Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/435

 128. ii. NOV. 25, 1916.} NOTES AND QUERIES.

429

AUTHOR WANTED. I shall be much obliged if any of your correspondents can indicate the source of the words : " Who hath seen the flower of a fig ? " W. I. F.

STEVENSON = PEIRSON. Can any reader supply me with particulars of the marriage of William Stevenson and Sophia Peirson, circa 1790-1806 ? Louis R. LETTS.

57 Dollis Park, Church End, Finchley, N.

MANORA, MANAREH. What is the origin of this female name ? In the first form it is the name of an actress in a film production of ' The New Clown ' I saw recently ; in the other, that of a relative.

ISRAEL SOLOMONS.

NAMES OF THE MOON. In Glasgow the November moon is spoken of as the Hunter's Moon. We all know the Paschal Moon and the Harvest Mooi t. I should be glad to known of any other such names especially of any that can be shown to be ancient and are of somewhat restricted local use.

RENIRA.

" FFOLIOTT " AND " FFRENCH." 1 should

be glad of some information as to the origin of such proper names as " ffoliott " and " ffrench." I recently heard a discussion during which various theories were put for- ward relative to the peculiar usage of the small initial letter. The fact that this occurs only in the case of names beginning with ff was also noticed. S. H. HARPER.

[The substitution of "ff" for an ordinary capital in certain names has been already discussed in our columns (see 5 S. xi. 247, 391 ; xii. 57, 157, 392, 438 ; 11 S. x. 276). It was originally no more than the full form of the capital letter, of which the usual F is an attenuation.]

THE GHAZEL. In James Elroy Flecker's ' Collected Poems ' there is a " Ghazel," a Persian form of verse. Do your readers know of any other ghazels in English literature, barring the one by Mangan, called ' The World ' ? ERIC N. BATTERHAM.

16 Fonthill Road. Finsbury Park, N.

COL. JOHN SUTHER WILLIAMSON, R.A. I should be glad to ascertain full particulars of his parentage, concerning which the ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' Ixii. 2, gives no information. Was he ever married ? If so, when and to whom ? G. F. R. B.

THOMAS WINSTANLEY, CAMDEN PRO- FESSOR OF HISTORY AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY. I should be glad to ascertain when and whom he married. The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' Ixii. 209, states that he had four sons, but does not mention his marriage.

G. F. R. B.

BOAT-RACE WON BY OXFORD WITH SEVEN OARS. I want to know the date of, and the names of the crews in, this race (including that of the Oxford man who could not row). Sir Robert Menzies and his brother Fletcher were two of the Oxford crew, and the race was at Henley. Bishop Browne in his recent reminiscences suggests that the story is a legend founded on the incident of an Oxford crew of seven oars beating a London crew which rowed in a boat called " The Cam- bridge," But this is inconsistent with the account given formerly by survivors of the race. B.

BATH FORUM. Is anything ascertainable as to the origin or antiquity of the appella-t tion " Bath Forum," which is at the present day the official name of the hundred in which the City of Bath is locally situate ?

In publications relating to the city in question it is accepted as a matter of course that there was no kind of continuity between Roman Bath and Anglo-Saxon Bath, and further, that a long period intervened during which the site lay unoccupied. All this however possible seems to rest on no better positive evidence than the discovery, in (I think) the last century, of the egg of a waterfowl in the immediate vicinity of the Roman bath. This egg is assumed per- haps with justice to be considerably more than a thousand years old ; and on it is based the conclusion that, when it was laid, the place was an uninhabited swamp. But (a) waterfowl often lay, if the spot be suitable, quite close to towns ; (6) water- fowl often lay in captivity ; and (c) water- fowl's eggs often serve for human food, and are consequently transported to localities remote from the place where they were laid. Therefore I dispute the conclusion.

I am aware that the term " Forum " is not peculiar to Bath. Wherever it occurs in modern England, it would be interesting to know its origin. Recent investigation as to the City of London has without demon- strating anything cast such suspicion ou the previously current theory that there was no continuity between the London of the Romans and the London of the Anglo- Saxons, that one is tempted to go further afield. " Forum " is so distinctively Roman as a part of place-names (e.g., Forum Jidii = Frcjits) that, prima facie, the onus is on those who, in any particular case, would attribute to it a non-Roman origin. The possible alternative origin Latin, but not Roman of " Forum " in the term " Bath Forum " is the language of mediaeval clerics