Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/445

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

NOTES AND QUERIES.

437

iculars must be given as to the will. Whose 'ill is it 1 Who are the other witnesses, <fec. 1

H. B. P. Temple.

THE NAME "HAMISH" (9 th S. i. 386). MR. ERGUSON has interested me greatly by his ote upon this, not only because it is my own ame, but also because its misuse as a norm- ative is parallel to a confusion I often observe in the writings of our poets and historians about a nation almost as little understood by them as the Gael, viz,, the modern Greeks. In ' Don Juan ' Byron calls the pirate Lambro (vocative) instead of Lam- bros (nominative); Fitz-Green Halleck writes Marco Bozzaris, when he should either have written Marco Bozzari or Marcos Bozzaris; and the uninitiated must be woefully per- plexed at finding in 'Chambers' Mavrocor- dato, Colocotroni, Ypsilanti, while the same persons in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica 'are Mavrocordatos, Colocotronis, Hypsilantes. The forms in * Chambers ' are vocative, those in the * Britannica ' are correct, except that the last two should both have the same termina- tion, either is or es. But while on the subject of want of discrimination between cases, I may add a very amusing blunder from an- other part of the 'Britannica.' The article is 'Finland,' and a modern Finnish poet is alluded to as Oksaselta. This, however, is an ablative, copied from some title-page in blissful ignorance that the nominative is Oksanen. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

REV. JOHN LOGAN (9 th S. i. 350). As Logan died according to the useful but obsolete Chalmers, for the ' D. N". B.' is silent on the subject" at his apartments in Maryborough Street," is it an unreasonable guess that he was interred in the burial-ground of the parish in which that street is situated 1

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings.

INVENTORIES OF CHURCH GOODS (9 th S. i. 368). This subject has already occupied so much space in the columns of ' N. & Q.' that, in justice to other readers, it can only be necessary to refer your correspondent to 4 th S. v. 143, 610; vi. 27, 101, 132, 310, 422; xii. 120; 5 th S. xi. 183, 242, 364.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

"MERRY" (8 th S. ix. 108, 270; 9 th S. i. 193, 277). Has it ever been noticed that this epithet whatever may be its exact meaning appears always to have been applied ex- clusively to England and places in England?

Has any one ever met with an instance of its application to any town or district in Scot- land, Ireland, or Wales 1 I append a list of the places which have been so distinguished (giving one authority for each), including those mentioned at the second reference, and omitting Margate, which we may perhaps consider as an interloper amongst the old "Merrys": Merry England (Sir Walter Scott), Merry Carlisle (Scott), Merry Lincoln (Scott), Merry London (Spenser), Merry Islington (Cowper), Merry Wakeneld (Brath- waite), Merry Saxmundham (old ballad; see MR. GERISH'S note at the second reference), Merry Sherwood (Tennyson), Merry Need- wood (Scott). Is this list complete?

May I assure Miss FLORENCE PEACOCK that I meant no disrespect to Lincoln? I have a photograph of its beautiful minster hanging on my wall, opposite to its equally beautiful sister of Salisbury. JONATHAN BOTJCHIER.

Ropley, Hampshire.

" Merry Lincoln " seems a borrowed term, due to assimilation; see the ballad entitled ' Jew's Daughter ' in Percy. Here we read : The rain rins doun thurgh Mirry-land toune,

Sae does it doune the ra

Here " Mirry-land " is explained or put for Milan, whence we got our " millinery," and " Pa " is the Italian river Po. All this seems clear enough, so the legend or story has been transferred from one site to another; and it is well worthy of remark that about the alleged date of " little St. Hugh " that name was very popular in Lincoln, for within one generation tney had two bishops so named, one of them a regularly canonized saint.

A. HALL.

BOULTER SURNAME (9 th S. i. 306, 392). The canting allusion of the garbs (so obvious that I did not think it needful to call attention to it) was the sole reason of my mention of them. I was not concerned with the bear- ings, except to show from the bird-bolts (a much older coat than the garbs) that the surname had the origin of " bolt-maker."

W. C. BOULTER.

PORT ARTHUR (9 th S. i. 367, 398). This name must be of quite recent origin. It is not in the ' Royal Atlas,' but occurs for the first time, so far as I can discover, in the 'Atlas ' of Vidal-Lablache (1894). The name of Port Adams, which is situated higher up on the eastern side of the peninsula, is, how- ever, of an earlier date. Perhaps your corre- spondent who informs us of the person or thing for it might be a vessel from which Port Arthur takes its name would also give us a word of explanation as to Port Adams.