Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/219

 s. in. MAB. is, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the county seems to be rich in the remains of old language. S. O. ADDY.

The question whether this word is con- nected with sweal or swale must be a matter for others to decide ; but as regards the latter, the following, from Grose and Pegge's ' Pro- vincial Glossary,' may be noted :

"Swale or sweal, to singe or burn ; as to sweal a hog ; a sweal'd cat, a cat whose hair or fur is singed off, by sleeping in the ashes. Sweal is also some- times applied to a candle that drozes and melts, called in Middlesex, flaring, Ab. A.-S. Sivcelan, to kindle, or set on fire ; to burn. [North and South country usage.]"

C. P. HALE.

In Yorkshire the word scale is used for the same process. W. C. B.

May not this word have some association with sweat, used transitively, and meaning to cause an exudation of moisture from the skin by the application of a sudorific 1

E. G. CLAYTON.

Richmond, Surrey.

BALL GAME (9 th S. ii. 509). The Italian game of calcio is described (with a reference to an Italian book of 1688) in the second volume of the Misses Horner's 'Walks in Florence' (1873) at pp. 9, 10.

KOBT. J. WHITWELL. 70, Banbury Road, Oxford.

CECIL (9 th S. ii. 168, 238, 275, 512 ; iii. 34, 154). A manuscript of the Civil War period, relating to Monmouthshire, which I am copy- ing for the Cardiff Free Library, contains mention of the Sitsyllt family of that county. In 1644 Philip Cecill, gent., at Lantilio Cresiny, contributed 16 Ib. of bread for the victualling of Royalist garrisons ; and in the following year two pecks of " mault " for the garrison of Raglan Castle. The Sitsyllts, or Cecils, of Alltyrynys, have left the names of very numerous descendants, both in the male and female lines, in the parish registers and on the tombstones of East Monmouth- shire and West Herefordshire. There are many traditions concerning the family in the folk-lore of the district to the east of Abergavenny. Thus, at Llwyndu, where a branch of the Sitsyllts at one time resided, the representative of the family is said to have been carried off to the infernal regions on a flaming diabolical steed. This is a legend current, in a district teeming with Catholic traditions, concerning one who had conformed to Protestantism and persecuted his former co-religionists. The Welsh origin of Lord Salisbury's branch of the family is remembered in Monmouthshire, and the

popular account of the martyrdom of the Yen. David Lewis (alias Baker), S.J., of Abergavenny, in 1689, mentions the priest's relationship to Cecil, Lord Burleigh.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

NAME AND COMPOSER OP SONG (9 th S. iii. 128). These words are a garbled version of a lyric by Christina Rossetti entitled ' Song.' Is it not high time that a vigorous protest should be made against the way in which composers of songs alter the productions of our poets to suit the conveniences of music which is too frequently a mere burden to the words rather than an interpreter 1 Perhaps in this case, however, BOJUM quotes from memory, and the fault does not lie with the composer, whoever he may be.

FRED. G. ACKERLEY.

Mayfield Road, Eccles.

Although I cannot answer BOJUM'S ques- tions, I recognize the lines he quotes as muti- lated members of a poem by Christina Rossetti. May this information help him to track the murderer ! ST. SWITHIN.

SHAKSPEARE'S IMITATIONS OF HIS OWN CHARACTERS (9 th S. ii. 246). MR. YARDLEY does not appear to have read the articles by Mr. Harris in the Saturday Review on * The Real Shakespeare.' Mr. Harris contends that Shakespeare is himself

" the protagonist in thirteen of his chief plays : In 'Love's Labour 's Lost ' he is Biron. In ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Valentine. In ' Romeo and Juliet,' Romeo. In ' As You Like It,' Jaques. In ' Twelfth Night,' the Duke. In ' Hamlet,' Hamlet. In ' Measure for Measure,' the Duke. In ' Julius Caesar,' Brutus. In 'Macbeth,' Macbeth (!). In ' Troilus and Cressida,' Troilus. In ' Timon,' Timon. In ' Cymbeline,' Posthumus. In ' The Tempest,' Duke Prospero."

Mr. Harris also sees (or thinks he sees) the " real Shakespeare " in many of the minor characters, as, for instance, in Lorenzo, in Claudio, in Cassio, and in Edgar. If he sees truly, this will account for many of the resemblances MR. YARDLEY finds in the plays ; but one is hardly prepared to accept Mr. Harris's view all at once, though possibly there is something in it. C. C. B.

'BOB-BAW" (9 th S. ii. 226, 354, 491). In my young days, in Derbyshire in the forties, this word was used (and is probably still used) to children with much the same sense as the 'taboo" of the South Sea islanders. If a