Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/237

 ii s. VIL MAR. 22, MS.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Is not the reference to Sir James Young Simpson ? The first number of ' Pendennis ' was published in November, 1848, while Simpson's famous discovery of the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic was made just a year sooner, the public trial of the drug, as such, taking place in the Edinburgh Infirmary in November, 1847. See the

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D.N.B.'

T. F. D.

[G. F. R. B. and MR. A. R. BAYLEY also thanked for replies.]

PETRONIUS, CAP. LXXXI. (11 S. vii. 107, 195). The company among which we find ourselves in Petronius is such that a great deal of Encolpios's abuse may seem at first sight to fit either object of his anger equally well. But the following points tell in favour of the view that the first part refers to Ascyltos and the second to Giton :

(1) The latter is never described as " adu- lescens," but again and again as " puer " ;

(2) the words " omni libidine impurus " are in keeping with " cuius ne spiritus quidem purus est," applied to Ascyltos in cap. 9 ;

(3) " Reliquit veteris amicitiae nomen " recalls " vetustissimam consuetudinem " in cap. 80. Burman, who draws attention in one of his notes on cap. 81 to the passage from cap. 9 referred to above, holds the view that Encolpios denounces Ascyltos first.

PAGAN CUSTOMS AND INSTITUTIONS (US. vi. 250, 351, 370). The custom of leaping through blazing straw, about which MB. A. W. CREE asked, is frequently mentioned in Latin literature. See Tibullus, II. v. 89 sq. ; Propertius, IV. (V.) iv. 77 sq. ; Ovid, ' Fasti,' iv. 781 sq. ; and Varro, cited by the scholiast on Persius, i. 72. It took place on 21 April, when the feast of the " Parilia " or " Palilia " was celebrated. There is an interesting account in Mr. Warde Fowler's ' The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic.' EDWARD BENSLY.

FIRE - RITUAL (11 S. vi. 489; vii. 33). According to the Irish records, Tuathal the Acceptable, King of Ireland in the first century, instituted the Feast of Bealltaine at Uisneach, now the Hill of Usnagh, in West- meath, where ever after the pagan Irish celebrated their festivities, and lighted their Druidic fires on the first day of May ; from these fires, according to Cormac's ' Glossary,' the festival derived its name :

" Belltaine, i e., bil-tene, i.e., tne-bil, i.e., the goodly fire, i.e., two goodly fires which the Druids were used to make, with great incantations on them, and they used to bring the cattle between them against the diseases of each year."

While Usnagh was regarded as the chief centre of these rites, there were similar observances on the same day in other parts of Ireland. Keating says, " upon which occasion they were used to kindle two fires in every territory in the kingdom, in honour of the pagan god." Up to the middle of the last century these fires were lighted and the May - Day games celebrated both in Scotland and Ireland. With SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, I do not think the practice, once universal in certain districts, of keeping fire constantly aglow on the hearth had any link with old fire-worship. The saving of the trouble of lighting again seems more probable.

Dr. P. W. Joyce, in his ' The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places,' says teine is the Irish word for fire, and gives several instances of place-names so derived, One is Cloghaunnatinny in Clare, still called in Irish Clochan-bile-teine, meaning the stepping-stones of the fire tree, from a large tree which grew near the crossing, under which May fires used to be lighted. He says these fires were no doubt lighted under trees, for ' The Annals of the Four Masters * mentions a place called Bile-teineadh (Billa- tinne), meaning the old tree of the fire.

WILLIAM MACARTHUR. Dublin.

' MARGIANA ' : NAME OF AUTHOR WANTED (11 S. vii. 150). ' Margiana ; or, Widdring- ton Tower,' was published in 1808 by the Minerva Head Press, anonymous. There is a copy of this novel in the reference depart- ment of the Free Library, Newcastle-upon- Tyne. 'It is in five pretty little volumes, and I made the following notes when examin- ing it a few weeks ago.

I have not been able to discover the author. I think, however, that it was probably a lady. It is a Gothic tale of Mrs. Radcliffe's type, for the Waverley Novels as yet, of course, were not. The period is the deposition of Richard II. and the first years of the reign of- Henry IV. The author follows the practice, so frequent in historical novels, of giving first a solid block of history, then a bit of the story. In this she is more conscientious than Mrs. Radcliffe, who skipped the history altogether, but then she undertook an easier subject, as her history is wholly derived from Shakespeare. For instance, she makes Richard's Queen Isa- bella a middle-aged lady who gives good advice on their love-affairs to her ladies-in- waiting, instead of being, as she actually was, a girl of fourteen.