Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/590

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. v. JUNE 22, 1912.

the battle by the Dutch engineers. Sir Walter Scott ('Waterloo,' 135) describes it as 90 ft. high, and standing to the right of the Auberge of La Belle Alliance. Baptiste de Coster, who furnished Napoleon with information, said the Emperor had never used it, which in all probability is true ; but the editor of Jones's ' Waterloo ' was assured " from undoubted authority " that Napoleon mounted it for an hour. One writer quoted in Jones made it 36 ft. high. Sir Charles Bell, quoted by Dr. Fitchett, would seem rather to agree with Scott as to its great height. It was reported as blown down on 29 March, 1816. In Siborne's ' Waterloo Letters,' p. 175, the 10th Hussars are stated to have bivouacked near it on the night of 18 June. References to it will be found in Jones's ' Waterloo,' pp. 144, 163, 232-4 (London, Booth, 2 vols.), but I cannot verify these, as they are from the eleventh edition, 1 832, which I have not got. We may be pretty certain that Napoleon never used it, and certainly did not have it moved, as Bell believed. We should have known of that from French accounts.

Frances, Lady Shelley, who visited the field on 18 Sept., 1815, and who probably reports what she was told by the Duke of Richmond, who seems to have accompanied her, says that Napoleon certainly was not on the Observatory after the battle began, nor could he, from that spot, have directed the movements of his troops. The Obser- vatory, she says, was built for topographical purposes by a former Governor of the Netherlands something like a century before. See her ' Diary ' (Murray, 1912), p. 173. R. W. PHIPPS, Col. late R.A.

[This subject has been fully dealt with at 4 S. ix. 469, 538 ; x. 37, 97 ; 5 S. "ii. 316 ; iii. 58, and at the second reference by one who himself saw the scaffold standing ; but, as the date of these con- tributions is now remote, we are glad to print our correspondent's note on the subject.]

" SHIRE " : ITS DERIVATION. Let me say, at the outset, that this article was not suggested by the query about "shire," ante, p. 368, to which it is in no way a reply.

In an excellent little book on the county of Suffolk I was rather surprised to meet with the survival of the old fable that shire means " a share," and is derived from the verb " to shear."

It is a good thing that most writers on such subjects are now careful to avoid etymologies ; nevertheless, when they give them, they should consult some authority. Surely most of the modern dictionaries no longer repeat this.

It is a survival from Todd's ' Johnson,' which has : " SHIRE, scir, from sciran, to divide ; Saxon." It is copied from Skinner, except that the latter has scyran (with y). Skinner obtained it, after a sort, from Somner. But Somner's account of Scir (as he gives it) is quite correct ; and he does not derive it from " sciran." He only gives, as a separate article, " Sciran, i.e. Sceran " ; meaning that sciran is an occasional spelling of sceran, to shear.

But the i in scir is long ; and it is no more possible to connect it with sceran than it is to connect bide with bed. Long i shows a gradation like that of drifan, to drive ;

id sceran shows one like that of beran, to

bear belong to strong are completely inde-

bear. Drive and conjugations that pendent.

No doubt the idea arose from supposing that shire, somehow or other, means a share. But it has no more to do with share than fire has to do with fare, or hire with hare. Let me reproduce Somner's article, though it is as old as 1659 :-

" Scir. Pagus, comitatus, dioecesis, provincia. A shire, a county, a diocesse, a province. Item, Prsefectura, dispensatio, cura, munus, negotium, occupatio, procuratio, villicatio. A Lieutenant- ship, a sheriffwicke, a charge, an office, a businesse, an occupation, an administration, a stewardship : agyf thine scire, i. redde rationein villicationis tuae ; Luc. 16. 2."

There is not a word about shearing or sharing in this sane account.

Perhaps the nearest sense is " administra- tion," or " charge." The secondary sense had reference to the province over which an officer's administration extended ; and that is how it came to mean the diocese of a bishop, or the shire of a sheriff.

But if shire is not to be connected with share, with what ought we rather to connect it ? Somner gives the Latin sense as cura ; and it is most interesting to find that the later etymologists have come to see that the words shire and cura are practically identical. Walde's ' Ety. Lat. Diet.' (1906), s.v. ' Cura,' has :

" Oder zu A. S. scir, Dienst, Geschiift. Besorg- img, O.H.G. sclra, Besorgung, Geschiift (Holt- hausen, ' Indogermanische Forschungen,' xiv. 341)." '

In fact, cura represents an Old Lat. coira, probably shortened from *scoira ; and L. oi = A.-S. d, which is the second grade of I as appearing in A.-S. scir ; all in accordance with known phonetic laws. But, in any case, shire originally meant " cura."

WALTER W. SKEAT.