Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/500

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XOTKS AND QUKKIKS.

J JUNK 17. 1910.

treatises on the pastime, and in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Dryden. The male peregrine, or tercel-gentle, is smaller by a third than the female. But, as the Right Hon. D. H. Madden has shown in '* The Diary of Master William Silence,' Homer's falcons are males, though his translator George Chapman restores them to their proper sex ; in Latin falco and -occipiter are both masculine ; and Dr. John- son, Scott, Tennyson, and William Morris all tend to make the falcon a member of their own sex. A. R. BAYLEY.

Perhaps there is less reason for a "falcon " -erest in the case of Shakespeare than in that of Hawkwood the free-lance, called Acuto by the Florentines.

I upset this old fancy by discovery (thanks 'to Lisini. the Siena archivist) of several letters sealed in green wax by Hawkwood's real rcrest, viz., an arpia with woman's head, and wings extended ; above it the word " For- tuna " is inscribed. See the review in The Athenceum of Temple Leader's ' Life of Hawkwood.' WILLIAM MERCEB.

MACK SUBNAME (12 S. i. 165, 278, 413). The Rev. John Mack, a Baptist minister at Margate, and later at Clipstone, Northamp- tonshire, was born at Glasgow, Aug. 16, 1788, .and died at Clipstone Nov. 5, 1831. He was a friend of Robert Hall and other well- .known Nonconformist ministers of that day. His son, Mr. William Mack, was founder of the large publishing firm at Bristol. Of othpsr sons, James died in America, and John in India. JOHN T. PAGE.

THE "FLY": THE "HACKNEY" (12 S. i. 150, 254, 398). Permit me to correct my remark, ante, p. 254, as to the date of the origin of " fly." G. E. P. A. is quite right in saying that for its first use we must go back to an earlier date than 1809; for in my 'Annals of the Road,' 1876, p. 12, I quote 1754 as the year when a company of mer- -chants in Manchester started a new vehicle called " The Flying Coach," as it was advertised to arrive in London in four and a half days after leaving Manchester. In 1757 the Liverpool merchants followed with their " Flying Machine on Steel Springs " ; while from Sheffield and Leeds came, in 1784, their respective " Fly Coaches," doing their eight miles an hour. Your corre- spondent will like to know that Lord Eldon's story of " Sat Cito " appears at p. 21 of my
 * Annals.'

As for " hackney," Mr. Moore, in his
 * ' Omnibuses and Cabs ' (quoted by MB.

WAINEWBIGHT, p. 254), considering this term to be of French origin, agrees with my remarks at p. 5 of my * Annals,' though I now am of opinion that Prof. Skeat, in his ' Etymological Dictionary,' where he plumps for Hackney in Middlesex, formerly Hacke- ney, and spelt Hakeneia in 1199, must be right. The " coche-a-haquenee " of France cannot beat 1199. The "coche-a-hacquenee " may be of French origin, but " hackney," as a term for a horse, may well be English.

HAROLD MALET, Col. Racketts, Hythe, Southampton.

Littre derived the old French words haquet and haque, a horse, from the German hacke, to which the Dutch hacken, noted by MB. J. LANDFEAB LUCAS (ante, p. 254), is doubtless related ; but Littre apparently accepted as correct Diez's derivation of Fr. haquenee, Span, hacanea, and Ital. acchinea, from the Ger. Tiac&e+Eng. nag, a conjecture that now seems preposterous. The English hack is simply an abbreviation of the word hackney, and has nothing to do with the German hacke.

The late PBOF. SKEAT showed (see 10 S. viii. 465 ; ix. 11, 52, 91) that the old English hakenei, a horse, resulted from an Anglo- Latin adjectival form hakeneius, meaning belonging to Hackney, and traced the word back to 1292, a date some two hundred years earlier than its Continental equivalents. As Hackney had long been famous for its horses, cattle, fairs, and races, he had no doubt whatever that this metropolitan district gava rise to the name of the horse. Skeat was also of opinion that Fr. haquenee, being a feminine noun, must have owed its gender to derivation from Latin Hakeneia, the dis- trict of Hackney ; but what appears more likely is that the English word was taken over bodily by the French, and was turned into a feminine in that language phonetically.

N. W. HILL.

While the history of the " fly " is under review it may perhaps be of interest to note that a small variety of it, which obtained for a time a great popularity at Torquay, became extinct a few years ago. It was a light vehicle suitable for hilly roads, and went by the name of " midge." The fares for these conveyances, if I remember rightly, were slightly less than for the larger " fly."

At Newquay (Cornwall) another kind ^>f trap is much in fashion, termed a " jingle " ; but this is a two-wheeled vehicle.

R. B.

Upton.