Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/53

 9>s.x. JULY 19, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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a period when there was a quite recent memory of size and wealth and respecta- bility about Dunwich, while Dunmow had become insignificant as compared with its pro- bable importance as a Roman station. The point of size and wealth may, however, be dismissed in considering the claim of either place, seeing that before the days of Bishop Herfast it was not unusual for a small town to be distinguished as the seat of a bishopric.

Dunwich appears in Domesday as Dunewic, Duneuuic. Ever since that date (as appears by Gardner's ' History of Dunwich ') the form has shown very slight alteration : Dun- wyk, Dunwico, Denwyk, Dunwic, Donwico, Dunwico, Donewico, Dunwytche, Dunwich. All indubitable references to Dunwich since Saxon times keep the familiar second syllable, signifying a port or harbour. The old eccle- siastical historians mentioned the see in- variably in the form given them by Bede and by the Sax. Chr. (Domuc, Domnoc), as Dommuc, Domucensis, Dompne, according to Matt. Westm. ; Domuiucensem, Dammu- censis, according to W. Malm., &c. And there is a form in John Hardyng's poem : At Domok then was Felix fyrst byshop of Estangle, which must be late in the fifteenth century. Before this we do not find an ecclesiastical reference having the termination wic, or semblance of it.

Now Dunmow is in Domesday Book Doin- mawa, Dommauua. The will of Bishop Theodred has Dunamowe. A charter of 803 has " Tilfred Dammoce episcopus." Camden says it was formerly Duninawg and Dunmage, as in " some of the Registers of the Bishops of London." All the earliest forms above men- tioned are clearly allied to Dunmawg, and it is noticeable that the one secular reference to Dunwich made by Matt. Westm. is thus, Wich, when he mentions the ransoming of Yarmouth, Dunwich, and Ipswich by the barons ; obviously the Dommoc so familiar to him was far away from his mind. These things have almost brought conviction to myself, but it is worth while submitting the case to ' N. & Q.' EDWARD SMITH.

Walthamstow.

OF ALLEY. (See 9 th S. ix. 463.) When MR. W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY described, as above, the benefactions of Emery Hill in Villiers Street, Duke Street, "Office Alley," Buckingham Street, and the Strand, I think he might have said that " Office Alley " is not the right and original name of that small member of a group of thoroughfares which commemorate a very

much renowned courtier. The proper name to which I refer clung -to the place until the whole district passed into the " control " (as the local busybodies delight to say) of a meddlesome " council " or " board." This name should still be " Of Alley," and in that manner it completed the sequence of names of streets, thus : George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street. In a like manner the neighbouring Robert, James, and Adam Streets, Adelphi, commemorate the distinguished brothers and architects. F. G. STEPHENS.

"MOTHERLAND." This word, lately brought into use to denote the friendship existing between the United Kingdom and the Britains beyond the seas, appears to have originated not very long ago in the United States of America, an article in the Century Magazine mentioning " the poets of our Motherland across .the seas." This seems to be the earliest use of the word, according to the Westminster Gazette.

GREVILLE WALPOLE, LL.D.

Kensington, W.

[Annandale's four- volume edition of Ogilvie (1882) cites Southey for this word, but gives no refer- ence.]

" CURMUDGEON. "-VIn a quarto pamphlet of 1641, ' The Brothers of the Blade ' E. 238, i(5) in British Museum Catalogue I find, at p. 7, the phrase "a rich crummuchion of a vast estate." This spelling is not given in the 1 Oxford Dictionary.' V.H. I.L.LC.I.V.

" COKE." MR. J. DORMER (9 th S. ix. 482) quotes the Monthly Magazine of 1797 for coke, meaning chalk, wherein it is said to be a Lincolnshire form. I do not think the writer represented the sound correctly by his spell- ing. Cork or, more exactly, cauk comes much nearer the sound, as I frequently hear it, and I cannot well be mistaken, for a relation of mine, a boy of some twelve years old, having listened attentively to some men who were talking of guarding a dangerous portion of the eastern bank of the river Trent with a barrier, of chalk, misunderstood what they meant, and told me that the bank was about to be protected by corks, and inquired how this was to be done. It was not a jest on his part. I am sure the question was asked in all the simplicity of good faith.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

Kirton-in- Lindsey.

HIDDENITE. So many allusions having recently been made in the public press to Crown and other jewels, the following