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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. in MAR. n,

slightly depreciatory, but depreciation was not always intended. As the phrase grew up variety was intended ; but the idea of variety soon dropped out of it, and it became a mere idle catchword or badge. D.

SCOTT'S 'ANTIQUARY' (9 th S. ii. 347). The exact title is ' Prince Ubbely Bubble's New Story Book, the Dragon covered with Spikes, the Longtailed Nag, the Three One-legged Men, Tom and the Ogre, and others,' by J. T. Lucas. No date, but end of eighteenth century. W. TUCKWELL.

SLOUGH (9 th S. iii. 169). MR. MURPHY GRIMSHAW will shortly find the information he seeks in Major God sal's forthcoming work on the early topography of Eton and its surroundings.

In the meantime it may be remarked that the Thames in this district was formerly much wider than now, and fringed by marshy, reedy morasses. In the ninth century the Danish fleet passed up the river to the siege of Read- ing ; at Taplow tombs of the Vikings have been found, and near Chalvey (less than a mile from Slough) a Danish riverside camp, indicating the much larger area formerly covered by the river. In Slough itself, in 1895, fossil clusters of oysters (unopened, and as if still living, but, it must be confessed, of a larger size than the natives of Whitstable) were dug up 25 ft. below the surface of the

round. Though nowadays a dry place, lough may, therefore, have derived its name from the ancient morasses near it, and the adjoining village of Langley Marish also (though said to take its name from the Marreys family).

Historically the name of the parish is Upton, the ground sloping upwards from the river side. As open land as early as 1443 mention of "le Slough," and in 1444 of" le Slow," is made in grants of Henry VI. In maps the name is more tardy of appearance, owing to the insignificance of the place until developed by the increasing traffic of the Bath Road, and later by the advent of the Great Western Railway. Thus Slough has no existence in the map of Christopher Saxton (1579) or of John Speed (1610). John Norden's map (1607) I have not been able to refer to, but in Robert Morden's map (1660) it first appears (as "Slow"), to disappear again in Blome's map (1680). Moll (1710) has " Slow"; so, too, Bo wen (in his larger map of 1756), Kitchin (in 1783), and Robertson (1792) "Slough" (so spelt) first occurs in Cole's map (1804), and continues so from that time. Though only two other places exist of this name (one in Sussex and one a fort in

Sheppey), a foolish attempt was made a few years ago to change the name of this place, heedless of the words of the great Arago, " Le nom de ce village (Slough) ne perira pas. Les sciences le transmettront religieusement a nos derniers neveux." R. B.

Upton.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Edward Fitzgerald's Rubd'iydt of Omar Khayyam. With their Original Persian Sources translated by Edward Heron- Allen. (Quaritch.) A YEAR ago (see 9 th S. i. 137) we noticed at con- siderable ^length Mr. Heron- Allen's translation of the ' Ruba'iyat,' accompanied with a facsimile of the Bodleian MS. and a transcript into modern Persian characters. Of that work the present volume is in part a paraphrase and in part a supplement. The illustrations and the decorations are the same, as are the conclusions as to the sources of Fitzgerald's quatrains. The name, indeed, of Nichols, the pub- lisher of the original volume, appears as that of the printer of its successor. The later volume is, how- ever, intended directly to illustrate Fitzgerald's mode of procedure. On one page is printed Fitzgerald's version ; on the other appear the originals, whence- soever derived, whether from Omar Khayyam, from the ' Mantik ut-tair,' or from other sources, together with Mr. Heron- Allen's translation, which he has striven purposely to render exact to the point of baldness. Carrying out his former researches, Mr. Heron-Allen is able to summarize thus his dis- coveries. Of Fitzgerald's quatrains forty-nine are ' ' faithful and beautiful paraphrases " of single quatrains in the Ouseley or the Calcutta MS., or in both; forty-four, which he calls "composite" quatrains, are taken from more than one quatrain ; two are inspired by quatrains found only in Nicolas's text ; two reflect the spirit of the original; two are traceable exclusively to the influence of the 'Mantik ut-tair'; two are influenced by the odes of Hafiz ; and three, banished by Fitzgerald from the later editions, are not attributable to any discovered source. The task of identification has accordingly been zealously and scrupulously carried out, and as a contribution to the elucidation of Fitzgerald's text the present work is the most important that has yet seen the light. Those, how- ever, who aim at knowing all that is to be known concerning the Persian poet will hold to the earlier and more sumptuous as well as more elaborate edition, the historical portion of which is not reprinted. In an appendix are given a few stray quatrains, including two that appeared in the first edition only, and some that appeared in the second only. The source or the inspiration of these has been detected in every case but one, concerning which Mr. Heron- Allen says that he can find for it neither authority nor inspiration.

A Short History of Switzerland. By Dr. Karl Dand- liker. Translated by E. Salisbury. (Sonnen- schein & Co.)

WHILE engaged upon the Swiss State Papers in the Public Record Office, Mr. Salisbury conceived the ambition to translate a good and trustworthy his- tory of Switzerland. With the sanction, and to some extent the assistance, of the author, he has