Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/211

 xii. SEPT. 12, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

203

There is little doubt that all these authori- ties are mistaken in thinking that trade- winds are etymologically commercial winds. The significant fact about them is that they continue for a certain period to blow steadily in the one direction as in a beaten path, a usual course, or routine :

A constant trade-wind will securely blow.

Dryden, k Annus Mirabilis,' st. 304. Dr. Chaplin, in the context to the passage quoted above, says : " The skilful mariner knows that there are tracks in which pro- pitious winds will for the most part be found." Now the good old English word for a track or frequented path was trade, and the winds in question were so called because they keep in a fixed trade, or customary course. This view, adopted by Prof. Skeat and in my * Folk Etymology ' (1882), p. 401, was previously suggested by W. Wittich in his ' Curiosities of Physical Geography,' 1853, where he says :

" Some think that [the term] has been applied to these winds on account of their constancy, trade originally signifying a common course or track, the course treaded; and Hakluyt has the phrase 'the wind blowing trade,'' i.e., a regular course " (i. 105).

This sense of trade, as a trodden path= track, is still preserved in some of our Eng- lish dialects. The tracks or roads across Pevensey Marsh are known to the Sussex folk as trades ; in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire they are trods. Bp. John King has the sen- tence " to be out of the trade and thorough- fare of the people " (' Lectures on Jonah, '1594, p. 287, ed. 1864). A good instance of the word occurs in Shakespeare's '.Richard II. 1 : I'll be buried in the king's highway, Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet May hourly trample on their sovereign's head : For on my heart they tread now whilst 1 live.

III. iii. 158. Wyth wind at will the trad held thai.

Wynton, vi. 20, 55 [in Wedgwood].

Trade, commerce, customary occupation, is, of course, ultimately the same word, and finds an interesting parallel in the Assyrian harrani, meaning (1) road, (2) trade, business (Bertin in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., vi. 86).

A. SMYTHE PALMEK.

S. Woodford.

THE MANUSCRIPT JOURNAL OF A LONDON CITIZEN.

I HAVE in my possession a manuscript note-book. The wording of the title-page, so to speak, is as follows :

"The Journal of J. Williams, Jun r, Containing an account of all remarkable occurrences which have come to his knowledge, commencing on Easter Monday, 1816. The Right Honble. Mathew Wood, Mayor."

When he began to write this journal, Wil- liams was in his twenty-third year, having been born on 23 September, 1793. So far as I can make out, from a case of theft which he records as having taken place in his father's establishment, Williams was by trade a draper or silk mercer. To localize him, he states, in an entry under 1 January, 1817, that he takes leave to inform his readers he evidently had an eye to publication "that

1 have lately removed my Lodgings from Islington to 26, Aldgate." Towards the close of his ' Journal ' the references to his book- purchases are interesting. Further, he cites a passage from a work entitled * Beauties of Paley,' which he characterizes as u an excel- lent work," and which indicates that the young man perhaps none too soon was get- ting into a more serious frame of mind. Nor is this all. "After tea," he writes on the 10th of the same month, " I read several chapters in the Gospel of Matthew, for my own and brother's improvement." In the extracts which are given below it is curious to note that the weather conditions of July, 1816, closely resembled those of London and surrounding districts in July of this year. After all, the ' Journal ' is but a frag- ment, beginning on 15 April and ending on 11 October, 1816. The portion applicable to 1817 covers only seventeen days of the month of January. The whole is written in an octavo note-book of 168 pages or thereby, four of which have been torn out, while the contents of several others have been care- fully obliterated. I may say it is bound in full scored calf, and inside the front cover is the trade ticket of "E. Thorowgood, Manu- facturer, 49, Cheapside." Here are the ex- tracts. I have retained a few personal to the journalist himself. In fact, except what follows, the whole MS. is taken up about himself and his acquaintances :

" 1816.

"Easter Monday, April 15th. Went to the Ball at the Mansion house in Company with Mr. Knight, a Lady unknown, and Miss Pownall, all of River Terrace. At the said Ball only two things worthy of notice occurred, viz., the meeting of an old crony and schoolfellow (Edw d Howard) whom I had not seen or heard of for upwards of 13 years ; and the not being able to procure the least refreshment of any kind for our almost fainting ladies. We got home by about | past 2, and but little pleased with our expedition.

" Tuesday, April 23rd. A fire broke out between

2 and 3 o'Clock this morning at the Royal Exchange coffee house, which entirely consumed the same, and most unhappily occasioned the death of 4 firemen employed in extinguishing the flames; the in- habitants luckily escaped unhurt.

" Wednesday, April 24th. Ordered a super black