Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/155

. NO 8., FEB. 23. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

147

and a very pretty boy with wings followed him, which I took to be his good genius.'

" Pom. But had he no evil genius with him?

" Br. Yes ; for there followed him, a great way off, some birds that were all over black, except, when they spread their wings, they seemed to have feathers .... about the size of vultures . . . one would have taken them for harpies. While I was intent upon these things, St. Jerome saluted Reuclin in these words : "I am ordered to conduct thee to the mansions of the blessed souls, which the divine bounty has appointed thee, as a reward for thy most pious labours.' .... Giving Reuclin the right hand, conducts him into the meadow, and up a

hill that was in the middle of it By this the

holy souls were carried into Heaven, a quire of angels all the while accompanying them, with so charming a melody, that he was never able to think of the delight of it without weeping. . . . When he waked out of his dream, he would not believe he was in his cell, but called for his bridge and his meadow."

I have extracted the above from pp. 132 135., and I think it will be seen that Addison took not only the leading idea, but many particular expres- sions from Erasmus. It Would be still more evi- dent, on the perusal of the entire passage in the Colloquies. G. E.

FAGOT, IN THE SENSE 0? FOOD.

P- 1 have often seen selling, in the West of Eng- land, baked balls of offal wrapped up in caul fat. I believe they consist of small portions of liver and other similar material. These balls, of some- what savoury odour, are called fagots ; and it was only after some cogitation, that I have found out what I deem the Roman etymon of that term. If I am right, the whole thing is singularly curious ; and I will state it for your etymologists.

In the lower Roman Empire there was a dish called ficatum, consisting of Jigs, mixed up with liver. Though liver was one of the ingredients, this dish took its name from the fig, ficus, and, as I said, was styled ficatum. In course of time the Italians even lost the Latin term jecus, liver; and Italy to this day uses the vrordfegalo for that part of an animal.

You will, then, readily see that in the low Latin term ficatum, a dish of figs and liver came to be used for liver alone. I cannot, however, doubt but it was also applied to the mixed dish ; that is, for any dish into which liver entered as an ingredient. The formation, therefore, of our term fagot was thus : ficus, ficatum ; fegato, fagot.

I am confirmed in this theory, and not, I fancy, without reason, by a like process that has trans- pired in the Greek language. The modern Greeks, like the modern Romans, have entirely dropped their ancestral term for liver, Sir as ; and, stranger still, have replaced it by a word formed by ffvxov, the classic term forfrg! Thus, the word

now invariably used for liver is ffuK^n, or crvKuriof, always pronounced secoti, or secotion*

Now, as Romans and Greeks in later ages formed one empire, ar.d so remained till the reign of Honor ius and Arcadius, what is more probable than the notion that Greece too had the favourite dish ficatum, and that she called it <rr,K6-riov, a word tantamount to the low Latin term itself?

Thence, as ficatum bec&me fegato in Italian, and ousted the old word jecus, liver, so tn-Kov became ffuKOTiov, and banished the classical term #iras, a word never heard now-a-days in "the land of the bard, the warrior, and the sage."

SHERIDAN WILSON.

Bath.

Notes on Longfellow. In Longfellow's late work, The Song of Hiawatha, I met with a sin- gular use of the word roebuck. In Part III. it is used as synonymous with " red-deer ;" in Part X., as synonymous with " fallow-deer." This leads me to fancy that the word, like many others, may have come to another signification in America to what it has in England ; and may be generally used for any sort of deer, and not exclusively for the male of Cervus capreolus.

The way of spelling " moccasons" is also new to me, having met with moccasins in all former writers.

Will you also let me remark on the incorrect- ness of one of the engravings of Gilbert in the edition of this work by Routledge. He has repre- sented Pnu-Put-keewis, the handsome Yenadizze of Part XVI., wearing horns as part of his head- dress. Now this part of an Indian head-dress is only allowed to be worn by a brave of extraordi- nary renown; in many tribes, the hereditary chief being without it, and only allowed to him or them who, from their distinguished valour, are the acknowledged chiefs of the war party. Now it is not probable, that he whom the warriors called

" . . coward, Shaugodaya, Idler, gambler, Yenadizze." Part XI.

would have been suffered to wear this distin- guished mark. Had the engraver followed the poet's description, the engraving would have been correct. LOCCAN.

The Good Use of Bell-ropes. Your excellent correspondent, and my good friend, REV. H. T. ELLACOMRK, frequently adorns your pages with anecdotes of bells ; perhaps the following anecdote of bell-ropes may amuse the lovers of bell-ringing. It appears to have been written many years since,

in fleet.
 * Modern Greeks invariably sound v as v, that is as ve