Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/505

 x. DEC. 20, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

497

Euskarian to pass into English as the name of the Baskish tongue. The Spanish Basks now call their language Euskera or Euskara. But the French Basks aspirate the initial eu very strongly. The aspirate in general has almost disappeared from the spoken Baskish dialects of Spain, but was used in the books printed in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and even at the be- ginning of the nineteenth. It has always been used in writing and speaking by the French Basks since Dechepare's ' Rimes ' were published in 1545 (of these an accurate reprint was published by M. V. L. A. Stempf, in Bordeaux, in 1893). The eu in Euskara is not pronounced like u in use, or ew in new, but like Portuguese eu, or eu in Latin heus.

E. S. DODGSON.

The rule given in an old English grammar (Sullivan's, fourteenth edition, 1852) is : "An is generally used before a word beginning with h sounded when the accent is on the second syllable, as an historical event, an heroic action." B. D. MOSELEY.

Spenser has the line : A dreadful dragon with an hideous train.

' Faerie Queen, book i. c. 4, s. 10.

And this may justify an habit. But Spenser's contemporary says :

A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! We can find excellent precedent for a or an. But without doubt a does sound awkwardly before words of four syllables such as habitual, historical. And I see by Johnson's dictionary that good writers have agreed in using an before such words. E. YARDLEY.

[Is not the last line quoted Cibber's ?]

"LE BON TEMPS OU NOUS ETIONS SI MAL-

HEUREUX" (9 th S. ii. 428). The celebrated actress Sophie Arnould is credited with the authorship of the phrase (no doubt that which Dumas intended to quote), " Oh ! c'etait le bon temps, j'etais bien malheureuse I" and the words are quoted by Rulhiere in an epistle ('A Monsieur deCha ,'&c.) follow- ing his poem ' Les Jeux de Mains' (1808, p. 43) :-

Un jour une actrice fameuse Me contait les fureurs de son premier amant;

Moitie revant, moitie rieuse,

Elle ajouta ce mot charmant : "Oh ! c'etait lebon temps, j'etais bien malheureuse ! See E. Fournier, ' L' Esprit des Autres,

1886, eighth edition*, p. 144.

Cf. the song beginning :

Le bon temps que c'^tait, le bon temps que c'Stait,

Du temps que la reine Berthe filait.

EDWARD LATHAM.

HERIOT (9 th S. x. 228, 333, 433). May I venture to point out that your two corre- spondents MR. DAVY and MR. FROST at the last reference are not quite accurate, from a legal point of jiew, in considering the pay- ments made on the death of a person on whose life property is held as heriots 1 Such payments, which are not uncommon in the case of leaseholds for lives, are for the right or privilege of inserting a new life in the lease, and not a payment which is claimed as a right of the landlord on the death of the life on which the property is held and on the lapse of which (if the last .life) the lease would be determined. It is strictly accurate to state that heriots are only incident to lands of copyhold or customary tenure.

A. COLLINGWOOD LEE. Waltham Abbey, Essex.

SHAKESPEARE v. BACON (9 th S. ix. 245, 414 ; x. 11, 137, 214, 375). M. N. G., in maintain- ing that "Shakespeare is not the only great writer unknown to the great men of his day," says, with regard to Jane Austen, that " the great men of her day did not know her." What nonsense! As you say, "Scott knew and wrote in praise of Jane Austen," and he writes in his 'Diary' that she had "a talent for describing the involvements, feelings, and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with." Another great man of her day, Whately, spoke of her works as " the most unexceptionable of their class"; and among other great men of her day who ex- pressed admiration of Jane Austen were Warren Hastings. Southey, Coleridge, Sir James Mackintosh, Lord Holland, Sydney Smith, and Sir Henry Holland. My authority for this statement is Sir Leslie Stephen in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.'

GEORGE STRONACH.

About eighteen months ago I wrote to 'N. & Q.' and referred to W. Hepworth Dixon's ' Royal Windsor,' vol. iii. chap. xii. p. 311, to shoV that we knew more about him than Spenser, Jonson, Green, Marlowe, and others. It was not printed, for some reason, so that any one referring as above may satisfy themselves that a great deal is known of Shakspere. RICHARD HEMMING.

Ardwick.

BODLEY PEDIGREE (9 th S. x. 410). Sir Thomas Bodley was born at Exeter, 2 March, 1544 A short account of his ancestors occurs in "The Life of S r Thomas Bodley. The Honourable Founder of the Publique Library in the Vniversity of Oxford. Written by Himselfe," and printed at Oxford "by