Page:Notes and Queries - Series 3 - Volume 9.djvu/397

 IX. MAY 12, '66.] 387 NOTES AND QUERIES. From this passage it may be inferred that the leading of apes in hell was not so much considered a result of female celibacy, as an evil and degrada- tion of like magnitude. Will this quotation hlep us to the origin of the phrase ? Who was the " Lydian Maid," and where does her saying occur ? WILLIAM BATES. Birmingham. THE "RETURN FROM PARNASSUS" AUTHORSHIP. ITS To ascertain the authorship of an anonymous •work is always desirable, and with regard to works of peculiar interest becomes an object of real importance. Now, the play above-named is undoubtedly a work of that class. The Return from Parnassus, in one particular, stands alone. There is no other instance, in the whole compass of our early literature, of a play •which affords so ample a roll of the names of poets, dramatist?, and actors, accompanied by critical remarks, often sensible and impressive, which serve to paint the current opinions as to the merits and failings of the persons introduced. I proceed to consider its authorship. The Return from Parnassus was acted at Cam- bridge, and published at London in 1000, 4°. It is anonymous; but a copy which has been sub- mitted to my examination bears this envoi: " To my Lovinge flmallocke J: It:" Now it seems to me probable that the above initials denote John Day, a dramatist of the period, and that he was the author of the admired play in question. I have to produce three points of evidence as entitled to impartial consideration. 1. It is certain that John Day was educated at Cambridge, p.nd it may be fairly assumed that the students, iu the exercise of their histrionic facul- ties, would make choice of one of the productions of their own university. 2. The play was printed by G. Eld for John Wright in 1006, and the play entitled The travels of the three English brothers, which is the avowed production of Day, was published by the same John Wright in 1007. 3. I have compared the envoi with the Lans- downe MS. 725, and with due allowance for the difference between a running hand and a formal address, believe them to be by the same writer. The Lansdowne MS. also has J: D: The extensive acquaintance with the literature of the metropolis which this play exhibits might be held as adverse to my conclusion, but the objection must vanish before the fact that Day often wrote in association with Dckker, Chettle, and others—and perhaps that circumstance may account for the harsh treatment which Ben. Jon- son receives, and the somewhat equivocal praise of the poems of Shakspere without one word on his PLATS ! BOLTON CORNET. GIBRALTAR. The derivation usually given of this name ("Djebel Tank," or mountain of Tarik), appears to me unsatisfactory for two reasons: — 1. Because it fails to account for the r in the second syllable. 2. Because an apposite derivative can be found for the last syllable, without doing violence to the name of the Moorish general. The rendering I venture to bestow on it, is Djebel-ras-el-Tar—the mountain headland of Tar. The first three words being Arabic: the last Phoe- nician or Aramean (the ~f of the Chaldees, signi- fying a hill or a rock). I now propose to find confirmation for my opinion in analogous facts: — 1. The Moors have in another instance ampli- fied the ancient name of a natural feature of the country,'by converting the Anas (NOIT^OJ, flowing spring) into the Wadi-el-Anas (Watercourse of the Anas), since modified into Guadiana. 2. The word Tar, or Tor, is of very frequent occurrence in Spain in the names of hills or natural eminences and places in their immediate vicinity, e. g. Tarragona, the ancient Tarraco; Tarancon, in the province of Toledo; Tarazona, Trafalgar, Tortosa, Torbiscon; Tartessus, the chief settlement of the Phoenicians in Spain; and Tar- tessis, the name bestowed on the whole country west of Gibraltar. 3. The Phoenician use of the term is evident in Tartessus just cited; in Dora, the most southern town of Phoenicia, at the foot of Mount Carmel; in Tura, Tsor, or Sur, the ancient Tyre; and in our own Torquay. If we further take a view of the Basin of the Mediterranean, round which we are told the Phoenicians traded, we shall find this root appearing in Tiaranthus, Taurus, Termessus, Tarne, Tarphe, Thermopylae, Thera, Tarpeia, Tar- quinii, Tergeste, Tauromenium, Taurentum, and very many others; and in every instance in con- nection with a mountain, a hill, or a high rock. Judging from analogy, the primary sense of the term would seem to be " roundness :" as in TopvAw, to round, and teres, rounded off; which again ap- pear to find affinity in r/pjia, a boundary, and terra, the earth. The only objection to these arguments seems to be that the name for Gibraltar, handed down to us by the Romans, is Calpe. This however does not, I think, affect the question; ^ince, if Britain some centuries hence were to be peopled by foreigners, it might then with equal force be maintained that Carnarvon (which stands near the site of the ancient Segontium), and all names bearing the prefix Caer, were derived from Ca- rausius; whilst we of the present day well know that Caer, though not employed by the Romans in their nomenclature, must have been in use long anterior to their conquest of Britain. And what