Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/477

 2nd g. NO 24., JtLVE 14. 56.]

NOtJBS AND

and means, according to some Celtic scholars of my acquaintance, Glas-gow, the white-smith, probably the smith with white or fair hair : no doubt St. Mungo took the name as he found it. The hut of a worker in metals, in these dark and pre-historic periods, would be a centre for a whole district, and a point of pilgrimage by hunters and warriors for a long day's journey all round. If Glas-go\V first got its name and fame as a metal workshop, truly it has kept it. C. D. LAMOJJT.

Trinovantum.

"Interea Trinovantum firmissima civitas Csesari sese dedit." Bede, lib. i. c. 2.

Mr. Stevenson's note upon this is " probably London," intimating that Trinovantum was a city or town of the Trinobantes. Dr. Giles gives it us plump out, translating the passage thus, " In the meantime the strong city of Trinovantum."

Is not this pure hallucination ? Bede copied Orosius, and Orosius Csesar I suppose, who says :

" Interim Trinobantes prope firmissimaearum regionum civitas ad eum in Galliam veuerat." De Bel. Gal., v. 20.

It is plain, I think, that the Trinovantum of Oro- sius is nothing more than the genitive Case of Csesar's Trinobantes, and that it has no claim whatever to a local habitation or a name upon any map of England, whether British or Roman. It seems, however, that both Orosius and Bede as- signed to " civitas " the unclassical meaning of city or town, inasmuch as they both add, immedi- ately after the above passage, that " urbes alice complures in fcedus Romanorum venerunt." But these " other cities " can mean no more than the Cenimagni and other tribes that Ctesar mentions in his subsequent chapter.

Milton says that " Orosius took what he wrote from a history of Suetonius, now lost." What authority can Milton have had for that state- ment ? L.

" English Sovereigns die on Saturdays." The attached cutting, from Tuesday's Times is curious, and no doubt very " German." Are the coinci- dences stated correct, and has any one else no- ticed the fact, or can the list be enlarged ?

" It has often been remarked what a fondness the Germans have for grubbing in the ashes of the past, and indulging in profitless speculations as to principles, and all manner of abstractions, instead of devoting themselves to the study of the present with a view to the future. The following is a flagrant proof of this tendency, as well as of bad taste : One of these microscopical students of history has detected that Saturday is the usual day for the decease of the monarch in England, and adduces the death of William III., on Saturday, March 18, 1702 ; of Queen Anne, Saturday, August 1, 1714; of George I.,

Saturday, June 10, 1727 ; of George II., Saturday, Oc^ tober 25, 1760 ; of George III., Saturday, January 30, 1820 ; George IV., Saturday, June 26, 1830 ; and William IV., Saturday, June 20, 1837.* The inference that is drawn from this repeated coincidence is, that it is a part of Court etiquette in England for the kings to depart this life on a Saturda3'."

C. D. LAMOUT.

Tinder. As the increasing use of Vestae and Luciferi bids fair to supersede the triple alliance of the flint, the steel, and the tinder, I think it may be well to record in your pages the derivation of the last-named word (which I find not in any dictionary to which I have present access), by the following quotation from Southey's Common-Place Book, Third Series, p. 49. :

" Featley, Clavis Myslica, 1636, p. 143. Lights hanging in churches and noblemen's halls, let down to be titided, t. e. lighted; a pure Anglo-Saxon word, still used by the common people in the midland and northern counties, and not obsolete, as seems implied by some lexicographers. -J.W.W."

GEO. E. FRERE.

Royden Hall, Diss.

The Crystal Palace, and the Claims of Poland and Panslavia. Amongst the many subjects which con- stantly engross public attention, it has not been prominently enough stated, that the bust-collection of the Sydenham People's Palace is the most com- plete and fine which has ever existed. The more urgent the claim, that every one of the nationali- ties of Europe should be there duly represented. Strange to say, there does not even exist any- thing relating to Poland or Panslavia within the walls of this edifice ; so much so, that none even of the historical sculptures of the cathedrals at Cracow, Gnesen, Nowgorod, &c., have been copied. Circumscribing myself merely to the busts (effi- gies) of great men, the following of the Slavian race are much wanted in the palace : John Huss, religious reformator ; Zizka, religious level- ler ; Sigismund the Great, of Poland ; Copernicus, astronomer ; Comenius, educator ; Peter the Great of Russia ; Karamzin, historian ; Kosciuszko, war- rior ; Linde, literator ; Lelewel, historian ; Razu- moiuski, statesman ; Kotzebue, navigator ; Pestel, philosopher and statesman; Bestuszev, poet; Adam Czartoryski, statesman ; Mickieivicz, poet ; Dud- ley Coutts Stuart, Philoslave. The busts of all these may be obtained in the places where they lived, or might be compiled from portraits, &c.

J. LOTSKY, Panslave. 15. Gower Street, London.

Numerous Families. I do not recollect seeing the following instance, copied from a paper of the date, recorded

"Monday (21st Nov. 1768), the wife of Mr. Sliury, cooper, of Vine Street, Westminster, was delivered of two fine boys, which, together with all her former children by Mr. Shury, makes in the whole twontv-six, and what is

[* June 20, 183T, was on Tuesdaij.~\