Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/21

 ii s. vii. JAN. 4, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Diet, of Living Authors,' 1816, so that he appears to have written anonymously at times. * The Midnight Bell,' bearing Francis Lathom's name on its title-page, has its scenes and characters in Germany, but nothing to show it to be a translation. It 's a widely printed romance of the Mrs. Radcliffe school, w r ith plenty of space and margin in its three small volumes, and might easily be contained in one of quite moderate size.

I have come across no other novels in the * Northanger Abbey ' list, and am inclined to think several, at least, of the names given are parodies or imitations, and not actual titles of published works. The authoress of ' Clermont ' is given in the ' Biog. Diet, of Living Authors ' as Regina Maria Roche. W. B. H.

"PROCK" (11 S. vi. 447). The singular belief to which MR. THORNTON refers is well known. Sir Thomas Browne discussed it in one of the most entertaining chapters of his * Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' Book III. 5, and found it " repugnant unto the three determinators of truth, Authority, Sense and Reason." The objection with which he concludes is worth quoting :

" Lastly, The monstrosity is ill contrived, and with some disadvantage ; the shortnesse being affixed unto the legs of one side, which might have been more tolerably placed upon the thwart or Diagoiiiall movers."

Browne, while speaking of this vulgar error as " perhaps not very ancient," refers to Albertus Magnus (thirteenth century) as hereof."
 * confessing he could not confirm the verity

Those W T !IO attended the luncheon held after the unveiling of Sir Thomas Browne's statue at Norwich on the tercentenary of his birth, 19 Oct., 1905, will remember Lord Avebury's speech, in which he described how, on an occasion when the point was put to a practical test, two persons were found to declare that when they looked at the badger the legs on one side did appear longer than those on the other. But on comparing notes, it appeared that one gave the preference to the left, the other to the right. EDWARD BENSLY.

YELVER IN PLACE-NAMES (11 S. vi. 191, 218, 297, 352, 416). May I say, in reference to the Yelverton in South Devon referred to by MR. A. L. MAYHEW at the last reference, that this version of the name dates practic- ally, I believe, from the opening of the railway station so called ? I distinctly recollect that in a map of the district round

Plymouth dating, I think, from about 1849 the place was then called Elfordtown. The Elfords were a well-known family residing in the neighbourhood in Queen Elizabeth's time, and long subsequently.

I have also found since writing the above that the spelling Elfordtown appears not only in two other local maps published in Plymouth and Devonport from forty to fifty years since, viz., Heydons's ' Devonport ' and Sellick's ' Plymouth,' but it is found in the Government Ordnance Map itself.

W. S. B. H.

"DANDER" (11 S. vi. 468). Halliwell enters " dander " in the ' Archaic Dic- tionary,' and says that in various dialects it signifies " anger." He does not venture on the derivation of the term. Bre\ver in ' Phrase and Fable ' definitely states that " the word is a corruption of d anger," and adds that " this is generally considered to be an Americanism." On the other hand, in Scotland smithy cinders are called " dan- ders." Though not of a particularly fiery quality, these have possibilities, as is thus shown in a national lyric :

And when the callans, romping thick, Did crowd the hearth alang.

Oft have I blown the danders quick Their mizlie shins amang.

Discussing this term, both in reference to its association with the blacksmith's shop, and as denoting a piece of the sconce of iron or of the refuse of glass, Jamieson in the ' Scottish Dictionary ' is disposed to connect it with Isl. tendr-a, adding that " Tindr-a signifies to emit sparks." Per- haps, then, the kindling process is suggested when it? is said that " the dander is up." THOMAS BAYNE.

I suspect " dander "is a form of ** tander ' ' = tinder: to "get a man's dander up "is to set his temper afire. " Tander," as the ' E.D.D.' testifies, is used in Pembrokeshire as the name of ''a rotten phosphorescent stick," and something very like the word is seen on those boxes of Swedish lucifers which one meets with on the Continent.

I do not know whether this has occurred to anybody else. Mr. John S. Farmer says nothing of it in his ' Dictionary of Ameri- canisms,' and his investigations may be considered :

" Possibly an English provincialism. It may be remarked in this connection that Brewer in ' Phrase and Fable ' quotes dander as a corruption of ' damned anger,' the ' damned ' being employed as an oath. He further remai'ks that Halliwell gives in his ' Archaic Dictionary ' both dander