Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/464

458  (12 S. i. 389).—In The Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1856, a memoir of Pearsall appeared. Here his mother is referred to as "Elizabeth Lucas of Bristol, one of the family to whom the Back Hall, in that city, still belongs."

Pearsall wrote a long account of his family in the Vicar's Register at Bitton (in 1837, when he sold Willsbridge House). Here he states that he

The son died in early manhood. The elder daughter married in 1839, at Paris, the Hon. Wyndham Stanhope, afterwards Earl of Harrington (the present Earl, "the Father of Polo," is Pearsall's grandson). The younger daughter, still living, married Mr. John D. Hughes.

(12 S. i. 148, 217, 313).—In the 'Diary of Ralph Thoresby,' under date Aug. 3, 1712, we read:—

Later on, under date May 28, 1714, Thoresby writes:—

Sir Samuel Morland was a younger son of Thomas Morland, Rector of Sulhamstead Bannister, Berks.

Thoresby mentions also visits to Mr. Newcome, the Vicar of Hackney, whose father he had known at Manchester.

(12 S. i. 409).—This, which is usually written "corrie," is the English phonetic rendering of the Gaelic coire, a cauldron or kettle. In topography it is used metaphorically, and is the regular term for a circular or cup-shaped hollow among mountains, as distinguished from a glen or ravine. In Galloway most of our hill-names remain in the original Gaelic, which lingered as the vernacular of the uplands till the middle of the sixteenth century. But there is a singular exception in the name of a fine wild corrie on the east side of Cairnsmore of Fleet (2,331 feet), which is known as the Howe (Hollow) o' the Cauldron.

No deerstalker would confound a corrie with a glen or a strath or any other natural feature among the hills. In Constable's edition of 'The Lady of the Lake,' 1820, the foot-note explains the term thus: "Or corri, the hollow side of a hill, where game usually lies."

"Correi"=Gaelic coire, originally signified "boiler" or "cauldron." A pot-shaped hollow in a hill acquired this appellation in Scottish Gaelic. No such transference of meaning appears to exist in Irish. The word has nothing to do with "covert," except in so far as a hollow in itself affords cover to game. The title of a certain Gaelic story is 'Coire na Síthe' = 'Fairy Hollow.' 'The Lady of the Lake' contains a more correct spelling of this word, viz., "Coir nan Uriskin," "The Goblin Cave."

The definition of "correi," more generally spelled "corrie," as a "covert on a hillside," is undoubtedly erroneous. See the 'N.E.D,' sub voce, where the word is derived from the Gaelic coire, meaning cauldron, kettle—hence a circular hollow. The definition in the Dictionary is: "The name given in the Scottish Highlands to a more or less circular hollow on a mountain side."

(12 S. i. 389).—Sir Richard Moon, for many years the famous chairman of the London and North-Western Railway, resided at Bevere, a village on the Severn, two miles above Worcester. Hence, no doubt, the name of the locomotive which excited 's curiosity.

 (12 S. i. 389).—The expression is common in America, especially in the West, where I knew it to be current over thirty-five years ago. I believe the origin to be as follows:—

Indians are proverbially treacherous and given to lying; hence one would say in dealing with them, and in reply to a statement of theirs, "Honest Indian?" Hence, too, it became a colloquialism amongst