Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/433

 9 th S. I. MAY 28, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the beautiful Early English doorway leading from Smithfield to Bartholomew Close. This doorway has been by some writers mistaken for the doorway to the south aisle of the priory church, but it was clearly the entrance to the priory precinct or enclosure. This was, I think, first shown by Parker, although I cannot find the reference, and his conjecture has, I believe, been confirmed by subsequent discoveries during the recent restoration. I may cite the authority of Mr. G. H. Birch, F.S.A., who, in reply to an inquiry, writes :

"Your conclusions are correct with regard to the Early English doorway leading to Bartholomew Close. It never was the south-west door of the church, biit the door leading to the priory build- ings, and its own internal evidence, I should have thought, would have been sufficient to have con- vinced any one. Had it been so the nave of the priory church would have been out of all propor- tion. The Austin Canons did not indulge in the same lengthy naves that their richer brethren the Benedictines did, and their naves rarely exceeded eight or nine bays in length. In St. Mary Overie you have a very perfect specimen of a church be- longing to the Austin Canons, and another, more perfect still, at Christchurch, Hants. In each case the nave is only eight bays in length. If the exist- ing archway was the west door of the south aisle, what must the great west door have been? The south wall of the nave with its responds existed up to the year 1856 or 1857 (I forget which), and I well remember Mr. Chatfeild Clarke telling me that rough indications of the return of the west wall were to be traced upon it. We know the actual size of the cloisters, and there was plenty of space for the prior's lodgings between the west wall of the cloister and the boundary wall in Duck Lane to allow for a fairish-sized courtyard leading to the more private parts of the priory, the natural entrance. Only reconstruct the nave as I have done from the existing easternmost bay, and taking the existing height, forty-seven feet, you will at once see the absurdity of, making that archway one of the west doors, fondly as I had hoped it might have been."

JOHN HEBB.

Canonbury, N.

"To CHI-IKE": " CHI-IKE." I suppose most readers of * N. & Q.' will have heard one or the other of these terms. The former=to hail, according to the 'Slang Dictionary,' but is now, I believe, simply a slang expression for good-humoured "chaff." Substantively, as in the second of the terms, it=a hail. From the 'Slang Dictionary's' explanation it would appear to have been common among costermongers, " who," we read, " assist the sale of each other's goods by a little friendly, although noisy, commendation." But although I have learned this much, I have never yet met with an explanation of its etymology. Is it merely a jest-word, such as may have originated by mere chance, or is it derived from any source? I have often

heard it in the streets of London for it is pre-eminently a street word. Excepting the record in the ' S. D.' I have in only two instances chanced upon it in literary form. One of these was in Mr. F. W. Hornung's Australian story which presumably gives it an Antipodean vogue ' The Boss of Taroomba,' where one of the characters of the story uses it with the verbal significance. The other instance was in the Daily Mail, some time last September, I think, about the termina- tion of the Thames - Boulogne steamboat season. On the final homeward trip of the Marguerite, of which an account appeared in the newspaper named, it was recorded that some of the passengers aboard, while the vessel was alongside the quay, began " to chi- ike" the inhabitants ashore. These, then, are the only instances in which the terms have been clothed in literary form within my experience, although there are probably other cases which may be quoted. Now I think it would be interesting to know some- thing of the etymology of the terms ; and I should be obliged if our friend MR. F. ADAMS or other contributors would bestow a little attention on the elucidation of the to me mystery which enshrouds the terms.

C. P. HALE.

NEWINGTON CAUSEWAY. In the March number of the Pall Mall Magazine there is a paper, full of curious information, by Sir W. Besant on South London, in which that writer says, speaking apparently of the beginning of the sixteenth century, " There were buildings all along both sides of the Causeway [by which I suppose he means the Newington Causeway] as far as St. George's Church." St. George's Church was never situated in the Causeway. "In the middle of the Cause- way stood St. Margaret's Church, facing St. Margaret's Hill." This is beyond St. George's Church, so how could it be the Causeway when it was High Street, Borough 1 I well remember St. Margaret's Hill being written up there in the fifties, when the old Town Hall stood on the site. BRUTUS.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF 'SYLVAN SKETCHES' AND 'FLORA DOMESTICA.' In Halkett and Laing's ' Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain ' the following two books are attributed

to " Wordsworth": (1) 'Flora Domestica;

or, the Portable Flower Garden,' London, 1823 ; (2) " Sylvan Sketches ; or, a Companion to the Park and the Shrubbery. By the author of the ' Flora Domestica,' " London, 1825. The mistake has arisen from misunder- standing a review of 'Sylvan Sketches' in