Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/323

 9* s. XXL OCT. 17, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

315

the forest of Essex in 1250, for the hal hundred of W an ^ nam - See * T* 18 Forest o Essex,' by William Richard Fisher, of Lin coin's Inn (Butterworth, 1887). The next earliest occurrence of any form of the name is, I believe, that given in Geo. Russel' French's * Shakespeariana Genealogica ' (Mac millan & Co., 1869), as being found in 1278 I am not sure, but I believe I communicatec (possibly intended to do so only) the note to
 * N. & Q.' some years ago.

LIONEL CRESSWELL.

LATIN QUOTATION (9 th S. xi. 466). H. W. asks for the source of " Mallem Augusti iudicium quam Antonii beneficium." See Seneca, ' De Beneficiis,' lib. i. cap. xv. 5 :

"Crispus Passienus solebat dicere quorumdam se iudicium malle quam beneficium, quorumdam beneficium malle quam iudicium. Et subiciebat exempla : maio, aiebat, divi Augusti iudicium, malo Claudii beneficium."

EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

GLASTONBURY WALNUT (9 th S. xii. 208). Perhaps the following note, taken from p. 347 of * Domestic Life in England ' (Lon- don, 1835), may interest M. P. :

"Collison, in his 'History of Somersetshire,' speaking of Glastonbury, tells us that, ' besides the holv thorn, there grew in the Abbey churchyard, on the north side of St. Joseph's Chapel, a miracu- lous walnut tree, which never budded before the feast of St. Barnabas, or June 11, and on that very day shot forth leaves and flourished like its usual species. This tree is gone, and in the place thereof stands a vsry fine walnut tree, of the common sort. It is strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the credulous ; and, though not an un- common walnut, King James, Queen Anne, and many of the nobility of the realm, even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large sums of money for small cuttings from the original.' " JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

BASILICAS (9 th S. xii. 16~8). The late Dr. Frederick George Lee, in his 'Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Terms ' (London, 1877), explains that

"the ancient Roman public halls were named basilica. Their ground plan, though varying in details, was usually rectangular, the building having been divided into aisles by columns, with a semi- circular apse at one end. When the Roman empire became Christian, many of these were turned into churches by solemn consecration ; and so con- venient were they found, that new edifices for Christian worship were built, as regards their ground plan, on a similar model. The apse of the ancient basilica formed the sanctuary, a feature exactly reproduced in early Norman churches in England, in which, no doubt, the altar was placed in the chord of the apse. The seats for the clergy were ranged round the apse in the ancient basilica, that for the bishop, called the ' Tribune,' being in the centre."

A similar description is given by Fairholt in his * Dictionary of Terms of Art.' Annan- dale in the * Imperial Dictionary ' furnishes an illustration of the basilica of San Apolli- nare, Ravenna.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN,

As this word means, strictly speaking, a royal court of justice, it is properly applied only to those ancient churches which were built for that secular use before Christianity became the religion of the State, whether in Rome or elsewhere. As applied to the West- minster Cathedral, it merely has reference to the style of architecture, which is that of the ancient basilicas of Eastern Europe.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Monmouth.

OWL (9 th S. xi. 467, 517; xii. 113). In reply to the query of H. I. B. (Highgate), I beg to say that Dafydd ap Gwilym makes the owl, as Blodeuwedd, give her pedigree in the fol- lowing couplet, from " Barddoniaeth D. ap Gwilym. London, 1789. Poem clxxxiii." (p. 365) : -

Merch i arglwydd ail Meirchion Wyf i, Myn Dewi, o Fon.

Daughter of the lord, son of Meirchion Am I, by Saint David, from Mona.

The Welsh name Blodeu-wedd for the owl is, however, a poetical or fanciful name, literally meaning the one of " flowery aspect."

The common Welsh name for the owl is Dylluan ; but in Glamorganshire the bird is called Gwdioo, from its peculiar notes at night.

Tu-whit,

Tu-who ! a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Shakespeare.

" that strange bird ! O that strange cry ! The Welsh, as I have said on a former occasion, call the )wl Dylluan. Amongst the cowydds of Ab Gwilym ihere is one to the Dylluan. It is full of abuse igainst the bird, with whom the poet is very angry 'or having with its cry frightened Morfydd back, who was coming to the wood to keep an assignment with him, but not a little of this abuse is wonder-
 * ully expressive and truthful. He calls the owl a

grey thief the haunter of the ivy bush the chick of the oak, a blinking-eyed witch, greedy of mice, with a visage like the bald forehead of a big ram, >r the dirty face of an old abbess, which bears no ittle resemblance to the chine of an ape. Of its cry ic says that it is as great a torment as an agonizing ecollection, a cold shrill laugh from the midst of a cettle of ice ; the rattle of sea-pebbles in an old heepskin, on which account many call the owl the mg of the Rhugylgroen. The Rhugylgroen, it will 3e as well to observe, is a dry sheepskin containing a number of pebbles, and is used as a rattle for rightening crows. The likening the visage of the >wl to the dirty face of an old abbess is capital, md the likening the cry to the noise of the