Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/490

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NOTES AND QUERIES. fii s. vn. JUNE 21, 1913.

they gave their characters names, they made them speak, they even, by becoming Mr. Nestor Iron- sides or Mr. Spectator, walked right into the page themselves and spoke with their characters. They supplied descriptive backgrounds, and indeed almost everything that a novel requires, except the plot. Consequently we say truly that they grea^lsr improved the technique of characteriza- tion in prose fiction.

" Did not John Dunton, very imperfectly and probably with motives very much mixed, do many of these things ? He took abstract characters, named them, made them speak, spoke with them, went on picnics with them, and, in the case of Madam Brick, almost fell in love with one of them. His mistake was not in introducing so much fiction, but rather in not casting entirely loose from fact. Our mistake has been in keeping him on our shelves beside Sewall and Josselyn, instead of beside Ned Ward and Daniel Defoe."

ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

DERIVED SENSES OF THE CARDINAL POINTS.

(See ante, pp. 270, 333.)

SYDNEY SMITH said of the Scots :

" You find they usually arrange their dishes at dinner by the points of the compass : ' Sandy, put the gigot of mutton to the south, and move the singet sheep's head a wee bit to the nor'- wast.' "

This seems to be a humorous exaggeration of the northern custom of saying " west " in the sense of " back." Under " west " in ' The English Dialect Dictionary ' several quotations give " east " and " west " as meaning, in Scotland and Ireland, opposite directions, equivalent sometimes to " right " and " left." but often used in the strict sense of the words, which cannot, however, be strict when "east includes north, and west south." Dean Ramsay's ' Reminiscences ' give instances of this use of " west," and note that in the North Country folk always say "I'm ganging east or west"; but he was probably wrong in taking these words in their literal sense. One can scarcely believe that in a country compara- tively little favoured by the sun, the sense of orientation could be so acute. It seems more probable that the names of the com- pass-points have taken a secondary mean- ing. That such is the case in Ireland is shown in ' English as We speak it in Ire- land,' by P. W. Joyce :

" The cardinal points are designated on the supposition that the face is turned to the east : a custom which has descended in Ireland from the earliest times of history and tradition, and which has also prevailed among other ancient nations. Hence in Irish, east is ' front ' ; west is ' behind ' or ' back ' ; north is * left hand ' ;

and south is ' right hand.' The people sometimes import these terms into English. ' Where is the tooth ? ' says the dentist. ' Just here, sir, in the west of my jaw,' replies the patient meaning: at the back of the jaw."

So when Dean Ramsay's Scot, finding he had scarcely room at the end of a seat, said, " Neebour, wad ye sit a bit wast?" he meant " Would you sit a bit further back ? " And the man who, on his sick- bed, complained that the medicine " Wadna gang wast in spite o' me," meant that it would not take the expected course, with- out any reference to the compass bearings of his bed.

The 'E.D.D.' notes "my north eye" for left eye, even in Suffolk.

Dr. Joyce's explanation is supported by the Proven9al names of the cardinal points :

Adrech, adre, literally " to the right " ; the original sense is dropped ; it now means "straight ahead," "clever" (Fr. adroit), but mainly the " south."

Avers, aves, literally on the reverse or wrong side, acquired the sense of " north.'* the wrong side for sunshine.

These Words correspond in form to the Fr. d Vendroit, on the right or proper side, d Venvers, on the wrong or reverse side ; as in the ancient rime where good King Dagobert mettait sa culotte d Venvers, but at the remonstrance of his minister St. Eloi consented to la mettre d Vendroit. Their opposition is shown in the Provenyal pre- cept :

Quand saubi'as pas que faire Pren de terro dins toun bounet E porto-la de I'avers a I'adre.

(When you don't know what to do, take some- earth in your cap and carry it from north to- south. )

For the south is the right side, the right when facing sunrise, the right for good growth. Thus bos de raves (note the drop- ping of the r, almost as mute in Provengal as in English) is wood grown on the north or Wrong side of a hill, inferior even as fuel to that grown on the south side. There is another name for "north," uba, L. opaca, shady. Lauso Fuba, ten-te d I'adre, praise the north, but stay in the south ; bos d'uba, wood from the north side, inferior to bos de souleu, wood grown in the sun.

The other cardinal points are levant and pounent, rising and setting. The con- nexion of pounent. Fr. ponant. with L. pone, behind, confirms the equivalence of " west " to "back" in the Scot's "sit a bit wast," and the Irishman's " in the west of my jaw." EDWABD NICHOLSON.

Cros de Cagnes, near Nice.