Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/13

 Colour, about which we probably care little, instead of the kind, the name of which is hidden, unstressed, in the hyphened words. The Provencal name grafioun originally meant a grafted cherry, as the Fr. prune cCente, meaning a grafted plum, now means a superior kind of the fruit. The Fr. bigarreau, two-coloured, mottled, is of doubtful etymo- logy. I would derive it from bi and some past Fr. form of our " gear," " wear," "" garb," cognate words surviving in Fr. as galbe, garbe, cut or rig of a ship, shape, outline, both words of undoubted Teutonic origin.

EDWARD NICHOLSON. Les Cycas, Cannes.

[Our learned contributor has unwittingly done an injustice to the wonderful comprehensiveness of the great Oxford dictionary. Heart-cherry is duly recorded as " a heart-shaped variety of the culti- vated* cherry," 8.v. 'Heart,' 56, 'Special Combina- tions,' 6. In names of trees and plants.]

MILTON'S SONNET ON ' TETBACHOBDON ' : "LiKE." I do not know whether an ex- planation has been given in any commentary of the curious use of the word " like " in the subjoined extract :

Why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon, Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?

Those rugged names to our tike mouths grow

sleek That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.

If none has been offered, I would suggest the following.

In his edition of the ' Fragments o* Lucilius ' Lucian Miiller gives in ex libris incertis, No. cxli. :

Similem habent lactucam labra comedente asino carduos ......

The key to this may be found in Cicero, ' De Fin.,' v. 92, to the effect that M. Crassus, grandfather of the triumvir, was reported to have laughed but once in his life, and therefore was called ayeAaoros. This is referred to in ' Tusc. Disp.,' iii. 31 ; Pliny,

Sidonius Apollinaris, c. xxiv. 13. But the occasion for this fit of laughter is not found till Jerome (' Ad Chromatium ') interprets the proverb " Similes habent labra lactucas " in the light of the anecdote. Crassus 'laughed at an ass eating thistles instead of lettuces, finding that they matched or suited his mouth. Jerome illustrates the story by another proverb, " Patellae dignum oper- culum," a lid to match the kettle, and Erasmus devotes half a folio page in his
 * N. H.,' 7, 79 ; Macrobius, ' Sat.,' ii. 1, 6 ;

most probably deriving from Erasmus, insists that our mouths are becoming
 * Adagia ' (i. 10, 71) to explain this. Milton,

inured to the rough Scottish names, and therefore like them.

The proverb is plainly alluded to in the Morality ' New Custome,' Act II. sc. ii. (1573)/ Dodsley, vol. i. p. 283: "Like lettuces like lippes; a scabbed horse for a scald squire."

Sir T. Browne (' Pseud. Epid.,' VII. xvi. 2) is amusing as he physiologically disputes the possibility of a man laughing but once in his life. W. F. SMITH.

Malvern.

TORPEDO : AN EARLY REFERENCE. In Jonson's ' Staple of News,' Act III. sc. i., occurs the following passage, which seems singularly appropriate to modern naval tactics :

Thoman. They write here one Cornelius-Son Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel To swim the haven at Dunkirk and sink all The shipping there.

Pennyboy, Jr. But how is't done ?

Cymbal. I'll show you, Sir. It is automa, runs under water With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles Betwixt the costs of a ship and sinks it straight.

MALCOLM LETTS.

[This passage was quoted by a correspondent at 10 S. i. 286 ; but we repeat it as being yet more & propos at the present time than it was in 190*.]

CHRONOGRAMS IN OXFORD AND MAN- CHESTER.

BALLIoLENSlS FECI

HYDATOECVS

o si MELIVs

is an inscription of six Latin words, in Roman letters, on a slab of stone on the south front of the new " School of Chemistry " in Oxford. Its translation is : " A Balliol man, I madeit,Waterhouse. Would it were better (done) ! " The architect, Mr. Paul Water- house, is a Master of Arts of Balliol College. The chronogram yields the date MDCCCCXV., marked by the letters raised above the line. It is very ingenious, and no less modest. Not so perfect is the following :

VT SBRPENTE8 SAPlENTE*

ET COLVMBAE INNOCENTE*

ESTOTE ADOLECENTE

It commemorates some additions to the University of Manchester made by the same architect 'in 1912. The inscription is sur- mounted by the badge of the University, which is a snake and the sun, and means "Young men, be ye wise as serpents, and innocent (as) doves ! "

EDWARD S. DODOSON.

Oxford Union Society.