Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/171

 1 28. I. FEB. 26, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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printing the same abroad, and with an offer of re-delivery in London, so as to come much cheaper than if there first printed. Mr. Richard Phillips, bookseller (who must, I suppose, be the man who afterwards became Sir Richard Phillips), produced to the Committee a copy of Addison's ' Cato,' printed at Berlin and published at the price of eight groschen, while the price in England would have been at least a shilling. He added that this was only one of a dramatic series. It would be interesting to know whether any of these reprints are in the British Museum Library. Mi. Thomas Hood, bookseller (father of the poet), in- formed the Committee that a Mr. Nancrede of Boston was purposing to print new English works in France, for the American trade, and that he thought that by estab- lishing himself at Havre and setting up several presses there for more ready com- munication with America, he might engage in the competition for the first sale with advantage. Further particulars of this practice are given on p. 166 of the Report of the above Committee, which will be found in vol. xiv. of ' Reports from Select Com- mittees of the House of Commons, 1793- 1802.' I was not previously aware that the reprinting of English standard works abroad was in vogue considerably more than a century ago. R. B. P.

THE SAWING-HORSE. In the inventory of the effects of Peter Bright, stationer, of Cambridge, whose will was proved in Febru- ary, 1545, is the item : " In the backyard. Imprimis a horse to sawe wood ijcf." (' Ab- stracts from the Wills of Cambridge Printers,' by G. J. Gray and W. M. Palmer, M.D., p. 9, printed for the Bibliographical Society, 1915). The earliest quotation in the ' Oxford Dictionary ' for this use, s.v. " Horse," II. 7, b, is dated 1718, while foi " saw r -horse " the earliest is 1778. Under " Sawing-horse " only one quotation is given, dated 1846. The Cambridge example takes the history of the word in this con- nexion back nearly two centuries.

G. L. APPERSON.

FAMILY OF J. M. W. TURNER. The great painter was named after his mother's eldest brother, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, " itterly of New Brentford, Middlesex, who larried, firstly, Ann Haines, June 7, 1776, id, secondly, Oct. 11, 1798, Mary Haines New Brentford aforesaid, both marriages ?ing solemnized by licence at the parish lurch of Hanwell, Middlesex.

DANIEL HIPWELL.

" CJESAR GLORIOSUS ES." Ce mot histo- rique a ete recueilli par le Temps du 29 Jan- vier ; il est de Ferdinand de Bulgarie, dans une harangue latino de son cru, adressee au Kaiser, au cours d'un banquet a Nich. L'expression, qui voudrait etre louangeuse, est a signaler aux dictionriaires, ou elle aurait sa place aussitot apres les citations suivarites qui s'y trouvent : " epistolae jac- tantes et gloriosce," Plin. Ep. 39 ; " pavo, gloriosum animal," Plin. 10, 20, 22 ;" deform e est, de se ipsum praedicare, falsa prEesertim, et, cum irrisione audientium, imitari Militem gloriosum," Cic., ' Off.' i. 38, 137.

P. TURPIN.

MACK SURNAME. I recently vaccinated an infant whose surname was Mack. In- quiring the meaning of this patronymic, I was informed that the name was originally a Scotch one with four or five syllables. The child's great grandfather, however, declaring that such a name was too long to go through life with, had shortened it to its first syllable, a practice which had been followed by his descendants. The original name was forgotten. M.D.

" HARPASTUM " : FOOTBALL. According to Wm. Smith's ' Diet, of Greek and Roman Antiquities ' (1848) :

"Harpastum (apTraardv from apirdfa) was a ball used in a game of which we have no accurate account ; but it appears both from the etymology

of the word and the statement of Galen that a

ball was thrown among the players, each of whom

endeavoured to obtain possession of it Hence

Martial speaks of harpasta [manu] pulverulenta,

[rapis\. The game required a great deal of bodily exertion."

In Calepini ' Dictionarium Decem Lin- guarum ' (1594) no English equivalent is given, but the following explanation :

" ita dictum ab apirdfa verbo Greeco, quod

est rapio, eo quod plures proiectum harpastum conenturarripere, et extra ludi limites eiicere."

Martial is quoted, of course, and the further explanation given that, the players being divided into two teams, everybody tried to get hold of the ball, and pass it on to a member of his own team in order to get it out of bounds, in trying to do which the players threw each other on the ground, and became covered with dust and perspiration.

Hence it is not difficult to see that the Latin commentator meant " football " ; his Italian contributor boldly translates the word as " palla del calzo " (shoe-ball).

If any further proof be required as to what was the meaning assigned to harpastum in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we can quote from Danielis Southeri, Flandro-