Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/92

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

xn. AUG. i, uos.

lation with others. I find all the lines dif- ferently numbered in Arnold (187G), who gives no contents and no index. The passage I want is in Arnold at p. 37, division viii. 1. 506. In Dr. J. M. Garnett's edition (Boston, 1882) the passage is in division iii. 1. 506. Garnett gives a full bibliography and con- tents, but no index.

Then Col. Lumsden (1883) calls his divi- sion iv. (p. 24). His divisions he says (p. xxvii) he owes to Arnold. This translation has a very insufficient contents and no index. The numbers are put at the top of the page, but do not tally with other editions.

Lesslie Hall (Boston,* 1892) calls his divi- sion ix. (1. 8, p. 19). He has no contents and no index. I do not like his translation of this passage (1. 506), though possibly it may most resemble the original.

Prof. John Earle's translation (Oxford, 1892, p. 17) is divided as in Arnold. No contents, no index, although it is a book of three hundred pages.

'Beowulf,' translated into modern English prose by Dr. Clark Plall (1901), seems in some instances to be very modern, for I notice on p. 34 that Beowulf " despatched the beast/'t Here there can be no pretence that it is an army man's despatch a difference of mean- ing some people pretend to give. The " argu- ment" might have served as a contents if lines had been put. It has an index of names and another of things, but no general index.

Numbering the verses at the beginning of the lines gives the poem a dry mathematical look, which I think would be somewhat lessened if the numbers were put at the end of the lines, and in much smaller figures than all these books use.

But the greatest improvement of all would be to print the verses as if in prose, without initial capitals in the middle of sentences, as Thorpe does, and as I have given it above.

What I think is wanted is an authorized version of ' Beowulf ' for ignorant people like myself, who have no time to study Anglo

confusing ; the Boston above is in America. It is probably a most difficult thing to alter the name of a town, but I think that this is what Boston should do, now that it plays such an important part in the world's literature and civilization. If this cannot be done, could not their publications be marked Bostona, which would well distinguish them ?
 * The practice of giving towns the same name is

t Dispatch is from the Italian dispaccio. An in- teresting account of how the corruption despatch crept in will be found in Dr. Murray's ' Romanes Lecture, 1900: The Evolution of English Lexi- cography,' p. 40, a splendid outline ; but what a pity Romanes did not leave enough money for the thing to be done fully ! It should have been three times as long at least, and have had an index.

Saxon, or even to read the poem. I am afraid that such a thing is not to be got, so instead I suggest that, notwithstanding the number of editions, there is still room for another (by a man who does not want to give his own translation), with proper contents and one index. The index should include everything. If it is necessary to show that names of men are not names of places, do it some way other than the tiresome plan of giving five indexes. Things are easily to be distinguished from proper names by not using initial capitals. RALPH THOMAS. Clifford's Inn.

BRITANNIA ON THE COINAGE. In the Journal of the Royal United Service Institu- tion for 15 July there is an article on the first appearance of Britannia on medals and coins, by Mr. Charles Dalton, in which he states that it will be a surprise to many to know that the date is that of the Common- wealth in a medal which bears on the obverse the head of Oliver Cromwell. The seated Britannia holds the shield, which bears the cross of St. George. Mr. Dalton refers to the quotation from * N. & Q.' made by Dr. Murray in the ' N.E.D.' as to the earliest coin pre- senting Britannia ; and, whatever its date, it undoubtedly preceded the famous naval medal described by Pepys as having Mrs. Stewart's face. The trident did not appear, according to Mr. Dalton, till " about the middle of George III.'s reign." Britannia previously had held a spear. B. T. C.

" BLOOMEES." The bloomer costume, named after an American lady, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, the originator, consisted, as we know, of a skirt, reaching just below the knee, and Turkish trousers tied round the ankles. The ' N.E.D.' has several quotations for bloomer, bloomerism, &c. The ladies who wore the costume were themselves called "Bloomers " ; thus, e.g., there is a broadside in verse in the British Museum with the title "I '11 be a Bloomer," in which the following expressions occur : " The women one and all are going to join the Bloomers " ; " Bloomers are funny folks " ; " The Bloomers all declare"; "The Bloomers have arrived." But nowa- days bloomers, I believe, is the name of the knickerbockers worn by ladies under, or occasionally without, skirts. The 'N.E.D.' does not give the latest meaning of the word.

L. L. K.

THE GROUND PLAN OF THE FOURTEENTH- CENTURY SORBONNE CHURCH. I have re- ceived from Paris a photograph of a scale plan of Richelieu's quadrangle at the Sorbonne, to