Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/194

 188

NOTES AND QUERIES, c 12 S.III.MAKCH 10.1917.

ENGLISH COLLOQUIAL SIMILES. (See ante, pp. 28, 50, 170.)

61. A face as long as a fiddle (Hardy, Caine, Jacobs). Any eighteenth-century instances ? " Fiddle-faced " is recorded from 1785.

62. As glum as a monkey (Galsworthy). What is there glum, or gloomy, about a monkey ?

63. As stiff as Tommy Harrison (7 S. viii. 368). Said to be a popular phrase. Query correct ?

64. As stiff as a poker. Instance earlier than 1800?

65. As solid as ess (Shropshire). " Ess " is said to be dead ashes. But there is also the simile " as big as ess," of a " big-sorted " or stuck-up person, which must refer to the letter S. Cannot " ess " be the same word in both similes ? A development from " as big as es* " to "as solid ( =serious) as ess " is not unparalleled.

66. As quiet as murder (Lean). Is this at all used?

67. As cool as custard (Lean). See 66.

68. As meek as Moses (Eliot, Hardy, Phillpotts). How old ?

69. As mild as mother's milk. Instance earlier than 1836.

70. As mild as goose-milk (Twain). Goose- milk is unknown to the dictionaries.

71. As mild as a cat in a capcase ; As sober as a cat in a capcase (1607). " Cap-case " is re- corded in ' N.E.D.,' 1577-1641. Any information concerning a proverbial use of " cat in a cap- case " and " to bring a castle into a cap-case " will be welcome.

72. As tender as a chick(en). Current in present English ?

73. As civil as butter (Anthony Hope). Current in present English ?

74. As polite as a fish-hook (mentioned by an American writer). Does it refer to a person whose politeness is only a show to hide his cruelty or hardness of heart ?

75. As merry as Momus (Northall). Origin ?

76. As merry as Pope Joan. Literary instances after 1600.

77. As merry as cup and can (Nashe). Is this the correct and full form of the simile ?

78. As merry as mice in malt (1639). Later instances known ?

79. As merry as a grig. Known before 1720 ? Merry as the grig ?

80 live as merrie, the old proverb saith, as

white bee in hive (Bullein, ' Bulwark of Def.,' 1562). Is this " old proverb " known ?

T. HlLDING SVARTENGREN. Vasteras, Sweden.

ISAAC DISRAELI: PARISIAN SANHEDRIM. The following is a transcription of an autograph letter in my collection : MY GOOD SIB,

You are now so deeply occupied probably by public concerns, that I dislike to trouble you about any of your more private ones. But I have something to say about the article of the Sanhedrim in your Magazine which had it not been for your neglect would have been a more important and authentic document than it can now be.

I called twice myself to request you would send me the Translation of the Transactions of the

Parisian Sanhedrim published by Taylor in Hatton Garden. Not receiving it as I expected, I pro- ceeded abridging my " Acts of the Sanhedrim," conceiving that this Translation contained them, and therefore hurrying over my article and render- ing it meagre, by supposing the labour had been already completed. At length, having received other pamphlets on this subject from another friend than the gentleman who had lent me the " Acts of the Sanhedrim," I found it absolutely necessary to procure, at my own expense, the English Translation, and I have now discovered that it does not reach down to the time the Sanhedrim was formed, and that the " Acts " I am preparing for your Magazine, are perfectly original, and yet untouched by any English hand. You cannot conceive how much I am mortified at not knowing the value of this curious historical document ; had you furnished me at my earnest request with this English Translation I should have worked up my materials to great effect and enriched them with great and useful information. It is now too late to do it-^the best parts are squeezed together, and nothing remains but to> finish it in the same manner. You will have the close for next month in due time. ~I am mortified, and I hope you are too, that the " Acts of the Sanhedrim " did not contain aft those good things they would have, had I been aware the English Translator had not possessed them, which had you attended to my repeated applications for that book, I should have known*

Believe me, My Dear Sir, Your's truely

I. D'ISBAELI.

20 August 1807 at Mrs. Pepper's Upper Road Islington.

Could any reader of ' N. & Q.' suggest to- whom this letter was addressed, and the- magazine in which D'Israeli's article ap- peared ? The English translation referred to is entitled

" Transactions of the Parisian Sanhedrim, or Acts of the Assembly of Israelitish Deputies of France and Italy, convoked at Paris by an Imperial and Royal decree dated May 30, 1806. Translated from the original published by M Diogene Tama, with a preface and illustrative notes by F. D. Kirwan, Esq. London : Printed by William Burton, Fetter Lane. Published by Charles Taylor, Hatton Street. 1807." 8vo. xvi+334 pp.+ l 1.

ISRAEL SOLOMOKS.

THE LAST EARL OF MOUNTRATH. In the Preface to ' The Children's Isle,' by Eliza Meteyard (1878), it is stated that "the person and character of Lord Donore are derived from facts. The last Lord Mont rath [sic] is said to have been as hideously deformed," and is described as having no legs, only one arm, scarcely any throat, and a mouth like that of an animaJ, which could give no fashion to anything like human speech. Is there any foundation for this ? Lord Mountrath is said to have been