Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/41

 9 th S. I. JAN. 8, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

33

bate Act Book, P.C.C. 1701, f. 129), in the cottage on Haverstock Hill afterwards famous as the retreat of Sir Richard Steele (authorities cited in Park's 'Topography of Hampstead,' pp. 307-10). His town house, as we learn from his will (P.C.C. 118 Dyer), was in Bloomsbury Square. He left his property to his natural son, Sir Charles Sedley, Knt. (Le Neve's ' Knights,' Harl. Soc., viii. 419), who had married Frances, daughter of Sir Richard Newdigate, Bart., of Arbury, Warwickshire (Kimber and Johnson's ' Baronetage,' ii. 418), and he nominated him one of his executors. But the son predeceased his father, dying in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, apparently in his father's house, before 30 June, 1701, on which day his estate was administered to by his brother-in-law, John Newdigate, as guardian of his children Charles, Richard, and Anne Sedley (Administration Act Book, P.C.C. 1701, f. 104). On 19 Dec., 1705, the guardian- ship was transferred to the widow, Lady Frances Sedley, by reason of the death of John Newdigate (ibid., 1705, f. 243b). Sir Charles Sedley, in his will, dated merely 1701, and proved on 30 August of that year, orders that his family shall be kept together

" at my dwelling house [in Bloomsbury Square] in such manner as now it is for one callander moneth after my death, and that my Executors defray all the charge of such housekeeping during that time."

Lady Dorchester is not mentioned in her father's will. GOKDON GOODWIN.

GENTLEMAN POETEE (8 th S. xii. 187, 237, 337, 438, 478).' Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1547-80':

"1571, Sept. 5. LordCobham toBurghley. Death of Captain Keyes, the Sergeant Porter; recom- mends his younger brother Thomas (Brooke) to succeed him."

In the * Present State of Great Britain and Ireland,' 1718 p. 342, in 'List of Officers and Servants of the King's Household,' under the head of "Porters at the Gate," the Serjeant Porter is Philip Cavendish, Esq., at a salary of 1601. per annum. He had under him four yeomen and three grooms. The Master of the Revels is to be found at p. 348, Charles Killigrew, Esq.; the Groom Porter on same page, being Thomas Archer, Esq.

R. J. FYNMOEE.

Mr. Win. Selby, Gentleman Porter, is men- tioned in Raine's ' History of Durham/ p. xliii and onwards. He apparently commanded troops drawn from the garrison of Berwick on one occasion in 1597, and in a contem- porary account he is spoken of as " the Gentleman Porter," as if it was a title. He does not seem to have been present in any

Court capacity, but simply as a man of light and leading on the English side of the Border.

GEOEGE S. C. SWINTON. 36, Pont Street.

POPINJAY (8 th S. xii. 406). Papagei is good German for parrot, and Papegaai good Dutch. In this the g is guttural, and might easily slide into the y sound of the j in pappajay, if that is the correct spelling of the Cape Dutch word. In Italian it is pappagallo, in Spanish papagayo ; so there were plenty of sources from which to draw the English and Scotch word popinjay. ALDENHAM.

PECKHAM RYE (8 th S. xii. 304, 450). I strongly suspect that the Gael, reidh, cleared, pronounced like Eng. ray, has nothing what- ever to do with Eng. rye. A chance resem- blance in sense between two words which have nothing in common beyond the fact that they both begin with r is of no force ; we do not connect pie with pay, nor my with may.

flowever, I will just point out that there is no difficulty whatever as to the origin of the Gaelic word. It is fully explained in the ' Vergleichendes Worterbuch der indoger- manischen Sprachen,' by Fick, in the second part of the fourth edition (1894), where Stokes and Bezzenberger give the etymo- logies of words of Celtic origin. At p. 229 we find the Celtic form *reidis, " befahrbar, frei ? " as exemplified in the Irish "reid, vacuum, maige reidi, freie (d. h. befahrbare) Felder." It is cognate with the Eng. ready, as there explained, and is ultimately related to the Eng. verb to ride, as well as to the sb. road. The varieties of vowel-sound in the Irish reid, Eng. ready, ride, road, are controlled and explained by the most rigid laws of vowel- gradation, such as every student of Anglo- Saxon is perfectly familiar with.

By way of further exemplification, I may start yet a third hare, and instance the word royd, a clearing, so common in the north of England. This is certainly a totally different word from the Gael, reidh, despite some re- semblance in sense. The Yorkshire oy answers, in the usual way, to A.-S. and Icel. o; so that royd is the Icel. rodh, a clearing ; from the root-verb *rj6^a, answering to the Teutonic type *reuden, whence G. reuten, to grub up, and the Low G. roden, with the same sense.

I mention this not only as an illustration of the necessity of understanding the phonetic laws which regulate and connect the various vowel-sounds, but because it is a much more likely source for the rye in Peck- ham Rye. I have already shown that the Old French form was riet; and it seems possible