Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/23

 9 th S. XL JAN. 3, 1903.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

15

" There are some ancient earthworks, supposed to be of Roman origin ; and to the E. of the village are the ruins of an ancient castle surrounded by a moat."

It cannot be doubted that the ruins alluded to are Bransill Castle, and it is somewhat in- congruous to find such a diversity of opinions as to the existence or non-existence of these ruins. MR. E. C. COUSENS states that nothing of the castle remains ; Virtue's ' Gazetteer ' says that near the east of Eastnor are the ruins of an ancient castle ; URLLAD informs us that Lady Harcourt made a sketch from nature of part of the ruins in 1869 ; the said ruins, according to the ' Beauties of England and Wales,' 1805, being " wholly demolished " at that remote period.

Bransill appears on Pigott's ' Directory Map of Herefordshire ' for 1830, and also on the map of Herefordshire which accompanies the ' Beauties of England and Wales.'

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Hanover Street, Bradford.

"EPARCHY" (9 th S. x. 407). The reading in the 1638 edition of Herbert's l Travels '- the second edition is rather different from that of 1677, quoted at the above reference : " Curroon rejoyces in this sun-shine of happi- nesse, and accepts his motion : but after three moneths commorance in that country, weary of idlenesse, he projects the recovery of his old Eparchy of Brampore " (p. 93, 11. 20-22). No doubt the word is in the first edition, 1634. S L. PETTY.

MOURNING SUNDAY (9 th S. ix. 366, 390, 497 ; x. 72, 155, 297). The custom referred to was prevalent in Worcestershire some years ago, and I remember about 1870 seeing male mourners of the better working class attend church on the Sunday after the funeral wear- ing the heavy crape hatbands, two or three feet long, then in vogue. It reappeared in my own experience so recently as August last in Derbyshire. This was to me a novelty, inas- much as after arranging the details of a funeral, when the coffin was to be carried on a bier by hand from the house to the church, one of the bearers asked me if the family would like the six men who were to act in that capacity to attend the church on the following Sunday. W. R. QUARRELL.

MR. FRED. G. ACKERLEY suggests that Mourning Sunday comes from the days when mourners attended a mass for the dead after a burial. But (a) Catholics do that still, and yet in some parts they have Mourn- ing Sunday ; (6) they never can have done it on Sunday. Any "ordo," or priest's daily diocesan guide to services, will show the days

when masses for the dead may not be cele- bratedSunday, I believe, being always one. Perhaps there is no other explanation than the desire to show, in family ' union, respect to the dead.

Since writing the above I see in the American Ecclesiastical Review for November, on 'Requiem Masses : Complete Legislation regarding Masses for the Dead,' at p. 492, that the mass for the dead other than the funeral mass is prohibited on all Sundays within the octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi, on Ash Wednesday, and during Holy Week, on vigils of Christmas and Pentecost, <fec.

W. F. P. S.

Ottawa.

" The habit of sitting during the Psalm " is, I fancy, a Catholic survival. It is cus- tomary, apud nos, to sit during the recitation, or chanting, of the Psalms in the Divine Office. Mourners, however, would attend mass for the dead before or at a funeral, as well as after the same. GEORGE ANGUS.

St. Andrews, N.B.

" TRANSCENDANT " (9 th S. x. 428). The Latin suffix -ent is assuredly the more usual for this adjective, anchored as it is in most minds to philosophic transcendentalism. But the occa- sional appearance of the French suffix -ant is to be expected, presumably when some vague idea exists of divorcing the word from any esoteric meaning. This, however, affords small justification for the use of " transcend- ant," which, by analogy with " descendant," would rather be a substantival form if employed at all.

The conflict between these two suffixes is an interesting chapter in the history of Eng- lish. In some cases either termination is admissible ; in others each form has become more or less specialized ; and in others one form has either died or has not existed at all. Much, too, as a consistent orthography is to be desired, it remains impossible. For, putting aside those words in which -ant and -ent represent correct Latinity, a certain number of common terms remain whose suffixes are merely due to the Gallic crucible through which they have passed. It is now too late to think of re-Latinizing them, and we must remain content with the inconformability of "tenant" with "continent" and " per- tinent," of "servant" with " subservient," of "remnant" with "permanent," of "assist- ant" with " persistent." On the other hand, it seems still possible to oust the incorrect " exhalent," together with some of the French suffixes (e.g., in "dependant"). The reten-