Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/321

 9*s. xii. OCT. 17, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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be none for 'a prior house.'" He means, I suppose, that the word is properly applicable to a person, but not to a thing. He seems to forget that there are such words as superior and inferior in the language. Nobody can be rebuked with reason for speaking of an "inferior play" or an "inferior novel." Prior, as an adiective, is in Johnson's ' Dic- tionary,' and the example given there has reference to a thing, not to a person : " prior and superior obligation." E. YARDLEY.

SALOP (9 th S. xii. 108, 237). MR. DUIGNAN'S observations on Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Salop, are very interesting and valuable. In making matters quite clear it may be added that in many Anglo - Saxon words c was pronounced as ch, as, for instance, in Circe or Cyrice, which we call C(h)irc(h)e, Church. So, when we are told that Scrob or Scrop was pronounced SArob or SArop, which seems to imply that c became h, it is not so convincing as would be the fuller statement that Scrob or Scrop was pronounced ScArob or ScArop ; whence we get Shrewsbury and Shropshire, by a later omission of the redundant c from the sch. W. I.

NODUS HERCULIS (9 th S. xii. 188). I find this in Seneca, Ep. 87, " Unus tibi nodus, sed Herculaneus restat." Also, see Pliny, xxviii. 6. In Coles's Latin dictionary it is called a " love-knot." I have only met with it in late Latin. It seems used proverbially for any difficulty. G. T. SHERBORN.

Twickenham.

For a description of this knot, said to be a sailor's reef-knot, see 'N. & Q.,' 4 th S. viii.

372. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

LEWIS (9 th S. xii. 168, 212). According to Clark's 'Glamorgan Genealogies,' Thomas Lewis of the Van married firstly Anna Maria, daughter and heir of Sir Walter Curll, of Soberton, baronet, s.p.; and secondly Elizabeth Tumour, of Warham, Norfolk, a niece of Sir Eobert Walpole.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

"CATER": "LETHES" (9 th S. xii. 188). I have little doubt that the extract refers tc the lues venerea. CWer- catarrh, according to Jamieson, who quotes Bellenden. Gut= M.E. giite, shedding, from ^eoten, to pou: (Stratmann). " Lethes " is probably an erro for leskes, groins (Halliwell and Stratmann).

H. P. L.

ROSCOMMON AND POPE (9 th S. xii. 126, 215). Dr. Benjamin Franklin attempted to improv upon the " logical quality " of the lines cite<

y MR. BAYNE. I quote below from Frank- in's 'Autobiography ' (Hartford, 1850), p. 29:

" Pope judiciously observes,

Men must be taught as if you taught them not.

And things unknown, propos'd as things forgot. And in the same poem he afterwards advises us,

To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence. le might have added to these lines one that he as coupled elsewhere, in my opinion, with less ropriety. It is this :

For want of decency is want of sense, f you ask why I say with less propriety, I must ive you the two lines together :

Immodest words admit of no defence,

For want of decency is want of sense.

ow, want of sense, when a man has the misfortune o be so circumstanced, is it not a kind of excuse or want of modesty ? And would not the verses lave been more accurate if they had been con- tructed thus :

Immodest words admit but this defence,

That want of decency is want of sense ? 3ut I leave the decision of this to better judges han myself."

May one be permitted to inquire if Frank- in's expression " more accurate " can be jus- tified from purely grammatical premises "? EUGENE FAIRFIELD McPiKE.

Chicago, U.S.

ENGLISH AS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (9 th S. xi. 505). I have travelled on a German steamer on which the ordinary ship's routine was, naturally, conducted in German. When bhe ship, however, was receiving or discharg- ing cargo in a foreign port, not British, the work was transacted in English. It was a great testimony to the power of our tongue to hear the German boatswain and the Italian stevedore swearing at one another, over a trifling dispute, like two English navvies.

In the South Sea islands I have heard natives, who could not otherwise understand one another, conversing in English as a com- mon tongue. EDWARD STEVENS.

Melbourne.

WITCHCRAFT IN ESSEX (9 th S. xii. 187). The use of hair in witchcraft was very general. Hairs were burnt in sacrificing to the gods. See the ' Odyssey, book xiv. 1. 422. And instances of the burning or extraction of hairs for magical purposes are found in 4 The Arabian Nights.' In f The Golden Ass ' of Apuleius, Pamphila, in love with a young man, instructs Fotis to obtain some of his hair, in order that, by burning it and per- forming incantations, she may compel him to come to her. Fotis, being unsuccessful, brings, instead of the young man's hair, the hair clipped f rom some goatskins, which is not unlike. Pamphila, deceived, burns the hair,