Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/108

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. VIL FEB. i, 1913.

the Low Countries, 1405-13,' by Mr. L. V. D. Owen ; ' Walsingham and Burghley in Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council,' by Mr. Conyers Read ; and 'The Elections to the Exclusion Parliament, 1679-81,' by Mr. E. Lipson.

Among the ' Notes and Documents ' we observed our correspondent Mr. Beaven's trenchant correc- tion of misstatements with regard to Canning and the Addington Administration ; and the third in- stalment of the Editor's * Burgundian Notes.'

The reviews of books are numerous, valuable and also of great general interest.

' THE LOST LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLISM.'

YOUR review of my recent work on Symbolism necessitates my asking you for the courtesy of space for a reply.

Although my critic ignores the whole of the care- fully accumulated facts on Symbolism pure and simple, and concentrates his energies on the tenta- tive etymology occupying a relatively small propor- tion of the later chapters, he is, I concede, well within his rights ; but when he professedly quotes as being in my own words the alleged " proofs " for my belief that the syllable ac at one time meant great, surely he should have done me the justice to have actually given my proofs, and riot torn a few only slightly relevant passages from their context. " Let us see," says your reviewer, " by what proofs Mr. Bayley establishes its existence"; whereupon, instead of citing any samples from vol. i. (pp. 13, 14, and 15), where my reasons I do not call them proofs occupy nearly three pages, he quotes some seemingly senseless passages from other parts of the book. Nothing is easier than to brand by this method any writer on word-origins as weak-witted. What, for example, would be the superficial im- pression of a reader if told without qualification or context that the words pen and feather were alike derived from a root pat, which in Sanscrit means to fly ; that the English friend was the San- scrit pri, to love; that our river-name Avon is traceable to ap, the Sanscrit for water ; and that although " at first sight the English word,/zr does not IOOK very like the Latin quercus, yet it is the same word " ?

The defect of Authorized Philology is that it offers no explanation for radicals. It does not attempt to explain why ap was the Sanscrit for water, why pri was the Sanscrit for love, or why pat was the Sanscrit for fly. It refers the word oak to the Anglo-Saxon ac, but it offers no suggestions as to the original meaning of ac, Dr. Murray merely describing it as "a consonantal stem, ulterior meaning obscure." My work is a pioneer, and doubtless in many respects a bungling, attempt to pick up the threads where at present philology loses them, and to explore the darkness which is now the only recognized goal of Authorized Etymology. Such an attempt must, 1 concede, run the gaunt- let of preliminary ridicule, but I have confidence that many of my theories will ultimately be accepted as sound. Whether or not I am wrong, it is undeniable that many of the etymologies of Skeat and Murray are far from right. The standard explanation for the word ha-ha, for instance, is that it is from the French ha-ha, " an interjection of laughter, hence a surprise in the form of an 'unexpected obstacle that laughs at one." This may

be so, but it is a far wilder idea than anything to be found in my book. I should have suggested that the word ha-ha or haiv-haiv was simply a re- duplication or superlative of the French haie, a fence or hedge, old English haw.

HAROLD BAYLEY.

THE SISTER OF JOHN STUART MILL.

WE are indebted for the following to MR. WILLIAM MERCER :

" Ante, p. 26, under the heading ' English Graves at Avignon,' 'N. & Q.' published two inscriptions on a tombstone at Avignon commemorating John Stuart Mill and his wife.

" Curiously, until Jan. 22nd no English newspaper seems to have heard of the death of his sister, Mrs. Colman, near Clifton (Bristol), on the 15th inst., except The Pall Mall Gazette.

" The sister of J. S. Mill was buried on Jan. 18th, in the Friends' (Quaker) Cemetery, as her intimate friendship with the surviving relatives of John and Jacob Bright rendered natural and appropriate.

" The long interval say 40 years since the death of her brother (1873), seems to have deadened recol- lection of the aged sister, who died in her 91st year.

"The mention of the family in 'N. & Q.' is, therefore, very timely. She has left a son, now in South Africa, and other children, none of whom carry on the Mill patronymic hence the silence concerning her, and possibly her well-known strong dislike of publicity."

MR. ALFRED ANSCOMBE writes from 30, Albany Road, Stroud Green, N. : " The Antiquaries' Committee of the County Society of the Men of Sussex are about to make collections of the forms of names of Sussex towns and villages from Saxon charters and Norman and Plantagenet rolls and other documents, with the intention of elucidating the place-names of the county as they appear to-day ; and they invite the co-operation of Suthsexians and others who are engaged in the study of Old- and Middle-English phonology and place-names."

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F. R. FAIRBANK. Many thanks for interesting brochure/ which has been forwarded to querist.

THOMAS FLINT. Letter receiving attention.