of the Academy of Sciences has described this spider, and furnished a drawing of it. It weighed four pounds, and was sent to the Emperor of Austria, and is now in the Imperial Museum at Vienna." Sporting Magazine, 1821, vol. viii. N.S., p. 289.

N. M. & A.

" BUT " = " WITHOUT " IN THE BIBLE. The " but " of Amos hi. 7 has been explained as being equal to "without" or "unless." It seems strange that if this, which I do not question, is correct, the nineteenth-century Revisers of the A.V. left the passage in its archaic obscurity. To my thinking, 1 Cor. vii. 4 has a twofold need of like emendation. As a sometime member of the Revision Committee wrote : " It. . . .occurred to me that with all their Greek my colleagues knew very little English .... It is hardly worth while to abandon one imperfect version for the sake of another." ST. SWITHIN.

" ULTONIA." An Italian friend asked me to inform him what part of Great Britain was understood in mediaeval times by the Latin form Ultonia. A search through the usual channels of information had no result until I turned to the B.M. ' Catalogue of Printed Books,' where, in an indirect fashion, I stumbled, under the heading ' Ulstermen ' and * Ulster Annals ' on * The Intoxication of the Ultonians ' and the ' Annales Ultonienses.'

A note of the solution of my difficulties may be of service to other inquirers.

WILLIAM MERCER.

ASTROLOGY AND ' THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.' In an article on ' Astrology ' in the new (eleventh) edition of * The Encyclopaedia Britannica ' we read (vol. ii. p. 799) : " Gustavus Adolphus, it is well known, was born in Finland. ..."

Under Gustavus Adolphus (vol. xii. p. 735) we read that he " was born at Stockholm castle on the 9th of December, 1594."

The point is of some interest in its bearing upon the accuracy of an astrological pre- diction by Tycho Brahe, but there are other flaws in the supposed correspondence of this with facts, as I have shown in another place. See The Observatory, vol. xxxiii, p. 247.

W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

" PALE BEER." " Pale ale " has long been a familiar term, but the variant " pale beer " is by no means so well known. I find it, however, in an announcement, in Read's Weekly Journal, or British Gazetteer, of 14 December, 1751, that there had

died at his House in Bunhill Fields, Mr. John Pelah, a Pale Beer Brewer, who by his Industry, had acquired a handsome Fortune, with a Fair Character."

A. F. R.

" GABETIN." I have on several occasions lieard this word (pronounced " gab-eet-in ") used by country persons of (near) Tonbridge, Kent, to denote a Workman's " overall " coat. Doubtless it is a corruption of " gabardine." As the word does not form part of the common vocabulary of the working classes, it seems strange to find it in almost ordinary use with illiterate country people. R. VAUGHAN GOWER.

Ferndale Lodge, Tmibridge Wells.

" THH ROSE OF NORMANDY," MARYLE- BONE GARDENS. A diary now before me provides a useful record in the following entry :

" Sunday, 8 March, 1846 One of the oldest

houses in St. 31ary-le-bone, viz., the ' Rose of Normandy ' public house, 32, High Street, between BoAvlhig Street and Devonshire Street, is now being pulled down to be rebuilt. It was a fine old house which stood back from the street, and [on entering you] went down some stone steps two stones high the back whereof was formerly Marylebone Gardens. Adieu to relics."

This slightly corrects the date of demoli- tion ("1848-50") given by Mr. Warwick Wroth (' London Pleasure Gardens ').

The writer was C. Bryceson, then a junior clerk at Messrs. Lea's coal wharf, Pimlico. ALECK ABRAHAMS.