Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/400

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. NOV. 14, 1903.

Mr. Horsley came and brought design for Christmas card." I saw it stated in a copy of the Church Times last year that " the inventor of the first Christmas card was Cuthbert Bede," but the entry in my father's diary surely refutes this statement.

HENRIETTA COLE. 96, Philbeach Gardens, S.W.

PRONUNCIATION (9 th S. xii. 349). Surely nothing can be more elementary than the fact that all the languages which have adopted the Latin alphabet have done so in their own way ; so that, for instance, the symbol / which commonly represents the sound of fin fall in English, nevertheless represents the sound of the English v when employed in Welsh. It is for lack of this most simple piece of know- ledge that Englishmen mispronounce Welsh names in so atrocious a manner. I was not aware that English, as seems to be implied, is free from the reproach of being "spelt in one way and pronounced in quite a different one." Are we then to pronounce Leicester and Worcester and victuals^ &c., as they are spelt 1 Surely not.

Irish names are spelt upon Irish principles ; and the spelling is intelligible to those who know the history of the Irish alphabet and the history of the phonetic changes which have taken place in that language. The Old Celtic pldmd, the equivalent of the Latin palma, early lost its initial p, and is found as lain in Old Irish, as llaw in Welsh, and as lof in Old Cornish. But the m in the Old Irish word is now sounded as a v ; and the fact that the sound of the m has not been pre- served is denoted, in the Irish alphabet, by placing a dot above it. The symbol mh is another way of denoting the dotted m ; hence the spelling mh. But are we really to discuss all the spellings after this sort?

WALTER W. SKEAT.

The spelling Leogaire is incorrect ; at any rate, in modern Irish it should be Laoghaire. In Gaelic, as in English, r/h between vowels is often silent, hence the pronunciation Leary, parallel to our Tighe. I agree entirely with the editorial note. If Irish pronunciation is not consistent, we, who live in a perfect Crystal Palace of a glass house, can scarcely afford to throw stones. Such apparently violent reductions as Conchobhar and Leath- lobhar to Conor and Lalor,or MacDubhthaigh and O'Follamhain to MacAfee and O'Fallon, are no worse than our pronunciation of teatherstonhaugh as Fanshaw. Of course Gaelic orthography presents difficulties to any one who does not know the rules. For instance, this week I received a letter from

an Irish tradesman, with his name printed as a heading, Muiris WCeallaigh. Probably few Englishmen could read this off at a glance as Maurice O'Kelly, or turn George Moore back into Seorsa O'Mordha. The matter is com- plicated by the fact that besides (a) a Gaelic spelling and (6) an English spelling, many Irish names possess (c) a local pronuncia- tion different from either of the foregoing. Thus we have (a) Meachair, MacCarthaigh, O'Fearghaoil ; (b) Meagher, MacCarthy, O'Farrell ; (c) Mar, MacCaura, O'Friel. Lord Magheramorne, I understand, calls his name Marramorn. JAMES PLATT, Jun.

CHARLES KEMBLE (9 th ' S. xii. 349). The verses referred to by your correspondent will be found in the Literary Gazette for 14 January, 1837, and form part of a song written and composed by John Hamilton Reynolds, Tom Hood's brother-in-law, and sung by Balfe on the occasion of a dinner at the "Albion Tavern" given to Charles Kemble on his retirement from the stage (he reappeared afterwards) by members of the Garrick Club, Lord Francis Egerton, M.P., in the chair. It may be worth while to recall the following lines from the second stanza, as happily illustrative of the actor's excellence in Cassio, Falconbridge, Macbeth, and Mercutio :

Shall we never in Cyprus his revels retrace, See him stroll into Anglers with indolent grace, Or greet him in bonnet at fair Dunsinane, Or meet him in moonlight Verona again ?

ROBERT WALTERS. Ware Priory.

A dinner was given by the Garrick Club at the "Albion" on 10 January, 1837, to Mr. Charles Kemble, on his retirement from the stage, when the song referred to by MR. DOUGLAS was sung by Mr. Balfe. For the words of the song, which consisted of twenty lines, see 4 th S. viii. 304, 408 ; also with variations in the Athenaeum, 14 January, 1837. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

RICHARD NASH (9 th S. xi. 445 ; xii. 15, 116, 135, 272, 335). At p. 272 there is a question as to whether it was a statue or a picture of Nash which was put up in his honour in the Pump Room at Bath. It may therefore be well to quote the original authority on this point. In the first edition of his '* Life of Richard Nash,' 1762, Goldsmith wrote (p. 127) :

' To add to his honours, the Corporation of Bath placed a full-length statue of him in the pump-room, between the busts of Newton and Pope. It was upon this occasion that the Earl of Chesterfield wrote that severe, but witty epigram ; the last lines