Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/430

 354

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ia s. vn. OCT. 30, 1920.

THEANA (12 S. vii. 291). A female philosopher, the daughter of Pythagorus. Her father at his death gave her all his manuscripts, and although she was reduced to the greatest poverty, she always refused to sell them. CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield Park, Reading.

In reply to SIR HERBERT MAXWELL'S inquiry, this lady was Anne Countess of Warwick :

No less praiseworthy I Theana read She is the well of bounty and brave mind, Excelling most in glory and great light "The ornament is she of womankind And Court's chief garland with all virtues dight. Spenser's 'Colin Clout's Come [Home Again ' (1595).

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

See Edmund Spenser in 'Colin Clout's jome home againe,' a poem written in 1591, and published in 1595. The lady is usually identified with the Lady Anne, daughter of Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, and third wife (and relict) of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. JOHN B. WAINEWIRGHT.

Theana was Anne, Countess of Warwick,
 * in Spenser's 'Colin Clout's Come Home

Again,' 1595. The original reads:

She is the well of bounty and brave mind, The ornament is she of womankind.

Oxford.

FAMA.

HEATHTOWN OR HEATHTON JUXTA WOLVERHAMPTON (12 S. vii. 290). Heathton is a hamlet in South Shropshire, six and a half miles east of Bridgnorth. There is no other place of either name in Bartholomew's
 * Gazetteer. '

S. A. GRUNDY-NEWMAN.

THE " GOOSE CLUB " (12 S. vii. 310). Possibly the allusion is to Goosetree's Club, named after the founder, which was formerly Almacks and stood on the site of the present Marlborough Club. It was here, circa, 1780, that Pitt gambled so heavily. References to it will be found in ' Clubs and Club Life in London,' by John Timbs, and also in 'London Clubs,' by Ralph Nevill.

WlLLOTJGHLY MAYCOCK.

NEOPURGENSIS (12 S. vii. 312). I think that " Neopurgensis ' ' may be said to be a Greek-Latin word meaning "of Newcastle," formed from i/eo and Trvpyos and the Latin termination ensis. Perhaps it would be correct to say that the word is formed from

the Latin, as both the Greek words (the former in combination) were used in Latin.

In Nicolas Lloyd's ' Dictionarium Histori- cum, Geographicum, ' &c., 1686 edition, is the following :

" Neoburgum, quod & Neopyrgum, & Nova castra multiplex est urbs Germanise." Then follow two _ examples, and then,

"Alterain Bavaria ad Danubium, hodie Neu- burg, sedes Ducia Neoburgensis.'

In the map of Helvetia in 'Cluverii Introductio in Universam Geographiam,' 1697, facing p. 117, Lake Neuchatel is called Neoburgensis Lacus, and the town is given the German name Neuenburg. Presumably Thomas Liddle added "apud Anglos Bo- reales " to show that his Newcastle was in the north of England, not in Staffordshire, Wales or Ireland.

The usual Latin for Newcastle was Novum Castrum. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

The ' ' Schola Neopurgensis ' ' is Newcastle Grammar School, the name of the town having been Graecized as NeoV^pyos, just as the surnames Schwarzerd and Holzmann were turned into Melanchthon and Xylander. jk EDWARD BENSLY.

This is obviously a hybrid word from two Greek roots with a Latin termination perhaps the invention of the headmaster of the time. It comes from the Greek veos Tri'pyos (neos purtfos) =new tower (or castle) with the Latin termination ensis. MATTHEW H. PEACOCK. Oxford.

The nearest solution, it appears, will be to take "Neopurgensis" as a misspelled " neo- latinized ' ' name instead of " Neoburgensis,' ' denoting the well-known Latin " Castellum Novum,' ' or ' 'New- Castle, " town of Northum- berland, to the Grammar School of which the books bearing the inscription were presented. H. K.

THE ORIGINAL WAR OFFICE (12 S. vii. 310). Q. V. 's informant appears to have been telling him a fairy tale. The Office of Secretary of State for W^ar was created in 1856 after the Crimean War, the duties down to that time having been performed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The old Ordnance Office in Pall Mall, to which Buckingham House was added, then became the War Office, which remained there till the present building in Whitehall was completed in 1906.