Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/86

 78 NOTES AND QUERIES, [u s. vn. Jan. 25, ni& References Wanted (11 S. vi. 489).— 1. Jugulantur homines ne nihil agatur. This is from Seneca's seventh ' Epistle,' § 5. The more usual reading is jugidentur. Seneca is referring to the custom of filling the midday interval in a gladiatorial exhi- bition by making condemned criminals fight one another. (a) " Dreams of Lipara." Turbulent dreams would appear to be meant. Lipara or Lipare, the modern Lipari, the volcanic island to the north of Sicily, the largest of the ^Eolian group, was the legendary site of one of Vulcan's forges. Cp. Browne's ' Christian Morals,' part i. sect. xxiv. : " Weapons for such combats are not to be forged at Lipara : Vulcan's Art doth nothing to this internal Militia"; and in the Essay on Dreams :— " To add unto the delusion of dreams, the fantastical objects seem greater than they are ; and being beheld in the vaporous state of sleep, enlarge their diameters unto us....A grain of sulphur kindled in the blood may make a (lame like Mtn&." ^Etna and Lipara, it may be remarked, are found coupled in ancient writers. (6) " He that dreamed that he saw his father washed by Juppiter and anointed by the sun." This was the dream of Polycrates's daughter. Set- Herodotus, iii. 124. Edward Bensl-. Propitiatory Sacrifice'( 11 S. vi. 507).— I can cap Mr. W. MacArthur's instance with one in my own experience. About thirty-five years ago, one of my own tenants, a most worthy and respectable person and an elder of the Kirk, paying about 270/. in rent for his farm, had his stock affected with murrain. To stein the plague he caused a calf to be buried alive in one of his fields, the local veterinary surgeon being present at the sacrifice, which was performed in the presence of many other witnesses. Herbert Maxwell. Monreith. Boy Bishops (US. vii. 30).—See 'Dur- ham Account Rolls ' (Surtees Soc), Index, under ' Boy Bishop ' (fifty-five references) and under ' Elvet, Boy Bishop of' (two references). The starred references belong to more than one entry on a page. J. T F. Winterton, Lines. For a general outline of their history and a short bibliography, see the article on ' Boy Bi-hops ' in the ' Catholic Encyclopaedia.' L. L. K. Motts on ifiooks. A Xeir English Dictionary. Edited bv Sir James A. H. Murray.—Ti-Tombac (Vol. X.). By the Editor. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) Ix this division of their work the compilers have had under their hands a mass of unusually inter- esting—also, it would appear, of unusually in- tractable—material. A considerable proportion of it consists of echoic and colloquial words, many of them monosyllabic. These exhibit numerous homophones and homographs difficult to reduce to any common etymological origin. All the more interesting are they philosophically, since it would seem that we here come as close as it is anywhere possible to come, among established and current words, to the first making of con- nexion between thought, sense-perception, and a syllable. " Tip " is perhaps the syllable occurring here which lias been found the best jack-of-all- work. Could any combination of sounds more expressively denote the extremity of a thing— more particularly of anything long and slender ? The earliest instance, however, comes only from the fifteenth century, where in ' Promp. Pan-.' we have " Typpe, or Iappe of the ere, pinnula," and again " Typ, of the nese." The next quota- tion, from Coverdale, 1 Sam., " David.... cut of the typpe of Sauls garment quyetly," suggests- temptingly—by way of a folded-back end or corner—one of the links connecting " tip " with " tippet," a connexion which Sir .Tames Murray in his interesting note on the latter word is inclined to favour rather than the proposed derivation of " tippet " from O.E. " tneppet, tapestry-hanging. Among interesting words the origin of which remains imperfectly elucidated may be men- tioned " Titivil " and " tiring-irons." " Titivil," it will be remembered, is the name of a devil whose function it is to collect fragments of words dropped or mumbled by the officiants at divine service. He is heard of in France and Germany from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, being mentioned by a certain Petrus de Paludc, of Burgundy, Dominican, who was Patriarch of Jerusalem, and died in 1342, as well as in a Ger- man MS. of about the same date, at the British Museum. " Fragmina psalmorum Titiuillus col- ligit horum," quote both, and the good Dominican adds, " Quaque die mille vicibus sarcinat ille." The word passed from mystery-plays into common use, and was retained,in the sense of "scoundrel," or also " tell-tale," till beyond 1600. This reminds us that we did not find " Tell-tale tit, your tongue shall be slit," under " tit." Some ingenious discoverer of etymological connexions might work out links between that hateful nursery character and the monastic Titivil. " Tiring-irons " affords an instance of a weakness which occurs now and again in the great Dic- tionary—an awkwardness in explaining or defining things ; we scarcely think the description of the ancient ring-puzzle here given will prove workable to the imagination of most readers. " Tironian " offers us another point for quarrel. The word refers to Tiro, Cicero's freedman, and is used to describe a system of shorthand invented by that personage—" Tironian notes." What instances are quoted for this ? First, a passage in The Edinburgh Rcrieu- for 1828 ; secondly, one from