Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/141

 i2s. vii. AUG. 7, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 113 appuyant sur mes remerciements, avec merveilles pour le chapitre, pour les deputes et pour le Pimentel .... Cette fin leur fit passer mon mauvais latin, et les contenta extremement, a ce que j'appris. Je ne parlai pas nioins longtemps que le Pimentel ayoit fait .... Les neveux et 1'assistance me fe"liciterent sur mon bien-dire en latin. Ce n'e"toit pas, je pense, qu'ils le crussent, ni moi non plus, mais enfin j'en 6tois sorti, et quitte " (' Memoires,' ed. Che"ruel & Begnier, torn. XVIII., pp. 349-350). He had already, on entering the city, had occasion to employ this tongue, but in less embarrassing circumstances : " L'archeveque de Toledo m'avoit engag a loger chez lui, on j'allai descendre. . . . J'y fus re^-u par les deux neveux de 1'archeveque. . . .Les neveux etoient chanoines, et le cadet montroit de 1' esprit et de la politesse ; nous nous parlions latin " (ibidem, p. 344). These extracts are of valuo as showing even if we discount in advance any un- conscious exaggeration on the writer's part that the well-educated French nobleman of the day could, in an emergency, not only understand but also," after a fashion, speak the language that has become so dead to us. The surprise, however, of those present shows that such a feat was exceptional. But here, too, the question of pronunciation arose : " L' ain [he goes on to say], quoique inquisiteur croyant que je lui parlois une autre langue qu'il n'entendoit pas, me pria de me servir avec* lui de la latine. C'est que nous autres, Francois, pro- nonQons le latin tout autrement que les Espagnols, les Italiens et les Allemands. A la fin pourtant il m'entendit " (ibidem). Thus the difficulty is eventually, almost automatically, overcome. After all, they are little more than dialect-variations, these Continental idioms, though the now dying conventional rendering peculiar to England would have presented greater difficulty, so uncouth is it. Of this last Saint-Simon seems not to have been aware, if we may judge from the last sentence but one of the quota- tion immediately above. The phrase " bien de la cuisine " suggests a comparison with the experience of Grill- parzer, the Austrian dramatist, about the year 1807, when, as a student of the Uni- versity of Vienna, he attended the lectures of the Professor of Philosophy : these were " in Kiichenlatein abgehandelt ; nur bei heftigen Aufwallungen bediente sich der iibrigens hochst gutmiitige Mann der deut- schen Sprache " (' Selbstbiographie,' ed. A. Keller, 1908, p. 26). The third example comes at the close of the century and is perhaps the most curious of all. In a publication entitled ' Lettres de Proclamation Obtenues .... a charge du soi- disant Prince de Bethune ' (Brussels: E. Flon, 1792), containing the official in- dictment of the conspiracy associated with the name of the Comte de Bethune-Charost (c/., e.g., A. Borgnet, ' Histoire des Beiges a la fin du dix-huitieme Siecle,' torn. i. r p. 251), the following statement appears regarding a certain letter of Anne-Fran9oise de Marck, which the Confederes desired translated as propaganda for the Hapsburg. troops then quartered in Belgium : "Mais.... la de Marck ne put trouver de traducteur Hongrois et elle se vit obligee. . . . de faire faire la traduction en langue latine, qui est assez generalement familiere aux troupes hon- groises " (ibidem, p. 20). Here, by implication, all classes of Hun- garians are credited with some slight know- ledge of the language, obviously (in an~. Empire and realm so many-tongued) for a- practical end, and this citation appears to point the way to the use of Latin in the Magyar Diet which lingered on into the nineteenth century. C. S. B. BUCKLAND. DINWIDDIE FAMILY (12 S. vii. 7, 54). Of those in America were Robert Dinwiddie who was Lieut. -Governor of Virginia, 1751 to 1758, and died July 28, 1770, whose relict died in 1793 ; and another Robert Din- widdie who died at Germinston, Sept. 12,. 1789 (Gent. Mag.). The Army List, 1827, has Gilbert Dinwiddie, a Deputy -Assist ant Commissary General from Sept. 5, 1814. A variation of the name appears in this entry in The Gent. Mag., Sept. 6, 1783 : " Mr. Dinwoodie, of Queen-squ., Eloomsburyy m. to Mrs. Cobb, of Chelsea, relict, of Mr. C. an eminent cabinet-maker in St. Martin's lane, and formerly partner with the late Mr. Ballet of Cannons." The Rev. William Thomas Dinwoody, eldest son of William D., of Castletown, Isle of Man, gent., was curate of Kirk Andreas there, 1869, until he died 1876 (Foster's ' Alumni Oxon '). W. R. WILLIAMS. OLD SEMAPHORE TOWERS (12 S. vi. 335; vii. 14, 32, 55). I have a water-colour drawing of the cottage on Telegraph Hill, Hampstead, surmounted by the telegraph, which was executed by John James Pork, when a boy, in 1 808. This is the only known- illustration and is reproduced in the ' Annals of Hampstead,' vol. iii. p. 376, with an account written by me. Park was the"-