Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/473

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

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that an American publisher would undertake to issue a life of Halley.

Let us seek a consensus of opinion regard- ing his place among the world's geniuses. Lalande may have been the only writer to term Halley " the greatest of' English astronomers," but the belief has been quite generally expressed that, " in the history of astronomy, the name of Halley will stand not far from that of Newton" (Sir D. Brewster in * Imperial Diet, of Univ. Biog.,' ii. 788).

" One of the greatest astronomers of an age which produced many If we put together the astro- nomical and geographical discoveries of Halley, and remember that the former were principally confined to those points which bear upon the subjects of the latter, we shall be able to find a title for their author less liable to cavil than that of the Prince of Astronomers, which has sometimes been bestowed upon him ; we may safely say that no man, either before or since, has done more to improve the theoretical part of navigation, by the diligent observation alike of heavenly and earthly phenomena/' Knight's 'Gallery of Portraits and Memoirs,' ii. 162, 167 (London, 1833).

" He was second only, and a good second, to Newton in gravitational astronomy." Observatory, xxii. 354.

" it is a fact hardly yet appreciated, either in England or America, that Dr. Edmund Halley is second only to Isaac Newton, whose friend and

contemporary he was and that it is to this close

contemporaneity alone that the bright light of Halley's star has suffered diminution of lustre from the brilliant rays of his world-renowned neigh- bouring luminary." Nature, xxi. 303 (London, 1880).

"No biographer has yet appeared to write the life of this great man, nor does any public monu- ment yet adequately represent the national estimation which is so richly deserved by the second most illustrious of Anglo-Saxon philo- sophers." Ibid.

" There can be little doubt that the fame as an astronomer which Halley ultimately acquired, great as it certainly was, would have been even greater still had it not been somewhat impaired by the misfortune that he had to shine in the same sky as that which was illumined by the unparalleled genius of Newton." ' Great Astronomers,' Sir R. S. Ball, 162 (London, 1895).

Lord Macaulay remarks that in the history of purely physical science " the transcendent lustre of one immortal name casts into the shade all others." I have ventured else- where to express the hope that the light of a later appreciation will so permeate that shadow as to bring into strong relief those who deserve to share in greater measure than at present the fame of their distin- guished contemporary.

The extensive and very serviceable biblio- graphy of Dr. Halley compiled and newly arranged by Mr. Alexander J. Rudolph,

assistant librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago, after a systematic method of his own (see 9 th S. x. 362), includes mention of works enumerated in the following : (a) Catalogue of Printed Books, British Museum ; (b) Ditto, Supplement ; (c) * Bibliotheca Britannica,' Robert Watt, i. col. 459 (Edin- burgh, 1824).

The examination of the Rigaud papers in the Bodleian Library and of the indices (1726-70) at the Middlesex Land Registry,, to which reference has been made, was conducted by Mr. Ralph J. Beevor, M.A., of whose generous co-operation in my quest I desire to make acknowledgment.

EUGENE F. McPiKE.

Chicago, Illinois.

" GOD " : ITS ETYMOLOGY. Eng. god (I.E. stone (xestos lithos, Hesychius). The Nor- wegian form is gud. Prof. Tylor, 'Primitive Culture,' vol. ii. p. 167 (3rd ed., Lond., 1891), says :
 * ghutom)=Gk. chyton, the polished or smooth

" In certain mountain districts of Norway, up to the end of the last century, the peasants used to preserve round stones, washed them every Thurs- day evening (which seems to show some connexion with Thor), smeared them with butter before the fire, laid them in the seat of honour on fresh straw, and at certain times of the year steeped them in ale, that they might bring luck and comfort to the house."

E. SlBREE.

[The etymology of the word god is discussed at considerable length in the ' N.E.D.' Has our con- tributor consulted this great storehouse ?]

" LETTERETTE." This word is not in 'H.E.D.,' though letteret appears. Letterette is defined by its makers as a combination of notepaper and envelope, and is, in fact, a slip of writing-paper cut in such a shape as easily to be folded and fastened ready for dispatch.

A. F. R.

"Low" AND "LyM." I have just been reading the very interesting explanations and illustrative quotations concerning the words "low" and "him" in the 'Oxford English Dictionary,' and the perusal has reminded me that when I was a boy in Edin- burgh in the forties it was common, on observing a chimney to be on fire, to exclaim, "A lummie a low !' The Scottish habit of adding ie to a word is well known, but I should add that " a low " was pronounced much as the English word "allow." The perusal has reminded me, too, of an anecdote which Dean Stanley told in 1878. To a Free Kirk minister finding fault with the Established Church, an Established Church