Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/150

 142

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. FEB. 19, '98.

A sexton and a grave physician Once made a gainful coalition. The sexton gave his friend the garment Of each corpse brought for interment ; The doctor all his patients hurried Off to the sexton to be buried.

Probably, as a modern equivalent, undertaker is best. Another paraphrase of the epigram may be allowable :

A doctor and an undertaker made A treaty firm of friendship and of trade. What linen Damon from the dead could lift Krateas had, for bandages, as gift, And recommended, as each patient died, That Damon should the funeral provide. Their friendship grew from more to more, Since every death increased their double store.

In none of the varying forms to be found in Wellesley's * Anthologia Polyglotta ' is there any hint of a distinctive circumstance men- tioned by the Opium-Eater, namely, that the doctor was only to receive naif of the stolen linen. It might not be a bad exercise for the ingenuity of a casuist to determine how far this modern variation of the form of con- tract is either commendable or permissible. The patients in the condition in which Krateas transmitted them to Damon were of no further professional avail, and there was thus no extra generosity on his side in parting with them in totality, whereas Damon sent linen which he could easily have sold to some member of the general public, or perhaps even have made the basis of a second bargain with one of the medical rivals of Krateas, and thus have paved the way for greater profes- sional gains on his own part. Perhaps no one but De Ouincey could have adequately discussed and moderated the contending claims of friendship and self-interest in an ethical problem so intricate as this.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Moss Side, Manchester.

" RANDOM OF A SHOT." In ' N. & Q.,' 3 rd S. iv. 183 ; vi. 57, the late PROF. A. DE MORGAN drew attention to the curious change that the word random has undergone since its first introduction into English, " to fire at a random " (or, rather, randon) having the opposite meaning to the modern " to fire at random.") (See also Skeat's ' Etym. Diet.' s.v. ' Random.') Again, in ' N. & Q.,' 4 th S. iv. 435 a correspondent asks the etymology of random, and adds :

" Webster and others maintain that it is derived from the Norman-French randun. I should rather imagine the origin of the word to be the Dutch and Flemish rond om, round about."

Now, whatever be the origin of random in its modern sense, and of the older randon,

meaning range of firing, I cannot but think that in the phrase " random of a shot " the word is either derived from or confused with the Dutch random, " right round." In Dan- vers's 'Report on the Records of the India Office,' p. 65, we read :

"On the 15th August, 1695, articles of agreement were signed with the Raja of Sillebar for a con- tinuance of the English settlement at that place, and a grant to the Company of an area of two miles of ground, ' or the randum of a shott from a piece of ordnance, next about and round said towne, for their proper use and possession,' for the erection of bulwarks, factories, &c."

An earlier example of the phrase is given in Pringle's ' Diary and Consultation Book of the President Governor and Council at Fort St. George, 1685,' p. 170, where, in articles of agreement entered into by the East India Company with certain Sumatran princes, and signed 20 January, 1684, we read :

"That we doe hereby give and grant unto the Hon ble East India Comp a and their Successours for every [sic] y e Quella or Sea Port Townes of Priaman and Ticou and two myles of ground or y e Randome of a Shott from a p 8 of Ornance [sic] next about and Round y e Towne, for their sole and propper use and Possession."

I have found no other instances of this phrase, and I cannot quote any direct equivalent for it in Dutch ; but the following bear on the subject. In 1640, having taken the fort of Galle, in Ceylon, from the Portuguese, the Dutch addressed to the King of Kandy a letter in which they made various requests, among others for some villages or gardens lying around the fortress, in order to obtain provisions for the garrison, " since the rule of war allows us to enjoy the aforesaid privi- lege as far as our cannon-balls can reach " ( " sooverre onse canoncogels connen aff- reycken "\ In the king's reply (as translated into Dutch) the expressions are used, "sooverre een groff canonschoot can reycken," and " soo- verre een canonschoot conde toedragen." It will be seen that there is no use in any of these cases of the word random ; but perhaps some reader of *N. & Q.' who is a better Dutch scholar than I am can quote an example of its use in this connexion.

DONALD FERGUSON.

Croydon.

BYRON AND SHELLEY IN PISA. According to the writer of the column 'Art and Letters' in the Daily News of 1 1 Oct. last :

" Lovers of Shelley will be interested to know that within the last few days a memorial tablet has been affixed to the house in Pisa where the poet wrote ' Adonai's.' The house is on the south side of the Lung' Arno, a few paces below the Ponte Vecchio. The palace where Byron lived is on the