Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/111

 12 s. vi. APRIL 3, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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On May 16, 1597, Edward Bennett replied to Griffin telling him all about this agreement, And urging him to range himself on the Jesuit side (Cardinal Gasquet, ' The English College at Rome,' pp. 108, 110).

Griffin died Provost of Cambrai (C.R.S., ii. 134). When did his death take place ?

Further particulars about Hugh Grift'yth, as he is then called, are to be found in Dodd's ' Church History,' ii. 68.

JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.

" BLOODY." During February a number of letters on the origin of this national adjective were published in The Observer. A good many wild conjectures were made, the theorists being evidently unaware of the -existence of the ' N.E.D.' The late Sir James Murray inclined to connect the word with " blood," in its Stuart sense of man of rank and fashion. This view is, I think, erroneous, though it receives some support from the very common occurrence c. 1700 of " bloody drunk " (cf. " drunk as a lord "), which the ' N.E.D.' quotes from Etheredge's in early use the word is always adverbial, .as in its revival by Mr. Shaw on the English stage, so that " bloody " is really for "bloodily," for which it is a euphonic sub- stitution (cf. "pretty fair," "jolly good," and other adjectives in -y used adverbially). 'The fuller form occurs, and at a much earlier date. In Marston's comedy ' The Faun ' (1606) a character is described as "cruelly eloquent and bluddily learned " (Act I., ec. ii.). The first man who used " bloody " or " bloodily " in this way meant no more than the schoolgirl who speaks of a friend as " awfully pretty," or describes the uncom- fortable operation of rules as a " beastly shame." He merely converted a word of dire or repellent signification into a meaning- less intensive. That the said word was for a long time regarded as inoffensive is clear from the fact that Swift writes to Stella (May 29, 1714) :" It was bloody hot walking to-day " ; while the blameless Richardson allows one character in ' Pamela ' to describe another as " bloody passionate."
 * Man of Mode ' (1676). It is noticeable that

Although there is no exact parallel in modern French and German, it may be noted that in the latter language Das ist mein blutiger Ernst is both intelligible and cultured for the -equally intelligible but less cultured " I feloody well mean what I say." French sanglant is used as an intensive with such 'words as tour, trick, injure, insult, reproche, (reproach, &c., while, at a much earlier date,

Joan of Arc is said to have applied the epithet to her page, when he failed to call her in time for a skirmish. Finally, both Dutch bloed and German blut are prefixed to words in a purely intensive fashion. The contemporary German blutarm would, I suppose, be rendered " bloody poor " by Mr. Shaw's imitators, while the archaic blutdieb, explained by Ludwig (1715) as an " arch-thief," corresponds to the " bloody thief " of the outspoken classes.

ERNEST WEEKLEY.

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. I have in my possession a copy of ' The Psalter, or Psalms of David,' Clarendon Press, 1828, being a Prayer Book with the occasional Forms of Prayer omitted. In this copy the names of William IV. and Queen Adelaide are printed in all the appropriate prayers, with one exception, viz., the Prayer for the Church Militant, in which the name of George is printed.

It has occured to me that the printers were unwilling to strike off a full edition in 1828, on account of the well-known precarious state of George IV.'s health (vide his ' Life,' by FitzGerald, vol. ii., p. 424), and that after printing a portion of the edition they altered the type to suit the event of William's suc- cession to the throne ; the remainder of the edition was printed and held in stock, by accident this one prayer being overlooked.

It would be interesting to know whether copies of this faulty edition are common, or if any of your readers can correct my con- jecture. H. BlDDULPH, Col.

FREIGHT-CHARGES DURING THE WAR. I am sending the bill for the carriage of a book a heavy book, be it admitted from London to Switzerland in 1917. It seems to me to be a curiosity worthy, as a war " record," of a corner in ' N. & Q.'

Requiring a big book of reference I wrote to the publishers begging them to send it to me here in Switzerland. It was, I knew, a little above book-post weight but, as the parcel-post was disorganized and parcels took, if ever they reached at all, months between London and this, I requested the firm to cut the book in two and send it in two portions by book-post, adding that it could be easily rebound here. The reply came, that it seemed a pity to injure the binding, so the book had been sent entire by a trustworthy carrier firm.

Months passed and the book was given up for lost, when, one morning the parcel at last made its appearance. A cheque for