Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/175

 9s.x.Auo.ao,i9oa.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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jecture (1) it has always seemed to me to be an extremely difficult matter to connect the idea of agreement, harmony, concert, with that of dispute, strife, contention. I think that conjecture (2) is correct, and that the It. concert-are points to an original *consertnre. I think also that I shall be able to show that it is unnecessary to adopt conjecture (3) that the change from consertare to concertare was due to the influence of concento.

The question whether in the Romanic languages an nc (i.e., an nts) may represent an original ns has within the last few years engaged the attention of many philologists, and such a development appears to have been fully established. The point is treated with much learning and acumen by Mr. J. D. M. Ford in his interesting article on 'The Old Spanish Sibilants' in the Harvard University Studies and Notes, vol. vii. p. 68 (1900). Mr. Ford refers us to the following authorities on the subject : Schuchardt in Romania, iii. 285 ; P. Meyer in Romania, vii. 107 ; Revue des Langues Romanes, v. 333 ; Meyer-Liibke, i. 500. This sound- change seems to have been very common in Old Spanish, hence in the ' Cid ' " San ^alvador " for San Salvador; " 9errar " for Lat. serrare, due to the compound "encerrar" for Lat. inserrare. Hence may be explained the c in M.E. cendal, a word common to Provencal, Old French, and Spanish, from a phrase in sendalo, Low Lat. sendalum being connected with Greek o-ivSwi/ (Indian muslin).

From the above it may be seen that there is nothing to be said on phonetic grounds against the identification of a Romanic dan7M,re(E. dance) with an Old German danson. But the identification seems to me to be on other grounds very doubtful. The widely spread German nations had various words for this delightful art, but amongst them the word danson does not appear. The Goths in Mcesia used laikan, laiks (Luke xv. 25), the English frician (Matt. xi. 17), tumbian (Matt, xiv. 6), and plegian (Lindisfarne). In the 'Heliand' the word is spilon (German spielen). The Germans and English also borrowed from the Latin saltare the forms salzon (Tatian) and saltian (Luke vii. 32), and the Goths borrowed from the Slavs plinsjan (Matt. xi. 17). It seems extremely improbable that, a popular word for the saltatory art already existing in Latin, a word should have been borrowed by the Romanic nations from the Germans, and that that word should not have been one of the above-cited words, words in common use, but a rare word like danson, which did not mean to dance, but to stretch (cp. Ger. dehneri). COMESTOR OXONIENSIS.

" CHESNUT." Although the spelling-" ches- nut " is common enough at the present time in the descriptive terms used regarding horses, it is not accepted as a correct literary form. The ' Encyclopaedic Dictionary ' marks it as archaic. Still, if we are to accept Mr. W. M. llossetti's readings, Shelley appears to have used this spelling of the word. In ' Rosalind and Helen,' e.g, the opening speech of Helen recalls "our land,"

Whose wilds and floods, Barren and dark although they be,

Were dearer than these chesnut woods.

A little later the same speaker says :

In the dell of yon dark chesnut wood Is a stone seat, a solitude Less like our own.

In theminutice of style Shelley was notoriously careless, but, as "chesnut" was a form which he simply continued, his usage should, per- haps, rescue it yet awhile from the company of effete archaisms. Etymologically, of course, the spelling is indefensible.

THOMAS BAYNE.

[The 'H.E.D.' has some interesting information on chesnut : " Chtxten - nut was soon reduced to chestenut, chestnut, and chesnut ; the last was the predominant form (8'2 per cent, of instances ex- amined) from 1570 to c. 1820, and is used in all the editions of Bailey^ chestnut was adopted by Johnson, and prevails ih current use."]

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

COLERIDGE BIBLIOGRAPHY. I am preparing for immediate (private) publication an ex- haustive bibliography of Samuel Taylor Cole- ridge, and intend to include a list of the volumes enriched by his marginalia. Some of these books are now accessible in the British Museum, but a large number were scattered in the sale of the libraries of Lamb, Southey, Prof. J. H. Green, and others. As I desire to indicate the present whereabouts of all volumes annotated by S. T. Coleridge, may I ask the courtesy of a brief note in an early number of ' N. & Q.' calling the atten- tion of your readers to my search ? I shall be grateful for any information concerning these marginalia or other interesting Coleridgeana. JOHN Louis HANEY.

Central High School, Philadelphia.

TITLE OF BOOK WANTED. In a book of short stories, eight or ten years ago, was one called 'An Old Woman of the Sea,' describing