Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/251

 9*8. XL MARCH 28, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

243

being "Acts of English Votaries, comprehend- ing their unchast Practices, &c.," 1550, which fetched 4s. 2d. The seventh edition of Bun- yan's 'Sighs from Hell' went for 7c?., and the fourth edition of his ' Grace Abounding ' for tid. Two works by David Dickson of Scottish Covenanting fame went for 3s. 2d. and 2s. lOd. If we may judge from the names of the buyers Sinclare and Steward they were probably his fellow-countrymen. There were a great many of Fuller's works, the more important, like the 'Worthies' and ' Church History,' realizing well, his smaller pieces ind inherently. That poetical curiosity ' David's Hainous Sin, hearty Repentance and heavy Punishment,' 1631, went for ftd. In all this great expanse of solid, pious, learned, and informing books it is almost a relief to find one piece which comes upon us with a little surprise. The title of it is "Hoi- born Drollery, or beautiful Chloret surprized in the Sheets, Love Songs, ifcc.," and this went for 4c?. I may record that the purchaser was Steward, probably the same who bought one of David Dickson's works mentioned above. Here is a most interesting item, and the purchaser was a Dr. Newton : " Ovid's Elegies, 3 Books by C. M. with Epigrams by J. D. at Middleborough." It went for IQd. The first edition of Bacon's 'Essaies,' 1597, made no more than Id. George Herbert's u Temple, Sacred Poems, and private Ejacu- lations (with the Synag., &c.)," 1635, realized only 3d. ; and the same author's "Remains, being the Country Parson's outlandish Prov. Sentences, with his life,'"' 1657, Is. 3d. Lord Peterborough (not Macaulay's brilliant and eccentric peer, but his uncle) was a pur- chaser of several lots, one of them being '' Antient Order, Society, and Unitie Laud- able, of Prince Arthur, and his knightly Armory of the Round Table, with a 3-Fold Assertion, &c. Englished from Leland by R. Robinson," 1583. It went for 5s. A. S.

(To be continued.)

"SLOUGH": ITS ETYMOLOGY.

THE Old English form of the word "slough " namely sloh is a term of frequent occurrence in ancient land charters in the description of boundaries, as we may see from the quotations from the ' Codex Diplomaticus ' (ed. Kemble) given in the Bosworth - Toller dictionary. In an old vocabulary sloh is glossed "deviurn, loca secreta, quasi in via, sine via." Chaucer uses the word in its modern meaning, " a miry place" ('C. T.,' Group H. 64) :

He hath also to do moore than ynough To kepe hym and his capul out of slough.

What is the derivation of the word sloh ? I have consulted a good many English diction- aries and works on English etymology, but have not succeeded in finding an etymology of O.E. sloh that is scientifically satisfac- tory. The most recent dictionaries, such as Kluge's 'English Etymology' and Skeat's 'Concise' (ed. 1901), do not take us beyond the Old English form. I propose now to suggest an etymology which occurred to me many years ago, and which still appears to me satisfactory both from a phonological and from a semantological point of view.

I believe that the original meaning of the word "slough" (O.E. sloh) was a quagmire, a piece of soft boggy land that moves and shakes under the foot, and that it is formally connected with the O.E. verb slingan, of which the primitive Germanic sense was, as

fact, is that the word " slough " has precisely the same phonological history as the word "clough," a note on which appeared in the Academy, 31 August, 1889 ; see ' H.E.D.' (s.v. clough). O.E. sloh (a quagmire) represents a primitive Germanic type slanxoz, a cognate of O.H.G. slingan (to shake, to swing to and fro), just as O.E. cldh (a clough) represents a Germanic type klanxpz, a cognate of O.H.G. klingo (a ravine).

There might be given many instances be- sides these two words sloh and cldh in which an O.E. o represents a primitive Germanic an + spirant. Compare the following : O E. 6roAte(brought) = Germ, ^bran^ta with bringan (to bring); O.E. thdhte (thought) = Germ. Germ. *tanthoz with Gr. 686vra ; O.E. soS (sooth)=Germ. *santhoz with Lat. sonticus. See 'Synopsis of Old English Phonology,' 1893, 312-14. COMESTOR OXONIENSIS.
 * thanyta with E. think ; O.E. toft (tooth)=

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF THE

WORKS OF CHARLES DIBDIN. (See 9 th S. viii. 39, 77, 197, 279 ; ix. 421 ;

x. 122, 243 ; xi. 2.)

1794. Nature in Nubibus, a Table Entertainment, composed of Materials from ' The Wags,' ' The Oddities,' and 'Private Theatricals,' performed by Dibdin as an alternative entertainment during the run of ' Castles in the Air'; first performed Tuesday 18 March, 1794.

This entertainment, for which Dibdin used the sub-title of ' Private Theatricals' (1791), probably contained no new songs. The adver- tisement of the first night contained a list of