Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/207

 I

s. in. MAR.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 64.

TOTES : Mr. Sainthill, 201' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy,' 202 Ballad A Proud Motto, 204 Cow-rake" ' ' Benicke " Alexander Fyf e Batavia ' Mg\o' 205 " Stock"' Collectio Kegia Conciliorum,' 206.

JUBRIBS .Marks in Old Churches Mutterd Halliday 'Terrse Filius" St. Jordan St. Cross Priory, 207 ' -ington " Welsh Custom ' Mulieres non Homines sse ' Cricket Knocker Rabelais Witchcraft The 1 Decade " Kipling's ' Recessional ' : ' Dulce Domum ' 'The Spiteful Letter' Quotations Alderney Taxes G. Aldrych Day of Worfield, 208 Bishop Hooper- Newton Heraldic Cambridge Verses, 209.

REPLIES: The Provinces, 209 White Money, 210 " Faro w" Montaigne and East Anglia " Catching the peaker's eye" 'Tom Tit Tot' Wollaston Arms, 211 ' Child-bed pew " Parliament Cakes Walpole Scandal ifrey Box Armorial East India Company" Sween," 12 Ball Game Cecil Name of Song Shakspeare's [mitations of his Own Characters " Bob-baw," 213 in Register " Rodfall " Playing Cards on a Church Tower Roman Numerals Caxon " Three acres and a cow," 214 Johnson and Tea-drinking Sanderson His- rical Parallel " Horse-Marine," 215 David Andre ite "Cirage" Date of 'Julius Caisar,' 216 Three sters married at Once Book Terms, 217 Author Wanted " Vestigia nulla retrorsum "Authors Wanted, 218.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Crawley-Boevey's Perverse Widow' Arbuthnot's ' Lord Clive ' Hiatt's ' Beverley Minster ' Farmer's Nash's ' Choise of Valentines ' Suckling's 'A Forgotten Past' 'Journal of the Ex-Libris Society.'

Notices to Correspondents.

MR. SAINTHILL AND HIS BASQUE

STUDIES. (See ante, p. 109.)

SINCE the preceding communication was published I have received another note from Dr. Garnett and a copy of Mr. Sainthill's letter, with permission to publish both. Here is the first :

British Museum, London, W.C., Feb. 9, 1899. DEAR MR. DODGSON, I have much pleasure in sending you a transcript of Mr. Sainthill's letter, which is addressed, you will see, to no less distin- guished a person than Sir Thomas Browne. I hope you will publish it somewhere ; but do not give me the credit of the discovery, for it was noticed by Mr. Edward Scott, Keeper of MSS., who mentioned it to me. It is one of the MSS. bequeathed to the Museum by Sir Hans Sloane, and attracted Mr. Scott's attention as he was revising the catalogue of these MSS. One would think that the treatise which accompanied the letter ought still to be in existence somewhere. Perhaps you may know something about Don Rafael Micoleta; we have not found any trace of him here. Is the Basque language still spoken in Bilbao ? Perhaps you would find Literatiire a suitable medium for communi- cations on Basque subjects.

Believe me very truly yours,

R. GARNETT.

Here it must be remarked that in his first note on the subject the learned librarian made

a mistake in calling Sainthill the compiler of the treatise in question, and that in this he has temporarily forgotten that Micoleta's work exists in the Harleian Collection at the British Museum, numbered 6314, and that a second, but not quite perfect, edition of it was published at Seville in January, 1897, and bears the number 779, in the ' Essai d'une Bibliographic de la Langue Basque,' par Julien Vinson (Paris, 1898). The book has already been referred to in * N. & Q.' (8 th S. xi. 168, 258), where it will be seen that Mr. Owen Brigstocke obtained the manuscript from his father-in-law, the author of ' Keligio Medici.' Basque, not generally of fine quality, is still spoken in Bilbao ; but mostly not by natives of the town. There is a class for teaching it there, too, in the Institute de Biscaya. The professor, however, considers Micoleta's valu- able dictionary (the oldest we have except two or three small glossaries) and interesting dialogue as sandeces. He has written nothing more precious himself. Of Micoleta I have been unable to obtain any information beyond that given in the following letter (Sloane 4062, f. 147) :

London the (sic) of March. 1661. HONOURED SIR When Mr. Skottow commu- nicated to us your desire concerning those little treatises in the Cantabrian Language, I were soe strangely pleased that, as I remember, I hardly forbore imbracing my selfe as supposing I might bee seruiceable to you therein beyond what I thought any other could; and indeed I could then only suppose itt, for my papers had laine from my view 6 or 7 yeares at Exeter. Tho, since, I have gott them, and perfected soe much as I found done to my hand by the Compiler D. Rafael de Micoleta, a preist and our only Poet in Biscay. I suppose on Perusall of the Dialogues (which I thinck are the same with those in Minshewes Dictionary) you will finde many Spanish words interwoven with this Basquence. This being that which is usually spoken in their cheifest towne, Bilbao, where, since the trade and commerce with Casteele, the men gener- ally converse in Spanish. Only the women, children and servants retaine their native tongue, as hauing lesse opportunity to discourse with strangers, yet not without mixture, as I noted before. However the Countrey People of this Province are not less denoted then most Mountaneers to the language and customes of their Progenitours, for, from their Towne of Bilbao to the sea their countrey being diuided by a small Riuer, in noe place more than 1 of a mile ouer, in many places within the reach of a stones-cast, those Biscayners which Hue on the one side and speake only Basquence, tho they con- verse daily with those of the other side by supplying them with Prouissions and other necessaries, Yet are they soe farr from any inclination to innovate that, abating only the quantity of money in their Prices as from 1 to 20 or soe, they are to one the other perfect Barbarians ! For their customes, you have seen them in Heyling. Sir, I should be fully satisfied if in this Booke you finde that which may any way answer your expectacion, which I might