Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/325

 9 * s. i. APRIL 16, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Esop, in the collections of Croxall and others, ire altogether different from the fables of Bidpai or those in the 'Arabian Nights.' Two or three of them may be Eastern. There s an Indian fable similar to 'The Serpent and the Man,' but not, I think, exactly the same. ' The Master and his Scholar ' is attri- buted to Lokman; but I believe it to be indisputable that Lokman, who is a more .shadowy individual than ^Esop, did not write the fables ascribed to him. ' The Wind and the Sun ' is also attributed to Lokman. The animals mentioned in the fables are not always the same. This, perhaps, is owing to a failure of memory on the part of the narra- tors. A fable exactly the same as ' The Fox and the Lion ' is told in the note to ' The Shepherd's Calendar ' of Spenser; but the animals there are the ape and the lion. One i form of a well-known fable is this. Two men i sell a bearskin before they have killed the bear. They meet the bear, but, instead of 1 attacking it, one man climbs a tree. The i other man falls flat. The bear smells at him, , and departs. The man who was up the tree j asks the other what the bear said. The bear's i remark is reported to have been, " You should i not sell the bearskin before you have killed the bear." Shakspeare seems to refer to another form of the fable, or else his memory was inaccurate :

The man that once did sell the lion's skin, While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him. 'Henry V.,' IV. iii.

I have written once before in ' N. & Q.' con- cerning the change of animals in those fables to which Chaucer refers; and I will not repeat my remarks. E. YARDLEY.

Your correspondent will find an important discussion of the question as to whether ^Esop wrote the fables which go by his name in Mr. Joseph Jacobs's ' ^Esop's Fables as printed by Caxton, 1484, with tnose of Avian, Alfonso, and Poggio,' 2 vols. 8vo. 1889. The author- ship of the Homeric poems is a subject far too vast to be profitably discussed in ' N. & Q.'

may, however, remark that in Miss A. M. 31erke's 'Familiar Studies in Homer' one iew of the subject is admirably stated.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

^ " CROSS " VICE " KRIS " (9 th S. i. 85). MR. D. FERGUSON writes of Javierc, '" Valentyn gives as an alternative form Xavier /" This excla- nation is surprising. In old Spanish and D ortuguese both j and x were used to repre- sent the sound of French j. The latter sometimes had the sound of French ch. One ias only to think of Xerez, now Jerez, and English Sherry. The two letters in modern j

Castilian have the sound of a double or very guttural h. The name is said to be a con- traction of Basque eche-herri= new-house. The great F. Xavier was a Basque of pure blood.

PALAMEDES.

REGISTERS OP GUILDHALL CHAPEL (9 th S. i. 188, 274). MR. BURN'S words (3 rd S. iv. 326) that " the register of marriages belonging to

Guildhall Chapel is not at the church of

St. Lawrence Jewry, as stated in Cunning- ham's 'London,'" seem to imply that there once existed a separate book of such mar- riages. Such, I believe, was never the case. What Cunningham states (' London,' edit. 1850), when speaking of the parish register of St. Lawrence, is that " here are preserved the registers belonging to Guildhall Chapel." They (certainly some of them and presumably all) are so preserved by being entered chrono- logically with the other entries in the parish register. Thirteen entries of marriages having taken place at Guildhall Chapel are thus recorded from 30 Nov., 1670, to 6 Aug., 1679, as appears from abstracts I took (many years ago), which probably do not include all that were thus solemnized. G. E. C.

ALFRED WIGAN= LEONORA PINCOTT (9 th S. i. 268). Marshall's 'Celebrated Actors and Actresses ' contains biographical notices of Alfred Wigan, and of James Wallack, who was an uncle of Miss Pincott, and in each of those the date of Mr. and Mrs. Wigan's mar- riage is given as 1841. The book is generally accurate. Some part of it (perhaps the whole) was, as he told me, written oy the late Thomas Hailes Lacy. WM. DOUGLAS.

125, Helix'Road, Brixton Hill.

BATH APPLE (9 th S. i. 228). If your corre- spondent will kindly give us the whole quotation, with the reference, so that we may see the context and know who is the author, he will, at any rate, tell us something. It is perfectly useless to ask for the sense of a word, and at the same time to withhold all the information which is to be had concerning it. WALTER W. SKEAT.

CHRISTENING NEW VESSELS (9 th S. i. 269). Referring to this custom, Mr. W. Jones, in his ' Credulities, Past and Present' (London, Chatto & Windus, 1880), says :

" The present custom of christening ships may be considered as a relic of the ancient Hbation prac- tised when they were launched. On the completion of a ship, it was decked with garlands and flowers, and the mariners adorned with crowns. It was launched into the sea, with loud acclamations, and other expressions of joy, and being purified by a priest with a lighted torch, an egg, and brimstone, or in some other manner, it was consecrated to