Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/415

 g- s. xii. NOV. 21, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

407

'N.E.D.' A synonym of tacamahaca is tamami, which the ' Century ' calls " East Indian." It is really Tahitian, and is duly recorded in Jaussen's Tahitian dictionary 1898. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

SURVIVORS OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S SECOND PARLIAMENT (1841-7). At 8 th S. x. 294, 326, 386, were given the names of the surviving members of Queen Victoria's first Parliament, elected in 1837, all of whom, I believe, have now passed away. A note as to the sur- vivors of her late Majesty's second Parlia- ment, chosen in 1841, is suggested in the following remarks of the London corre- spondent of the Birmingham Daily Post, published on 22 October, in regard to the then pending by-elections for Warwick and Leamington :

" One politician in town who is much interested in the result is, I believe, Mr. George Repton, who sat for many years for the old borough of Warwick in the Conservative interest, and who, despite his eighty-five years, is hale and well. Mr. Repton is, indeed, a very striking link with our political past, for, grandson of Lord Chancellor Eldon, he first entered Parliament for St. Albans as a follower of Sir Robert Peel at the general election of the summer of 1841, which placed the Tories in power for the first time after the great Reform Act. He sat for St. Albans for eleven years, and was then returned for Warwick, which he represented until 1885, with the one exception of the Parliament of 1868-74, when he did not offer himself. This is a record of political service not, I believe, to be excelled, as far as early membership of the House of Commons is concerned, by any now living, for it beats by a single day even that of the venerable Duke of Rutland, who, as Lord John Manners, was returned for Newark as a colleague of Mr. Gladstone on June 30, 1841, while Mr. Repton's return for St. Albans is officially dated June 29. :3

POLITICIAN.

EUONYMUS. In Syme's 'English Botany,' vol. ii. p. 224, we read of this shrub : ' ; The name is supposed to come from evs (eus\ good, and ovojjLa (onoma), a name well named ; though why such an appellation should be thought satisfactory we cannot tell."

The Greek grammar involved in the first sentence is decidedly " peculiar," etfs being a masculine adjective which became obsolete, and its neuter tv usually used adverbially, whilst ovopa is a neuter substantive ; but what is meant is better expressed in Paxton's and onoma, a name ; well named." But even so there appears justification for the second sentence in Syme, for how "well -named" can by itself be a name for anything seems difficult to understand.
 * Botanical Dictionary,' thus: "From eu, well,

We will now turn to the 'Encyclopaedic Dictionary,' where we read: "Euonymus

[Lat. Euonyme, Gr. Evvo^ia (Eunomia), the mother of the Furies, in allusion to the poisonous character of the berries]."

The writer here appears to have fallen into some confusion with another plant really called Eunomia, of the order Brassicacese, the second part of which is not from 6'i/o/xa, but from vo/xos, in allusion to the symmetrical arrangement of the leaves. But Eunomia was one of the horoe, and not the mother of the Erinyes or Furies. Nevertheless, the last part of the etymology is correct, though a casual reader would fail to see in what way. The true origin of the name is explained in Rees's ' Cyclopaedia,' where we find, "Euonymm, evuvvpov of Theophrastus, so called by antiphrasis from evomyzos, having a good name, because the plant was infamous for its strong foetid smell, and its poisonous quality to cattle." In fact, the name arose from a desire to avoid a word of ill omen, as the Furies were called Eumenides, and the Black Sea the Euxine, Euf eivos (hospitable), instead of "Afcivos, inhospitable. The place referred to in Theophrastus is in the * History of Plants,' lib. iii. cap. xviii. 13, where we read TO S' evwvvtJiov KaXovuLtvov SeySpov d>vera.i.

W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

[The ' N.E.D.' confirms Rees's view.]

THE GIPSY QUEEN, MARGARET FINCH. The Daily Chronicle, in giving an account of the Primate's visit to Beckenham parish church on Saturday last to dedicate some additions, reminds its readers that in the churchyard is the grave of Margaret Finch, .who, in the eighteenth century, was one of that colony of gipsies at Norwood, the memory of which is still preserved in the name of Gipsy Hill. The famous Gipsy Queen died in 1740 at the reputed age of 109. In the burial-ground there are the graves of several other centenarians, and it possesses one of the few ancient lichgates still left in England. UNION

MADAME HUMBERT AND THE CRAWFORDS. The French are notoriously unfortunate in their selection of English names in works of fiction, and it is a little remarkable that the Humberts should have chosen names for the. visionary owners of the visionary millions which are possible. Crawford was the name of an Englishman who assisted Louis XVI. in his attempted escape from Paris, and it is not unlikely that Madame Humbert may have come across the name in some history of the French Revolution. Michelet says :

"Fersen the driver, who was conducting so precious a burden in his coach, being hardly better