Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/499

 9* s. ii. DEC. 17,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

491

without a single entry : none are recorded between 28 July, 1540, and 18 July, 1547, when three more entries take place, then none until 5 Nov., 1555 indeed, it is not until 1564 that the register pro ceeds with proper regularity until 1648, when thi usual Commonwealth period of irregularity occur until louo.

"The marriages occupy the middle portion of the book. Commencing with the previously mentionet remarkable entries of 1504 and 1505, they absorb eighteen pages and a half, ending with an entry of 7 Nov., 1734. The entries are sparse and irre- gular till 1572, when they proceed regularly until 1595 ; then there occurs a hiatus until 1606, with the usual break during the Common wealth, and although there are sometimes periods of one, two, or three years with* a marriage being recorded, it may be assumed that the register is continuous to the last entry of 1734.

" We next come to the burials, which now com- mence on leaf 57. The leaf numbered 56, previously referred to, has been cut out, and the question arises whether this leaf did not contain entries of as early a date as the first marriage entry, and whether this leaf has fallen a victim to the cupidity of some antiquarian zealot, who has abstracted it for its probably unique early entries. Was this leaf in existence when Lower wrote his remark that the date of the earliest register was 1512 ; and was that the date of the first burial on the missing leaf ? Lower was a good antiquary ; and as the vellum cover of the book bears the signature 'M. A. Lower,' we may assume that he had inspected the volume and wrote from what he saw ; but why he ignored the earlier entries of marriages must re- main a mystery. The missing two pages would have contained about the quantity of entries occupied by the first two pages of the christenings from 1538 ; but as burials are fewer in number, there would have been room to insert entries of earlier dates similar to those in the marriages. This must now remain a speculation. Certain it is the leaf has disappeared, and that the present burial register commences with a solitary entry of the year 1547, the next entry being for 1558, and con- tinuing with much about the same regularity as the christenings. The burials fill 48 pages, terminating with 12 July, 1734."

The foregoing settles this apparently vexed question. I may add that the late vicar took a keen interest in all matters relating to the " Cathedral of the South Downs."

C. H. C.

South Hackney.

" BOB-BAW ! " (9 th S. ii. 226, 354.) May this not be a variant of pooh-pooh ? This latter is an expression, by the way, familiar enough as a verb, but never, to my recollection, heard by me in living conversational use as an interjection. "Bob-baw" occurs in Northumberland in a form which may be rendered phonetically as pappa or puppa. This compels one to ask, What is the history of pooh-pooh 1 An expression of contempt indicated by puffing such seems to be at least


 * Should this not be without ?

one lexicographer's account of the term. If I mistake not, that form of disdain is a likely enough origin for the old word tprot, tprut, tprout, &c. I find it in a good many places. Walter Map puts it into the mouth of Louis VI. when he received an unpalatable message from the Emperor of the Romans. " Tpwrut, Aleman " was his answer, to the sore offence of all the Germans (' De Nugis Curia- lium,' p. 219). Richard I., sending two of his knights to treat with the Emperor of Cyprus in 1 191, received " Ptruht, sire," as that high and mighty potentate's contumelious reply, "con- tumeliosa dicens Ptruht sire" (' Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi,' bk. ii. ch. xxxii.).

It -was an expletive which I regret to admit was disrespectfully hurled at my countrymen very long ago,

Tprot, Scot, for thi strif !

Hang up thyn hachet ant thi knyf !

and as such got to be considered distinctive of the attitude of Westmorland :

Northumberlond hasty and hoot, Westmerlond tprut Scotte !

" Tprut Scot riveling " was a phrase of Lang- toft's (see Wright's ' Political Songs,' pp. 223, 381, 391). Quite possibly there is error in supposing that any connexion exists between bob-haw, pooh-pooh, and tprut, but the sup- position is plausible enough to merit examina- tion. The onomatopoetic rendering of a breath is very ancient, occurring, for ex- ample, in a prose satire under the name of Golyas, printed by Mr. Wright in the intro- duction to the ' Poems of Walter Map,' p. xliv, where, after supper, Golyas, who has supped too freely, cannot rise from the table until tie is pulled up by both arms, ' ; like a cow sunk in a moss-hole." When he returns thanks, the grace is grievously punctuated by a series of windy suspirations of forced breath, spelt puf by his biographer : " ' Miserere mei Deus,' pretermittit et eructitando inchoat,

Laudate Dpminum, puf, omnis gens laudate, puf, et omnis spiritus laudet, w/.' "

GEO. NEILSON.

Glasgow.

ST. FURSEY (9 th S. ii. 25, 104, 176, 433). "n his reply at the last reference J. B. S. misquotes me. I did not "designate his 3aiiteiana notes as a tissue of quotations rom authors easily accessible to readers of N. & Q.' " That may be an accurate descrip- ,ion of J. B. S.'s contributions under the lead of ' Danteiana,' but it is not mine. Vhat I said was "contributes 'notes 'upon Dante from Lombardi, Gary, and Scartazzini, &c., as if the writings of these commentators were inaccessible to readers of ' N. & Q.' "