Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/41

 9 th S. II. JULY 9, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

33

KING JAMES I. AND THE PREACHERS (9 th S. i. 321, 433). See Shakespeare, '2 Henry IV.,' III. ii. 6. Justice Shallow inquires after the health of his kinsman Silence's wife :

And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow ? In Elizabethan times and perhaps for a century or so earlier " bedfellow " was a very frequently used expression to indicate a wife.

I fancy it may be found so employed in the well-known ' Paston Letters,' temp. Hen. VI., Edw. IV. et seq. NEMO.

Temple.

[" Sir J. Paston, ' Lett.,' iii. 235, ' He hathe entryd the maner of Scolton uppon your bedffelawe Con- yerse'"('Hist. E. D.').]

" TABLE DE COMMUNION " (9 th S. i. 25, 251). MR. GEORGE ANGUS is, I believe, quite wrong in thinking that this term means to French Catholics the altar-rail, bearing the houselling cloth, at which communicants kneel. In the French Church Table Sainte or Table de Com- munion is the equivalent of Communion Table Mensa Altaris in the language of Latin ritualists. In the Armenian Church, which sometimes celebrates Mass in the evening, the altar is called the table. The Basque Catholics have much respect for the altar. In the rare volume entitled "Jesusen Com- paniaco A. Sebastian Mendiburuc Euscaraz eracusten duen Jesusen Bihotzaren Devocioa 1747 Urtean. Bear Bezala. Donostian, Bar- tholome Riesgo Montero, Guipuzcoaco Im- primitzallearen Echean " (the author of which, according to Mr. W. Webster, was called, as he deserves, the Basque Cicero, and of which the city of Bayonrie possesses perhaps the only complete copy, the British Museum having an imperfect one), you may read on p. 17 : " Bacequien Jesus Onac, Herege ez diranac ere asco milla bider ciquinduco Zutela beren sacrilegio gaistoacquin comu- nioco Maia." That means " The good Jesus well knew that many even of those who are not heretics would defile a thousand times the Table of Communion with their wicked sacrileges." Maia means the table.

PALAMEDES.

WEIGHT OF BOOKS (9 th S. i. 284, 394). May not something be said upon the size of books? size and shape that the matter they contain does not require. I will simply give one example : a new monthly magazine printed on a heavy white paper, irregular edges to imitate hand-made paper, type, small pica thick leaded, occupying exactly three-sevenths of the open page, the remaining four-sevenths being printer's fat." The page measures

II in. by 8 in. In contrast, my weekly friend 'N. & Q.' covers with its closely printed

columns two-thirds of the open page. We purchase books for the information they contain, and not for the amount of paper.

J. ASTLEY.

SIR WALTER SCOTT ON GRIMM'S ' POPULAR STORIES ' (9 th S. i. 262). MR. HEELIS is evi- dently unaware of the later editions of ' Gammer Grethel.' The one before me is a reprint from stereotype plates of the edition added by the late Mr. Bohn to his libraries in 1862. The title is as follows :

" German Popular Stories | and | Fairy Tales, | as | told by Gammer Grethel. | From the collection of MM. Grimm. | Revised Translation | By Edgar Taylor ] With illustrations from designs | By George Cruikshank and Ludwig Grimm."

The book has been continuously in print since 1862. In the preface Edgar Taylor is referred to as "one of the translators" to whom Sir Walter wrote the letter printed in full in your columns. The same letter, with some slight variations and the omission of three unimportant lines, is printed at the end of Bonn's edition. The preface is undated, but it begins with a reference to a transla- tion of "nearly fifteen years ago," so that 1838 is the probable date of this revised translation. It is interesting to note that Madame Hillebrand, Edgar Taylor's daughter, has translated, "in order to obtain a clearer comprehension " of them, two essays by Scho- penhauer, and they appear also in Bohn's series. With regard to the Grimm Museum, Messrs. Bell, the successors of Mr. Bohn, are willing to present a copy of the reprint of 'Gammer Grethel,' and also of Mrs. Hunt's complete translation of Grimm's tales with introduction by Andrew Lang ; and should there be room on the walls for a crayon portrait of Edgar Taylor, dated 1837, which I possess, I shall be pleased to send it.

H. RAYMENT.

Sidcup, Kent.

BOSWELL'S ' JOHNSON ' (9 th S. i. 385, 409, 452). GENERAL MAXWELL misunderstands me on one or two points. He implied that the original printer's error was overlooked by Boswell, and I wished to show that the passage did not occur in Bos well's work. If GENERAL MAXWELL will look again at the misprinted line, he will see that there are in the real line not fifteen syllables, as he says, but sixteen, and that at most four of them are wrong. The errors, in fact, are only three : TA is misprinted Y, one I is inserted, and another misplaced. Then for the correc- tion. Should GENERAL MAXWELL have im- plied that it had never been made ? On one point I misunderstood GENERAL MAXWELL. I