Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/73

 ii s. VIL JAN. 25, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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When the pursuers reached tha same point, they naturally divided into two parties. Jasper and Crisparkle, with some others, followed the road ; about fourteen took the cart-track. When the latter party overtook Neville they again, quite naturally, divided : eight remained with Neville ; the other six hurried back to overtake the road-party, tell them that Neville was found, and hasten them on to be first at the point where the cart-track rejoined the road.

There only remains the behaviour of the eight who accompanied Neville, which certainly appears incomprehensible at first sight, as mere stupidity and tactlessness can hardly explain it. We must remember, however, that these men must have been for several hours in the company of Jasper, who, with his deep-laid plans to fasten his own guilt upon Neville, would not only do more to poison their minds against the latter than Crisparkle could undo, but would probably give them definite instructions to act as they did, with the deliberate object of irritating Neville to the utmost and arousing his passions.

A. MORLEY DAVIES.

Winchmore Hill, Amersham.

BACCARA. The ' Oxford .Dictionary ' gives the derivation of the name of this game as coming directly and exactly from the French. Littre has no etymology of it. May it not have been taken from Bacharach in Prussia, a well - known wine district ? We have several instances of card-games being named after places, such as Boston, Macao, &c.

J. S. McTEAB. ii, Arthur Chambers, Belfast.

" THE WEN " : A CURIOSITY OF INDEX- ING. Readers of Cobbett's ' Rural Rides ' may remember that he very frequently speaks of London derisively as " The Wen." In the edition of this famous book recently published in " Everyman's Library " I was amused to find in the Index fifty-one refer- ences to "Wen, river." There is no River Wm, and every one of the references given is to Cobbett's special use of the word as applied to London, the index-maker having been misled by Cobbett's use of a capital initial letter, and by failing to read the text with care.

I may, perhaps, be allowed to add the note (vol. ii. p. 301) referring to the word, as I have failed to find mention of this use of at elsewhere :

' ' The Wen.' A name applied by the author to London, as a great excrescence on the country. So M. do Sismondi speaks of the city of Rome as a

'parasite population.' And Mercier in his ' Tableau de Paris,' published at Amsterdam, just before the old French Revolution, calls Paris a wen : ' Paris is too big ; it nourishes at the expense of the whole nation ; but there would be more danger now in removing the wen (loupe) than in letting it be' ( 2nd edit., 1783, vol. i. chap. 3)."

WM. H. PEET.

THE GOLD LION" IN LOMBARD STREET. (See 11 S. v. 387.) In connexion with the note by MR. RHODES the following may be of interest. James Hall of St. Clement, East Cheap, citizen and draper of London, mentions in his will (dated 16 Nov., 1665 : P.C.C. 43 Lloyd) his three tenements in Lumbard Street and in St. Nicholas Lane in the parish of St. Nicholas Aeon, commonly called or known by the several names or signs of "The Flying Horse," The Hen and Chickens," and "The Golden Lion." He mentions his messuage in St. Nicholas Lane in the parish of St. Martin Orgars called "The Red Lion," and also "The Ship" in St. Clement's Lane.

WILLIAM GILBERT*

35, Broad Street Avenue, B.C.

" MORRYE-HOUSE." This word occurs many times in the Registers of Baptisms in Offenham Church, near Evesham :

xvii Apr : 1554 Robert son of Richard Collins under Tennant in a Morrie house.

ix Nov 1 ' 1556 John son Rich' 1 Collynes dwelling in a Morye houss of William Bust.

xx i Sep : 1559 John son of Rich : Maunder in a mory house.

xii Oct. 1559 Helen daughter of W m Hardeman in a mory house of Thomas Aldington.

viii Feb. 1560 Margaret daughter of Rich' 1 Coleynes in a Morrye house of Richard Spragges.

xi Feb. 6 th Eliz. (1563) Elizabeth d. Rich' 1 Maunder in a morrye house.

The meaning of this word appears to be quite lost in the neighbourhood of Offenham. There is no mention of such a word in the ' English Dialect Dictionary,' neither does it appear in * N.E.D.' The Vicar suggests that a " morrye -house " may have meant the portable hut on wheels which is still used by shepherds in lambing-time. This seems a probable solution. If so, it may have meant originally a dwelling, a habitation, and been connected with the Latin morari, which frequently occurs in the Vulgate in the sense of "to dwell " ; so Exod. ii. 15, " M oratus est in terra Madian" (he dwelt in the land of Midian). Morrye (morye) would then be the equivalent of a French moree, identical with Spanish and Portu- guese morada (demeure, habitation).