Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/326

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

t APRIL le,^.

the god whose image it carried. In modern Greece, when a ship is launched, the bow is decorated with flowers, and the captain takes a jar of wine, which he raises to his lips, and then pours upon the deck."

H. ANDKEWS.

^, vol. ii., col. 231 and 236 ; and vol. in., col. 239 and 355. It is a rite of pro- pitiation. H. GAIDOZ.

22, Rue Servandoni, Paris.

" KATHEKINE KINRADE " (9 th S. i. 229). It is just possible that some people will consider Bishop Wilson likely to be primd facie a better judge than Mr. Caine in such a matter as this. See Keble's * Life of Bishop Wilson,' i. 295, where all the story of Katharine Kin- red is told. The punishment, he remarks, "which to most in our time appears so disgusting, was a matter of course in the Isle of Man some 150 years since; the Bishop's enemies did not en- deavour to use it against him."

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

This case is fully dealt with in Keble's 'Life of Bishop Wilson ' in the " Library of Anglo- Catholic Theology," pp. 296-8, 421-2.

ERNEST B. SAVAGE, F.S.A.

"DAIMEN" (9 th S. i. 2?l).Z>aimen seems to be Welsh damwain, accident, chance, whence are derived damweinio,to happen, damiveiniad, a chancing, damweintaeth, a chance, dam- weiniol, accidental. Damwain is a common enough noun fern., occurring, e. g., in two proverbs : "Damwain pob helv" ("All hunting is chance work"); "Ni cheiff dda, nid el yn namwain " (" Nothing venture, nothing win "), literally, "He will get no good unless he go on chance." There appears to have been an older raasc. form damwyn^ which is a little nearer the pronunciation of the Scotch word.

A. W.

ROBERT RAIKES (9 th S. i. 249). Robert Raikes, the founder of Sunday schools, was the son of Robert Raikes and Mary, daughter of the Rev. Richard Drew, of Nailswortn, co. Gloucester, his wife. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

Mary Drew, the mother of Robert Raikes, was the daughter of the Rev. Richard Drew. She died 30 Oct., 1779, aged sixty-five. It is said that she came from the neighbourhood of Nailsworth, in this county, but I have not been able to trace her birth or her family. It would appear that Robert Raikes, gent., had been previously married. There was a tomb- stone to his first wife in Fairford Church, Gloucestershire. Her maiden name was Niblett. I have not my note-book at hand, or I would give K. particulars.

H. Y. J. TAYLOR.

Gloucester.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.

Edited by Dr. James A. H. Murray. -Vol. V.

HHaversian. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) A DOUBLE section of the ' Historical English Dic- tionary' opens out the fifth volume, which is destined to include letters H, 7, J, K. Its con- clusion will, accordingly, see us well on to half through the alphabet. The table of figures once more supplied shows that in the instalment before us, counting main words, combinations explained under them, and subordinate entries, we have a total of 3,815 words, as against 354 in Johnson, 1,569 in the ' Encyclopaedic/ 2, 125 in the 'Century,' and 1,920 in Funk's ' Standard.^ We have, in addi- tion, 15,624 illustrative quotations, against 4,700 in all the other named dictionaries collectively. Much the largest number of words in the present part are of Teutonic orgin, those of Latin origin being few, and of Greek still fewer. Alien Oriental words are, however, numerous, and representing, it is said, "several aspirates and gutturals in Arabic and other Eastern tongues. There are, moreover, more words than usual the origin of which remains obscure or unknown. The articles to which atten- i tion is drawn by the editor as most important I consist of the opening essay on the letter H, the account of half and its derivatives, occupying twenty-seven columns, and that on hand and its derivatives, which extends to forty-eight columns. What is said about the correct treatment of initial h in speech has great interest. It is pointed out that in educated speech h is often mtite in words such as exhaust and exhortation, and in names such as Cfapham, Durham, and Stanhope. Attention should be paid to the use of such words, now obsolete, as abhominable, preheminence, and proheme. _ Among words of uncertain origin the most interesting, to our thinking, is haunt, in its various senses. The use of this in the signification of to practise habi- tually goes back to the thirteenth century. The futile conjectures on which previous dictionaries have ventured are dismissed without mention. It is uncertain whether the earlier sense in French and English was to practise habitually an action or to frequent habitually a place. In Robert de Brunne

we have, " }>e kyng said J>e pape haunted

Maumetrie." For haunting by imaginary or spiritual beings there is nothing earlier than Shakspeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' "We are hanted pray masters, flye masters, helpe." Milton's

the Nymphs to daunt

Or fright them from their hallowed haunt

is not quoted ; but there are abundant instances c

the use of the word in a similar sense. The use in

' England of- the verb to harpoon is much later than

that of the substantive, and is, indeed, later than

it appears to have been in other countries. Harness

! is another word the origin of which is said to he

I obscure. It is often assumed to be of Celtic origin,

i on the strength of the modern Breton word fcarweap,

hernez, old iron, Tnd modern Welsh haiarn, iron.

i This derivation is not, however, defensible.

earliest recorded use harrier was applied to ships.

Yet another word of obscure origin is harlot, hr

used of men, as a vagabond or rogue, and not till a

couple of centuries later applied to women, i