Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/64

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JAN. 15, '98.

But, surely, every one who has but a mode- rate acquaintance with our old authors ought to know perfectly well that, as a matter of fact, Bayard was a proverbial name for a horse, quite irrespective of colour. The only reason why I did not mention this was because I thought every one knew it ; or, if he did not, that he would, at any rate, take the trouble to look out the word in the ' His- torical English Dictionary' before laying down the law, out of his internal conscious- ness, as to what, in his own mere private opinion, the wora ought to mean.

However, fortunately for me, the ' His- torical English Dictionary' is explicit enough. A blind horse was called " a blind bayard " in a proverb. A horse-loaf was called " a bayard's bun." The human feet were called, indiffer- ently, " a horse of ten toes " or " a bayard of ten toes " ; but human feet are not, neces- sarily, of a bay colour; and I think this settles it.

The peculiar hardship, as far as I am con- cerned, is that I have explained this all before, long ago. My ' Glossarial Index to Chaucer' has, "J3ayard, a horse's name ; hence, a horse, 'Cant. Tales,' Group A, 4115." Unluckily, the other references have been given in the 'Index of Proper Names' (vol. vi. p. 362), though it is rather a " common " name than a " proper " one. However, there the references are, viz., 'Cant. Tales,' Group G, 1413, where we find " Bayard the blinde," and ' Troilus,' book i. 1. 218. And here is my note to ' C.T.,' G, 1413, at vol. v. p. 431 :

"Bayard was a colloquial name for a horse; see ' Piers Plowman,' B. iv. 53, 124 ; vi. 196 ; and ' As bold as blind Bayard ' was a common proverb [it is given by Ray]. See also 'Troil.,' i. 218; Gower, r Conf. Amant. ' iii. 44; Skelton, ed. Dyce, ii. 139, 186. ' Bot al blustryne forth unblest as bayard the blynd'; Awdelay's 'Poems,' p. 48."

This note does not appear in my large edition of Chaucer alone ; it is given also at p. 199 of my small edition of Chaucer's * Man of Lawes Tale,' and must be familiar to hun- dreds of our younger students.

The examples in ' Piers Plowman ' are par- ticularly clear. In Pass. iv. 53 a man lodges a complaint against another who had bor- rowed nis horse and then refused to return it ; and he says, " He borwed of me bayard, he broughte hym home nevre." The assump- tion that none but bay horses are ever borrowed cannot possibly be maintained.

Again, in Pass. iv. 124 Reason says that there will be no true reform till bishops sell their horses, and apply the proceeds to build houses for the poor, and he says, "Tyl bisschopes baiardes ben beggeres chamberes."

Once more, the assumption that every bishop's dorse was of a bay colour is purely gratuitous.

Yet again, in Pass. vi. 196, a horse-loaf is alluded to as " that [which] was bake[n] for bayard" And all this about the horse-bread is duly explained in the note.

The glossary rightly explains bayard as

a horse." And all this is given, not merely in my larger edition of ' Piers Plowman,' but in the smaller fragment of the B-text, familiar to all Middle-English scholars, published at a comparatively small price ; a perfectly accessible book, which nas gone through many editions.

Yet again : in my ' Specimens of English Literature ' from 1394 to 1579, 1 give the word in the glossary, with a reference to a passage in the same volume written by Sir Thomas More, who says, "Now as touching theharme that may growe by suche blynde bayardes as will, when they reade the byble in englishe, be more busy than will become them." This is a pretty clear proof that, as a proverbial phrase, " a blind bayard " could even mean a mere man ; so greatly was the sense of bayard expanded. It is all in the ' Historical Eng- lish Dictionary.' Indeed, it is in Todd's 'Johnson,' ed. 1827; in Richardson's 'Diction- ary'; in Webster; in Ogilvie; and in the ' Century Dictionary.'

I think I have reason to complain that, merely for the sake of contradicting me and giving an impossible guess, all the authorities have been absolutely ignored.

WALTEE W. SKEAT.

WIND FROM FIRE (8 th S. xii. 446, 512). It would not have occurred to me that any commonly educated person could be sup- posed ignorant of the fact in "elementary physics" adduced by MR. HACKWOOD and B. W. S. to explain the observation I cited. But that explanation did not readily present itself to me in view of the first half of the statement, "In addition to that already blow- ing, the fire was making its own wind." A current originates in still air by displacement of a heated volume ; but with a wind already blowing laterally through the fire, it is, at least, not at once obvious how the heat could cause an atmospheric vacuum. However, I have at most to apologize for an irrelevance ; for I believe that not many readers of 'N. & Q.' will think, with B. W. S., that its space is wasted by reference to a curious and little- known speculation of an extraordinary genius.

C. C. M.

LORD BOWEN (8 th S. xi. 328, 458). The reference required by MR. FORBES will no doubt be as follows: The Times, 6 Aug., 1892