Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/303

 s. iii. APRIL is, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

297

oreigner would thus always be intelligible

o long as he followed this principle, although

n some other districts, such as Servia, the

osition of the accent, as MR. EAYMENT says,

-aries. A Servian would pronounce the above

names Miliitinovic, Vladisavlievic, Vese-

Hnovic, J6vanovic, O'bradovic, St6janovic,

"" r ukashinovic, Milashinovic.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

SPORTING GHOSTS (9 th S. ii. 504). M. Piganiol de la Force says, in 'Nouvelle De- scription de la France,' second edition, torn. vi. vol. vii. (Paris, F. Delaulne, 1722), p. 2 :-

"La Sologne est une autre etendue de pai's de mauvaise terre, qui ne produit quo du seigle, et s'etend depuis la Loire jusqu'au Cher. Les habitans sont managers, et se communiguent peu ; ce qui a donne lieu au proverbe, Niais de Sologne, qui ne se trompe qu'a son profit."

"Montfrault est tin Chateau si tue dans la foret de Boulogne, qu'on croit avoir ete une Maison Royale. Ce batiment est a une lieue ou environ de celui de Chambor [.s?'c]. La tradition du pais vetit que c'ait ete la demeure de la maitresse de quel- qu'un des Comtes de E\ois"Ibid. t p. 135.

"On voit encore aux environs de Blois les

Chateaux de Chaumont, d'Unzain, de Bury, &c.

II y a aupres de Bury un village appelle. Orchese,

Orchestra, Horreum Ccesaris, que ceux du pais

assurent avoir ete le Grenier de Cesar ; mais les

preuves qu'ils en rapporteiit sont trop foibles pour

i les en croire. Au bas du village on voit une grande

I ouverture de roche, au travers de laquelle coule un

gros ruisseau. Comme elle est fort obscure, et que

I le ruisseau coule avec un grand bruit, on a invent^

quantite de fables stir cette ouverture." Ibid.,

p. 138.

THOMAS J. JEAKES. Tower House, New Hampton.

STALLS IN THEATRES (8 th S. xii. 228, 290, 477). The idea of having stalls in theatres [appears to be earlier than the name now applied to them, for while it may be, as the ate Mr. Button Cook recorded in ' A Book of he Play,' that " stalls were first introduced it the Opera House in the Haymarket in the

ear 1829," the notion is to be found in a Durlesque poem which appeared in 1799 in he Morning Herald. This was 'Pandolfo \ttonito ! or, Lord G-11-w-y's poetical lamenta- ion 011 the removal of the armed chairs from he pit at the Opera House,' and the argu- nent reads thus :

" A month or two ago, Lord G-ll-w-y came to the pera, and on the pit door near the orchestra being pened, he perceived, to his confusion and astonish- lent, that a long bench was substituted in the lace of the row of armed chairs at the bottom of he pit, the principal or central of which he had filled ) many nights with discernment and dignity, and > the general satisfaction of everybody present, onceiving, rather hastily, that this measure was itended as a personal slight to himself, he retired

disconcerted, without taking his seat ; and, as he is a votary of the Muses, penned this Lamentation, which he sent to Lord S-l-sb-y the next day, and recovered his wonted good humour."

ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

MISSING PICTURE (9 th S. iii. 167, 236). There is a picture of the Earl of Peterborough, by (?) Dahl, at Buxted, in Sussex, formerly the property of Charles Cecil Cope, third and last Earl of Liverpool, and now in the possession of one of the Portman family.

ARTHUR F. G. LEVESON-GOWER.

" GANCANAGH " (9 th S. iii. 187) may have an Irish derivation for his name ; but the cha- racteristic habit of making love to the milk- maids was so suggestive of Krishna that I turned up some books of reference to see if that god could be identified under one of his many names. In Edward Balfour's ' Cyclo- paedia of India' (second edition, vol. iii., Madras, 1873, under the heading Krishna) I find the following facts. Krishna, who during his lifetime was deified under the title of Chrishna, or Shama, was more familiarly known as Kanya. He was fostered by an honest herdsman, named Ananda, or happy, and his amiable wife Yasoda, or the giver of honour, and passed the gay hours of youth dancing, sporting, and piping among a multitude of young gopa, or cowherds, and gopia, or milkmaids, from whom he selected nine favourites. Krishna excites enthusiasm, especially among his female worshippers. He spent his youth among the milkmaids, and the scenes of his gay amours are now reckoned as objects of the holiest veneration. The colour of this deity is azure, and several animals and vegetables of a black or blue colour are sacred to him.

I have not the linguistic knowledge neces- sary to determine whether a real affinity exists between Kanya and Gancanagh, but should be greatly interested to have an expert's opinion. Should such an affinity be allowed it would be curious to learn whether the colour blue or black, or the number nine, was in any way specially associated with Gancanagh. FRANK REDE FOWKE.

24, Victoria Grove, Chelsea, S.W.

THE STUDY OF DANTE IN AMERICA (9 th S. iii. 41). It would appear from a note in the Florentine edition of the ' Life of Dante ' by the archaeologist Moreni that Signer Luigi Scotti, the keeper of the drawings in the Eoyal Galleries at Florence, is entitled to a share in the credit of discovering the alleged portrait of Dante by Giotto in the Palazzo del Podesta at Florence. The following is the text of the note referred to :