Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/330

 324

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. HI. APRIL 29,

Other striking words and phrases in this same pamphlet are :

1. In a characterization of Hugh Peters, "whose courage was not inferiour to any of these transported Servants of Christ." Parti, chap, xxxiv. p. 79.

2. "Artillery-garden," used twice in part iii. chap, xxvi., apparently as the equivalent of the French pare d'artillerie.

3. Part iii. chap. v. :

"not deluding any by keeping their profession in huggermug"

4. To inch out = to eke out, in part ii. chap. xxi. p. 173 :

"parchit Indian corn incht out with chestnuts and bitter Acorns."

5. Part i. chap. xlii. p. 101 :

"the wants of this Wildernesse, and pinching

penury in misse of Bread, the misse of the

Administration of Christ in his Word and Ordi- nances."

Here misse means absence or lack, as again at the opening of the following chapter (xliii.) :

" the sorrowful complaint of a poore soule in misse of its expectation at landing."

This last passage goes far, I think, to justify the existence of miss as a noun.

6. Ibid. chap. xliv. :

" buzzing our people in the eare with a thing they call liberty."

7. Ibid. chap. xli. p. 97 :

"seeing there will be occasion to bring in a bedroule of these Blasphemies in the yeare (43) and (44) take the lesse here."

8. Ibid. p. 98 :

"It is better, say the Protestant Prelates, to have (a blind Sir John) one that cannot tell how to Preach, provided he will conforme to our cere- monies."

9. Ibid. chap, xxxvi. p. 83 :

"the first yeare beares them a very thin crop, till the soard of the Earth be rotten."

The book abounds in quaint terms ; but the above are those which may merit the attention of lexicographers, and as such I submit them.

Louis DYEE.

Balliol College, Oxford.

P.S. I am advised to add the peculiar form grutch = grudge, to be found in part i. chap, xxxviii. p. 89.

'.MEDICAL WOEKS OF THE FOUETEENTH CENTUEY.' (See ante, p. 178.) I am indebted to the notice at the above reference for an introduction to this interesting and valuable work. It is not for me to add anything to what is there said in appreciation of it ; but I may perhaps be able to clear up one or two points in the book itself.

On p. 20 there is a receipt for an ointment

composed of " brynston " and oil of " eyryn." The latter word is noted " meaning obscure," but there can be little doubt that oil of eggs is meant. _ " Eyryn " as the plural of " egg " occurs again on p. 30, and oil of eggs is met with in our older dispensatories. Culpeper gives the receipt for it.

On p. 119 "armenyke" is glossed "am- moniac," but I suspect that Armenian bole is meant. The passage reads :

" If thou wilt have it red, take a vnce of sanink dragun, and grynd as mekyl of Armenyke, and do ther-to bitt ne vertegrese."

Evidently " Armenyke " is prescribed for its colour, and the form " bool Armanyk " is quoted in the vocabulary from another MS.

C. C. B.

TWEED AND TILL. When annotating Scott's ' Marmion ' in 1889 for the "Clarendon Press Series of English Classics," I said of the " sullen Till " (canto vi. 1. 583) that it drowned three men for every one that was drowned by the Tweed. 1 have always been rather ashamed of this blunder, which was due to imperfect recollection sustained by an un- warrantable conviction of accuracy. Now, however, there is some little comfort in find- ing that Mr. Andrew Lang, a Borderer, has made the same slip. In an article on ' Cup and Ring' in the Contemporary Review for March, p. 400, he says that he once examined certain " scalps " of whinstone, in a district familiar to pilgrims to Flodden ; and he con- tinues thus :

" It was a lonely spot, where victual never grew ; about us were the blue heights of the Cheviots, below us the fabuloms amnis of Till, that drowns three men to one drowned by Tweed."

Now, according to Dr. Robert Chambers, who gives Sir Walter Scott's recitation in his hearing as the authority, the following is the legendary weird dialogue of the two rivers :

Tweed said to Till :

"What gars ye rin sae still?"

Till said to Tweed :

" Though ye rin wi' speed,

And I rin slaw,

Yet where ye droun ae man,

I droun twa ! "

See Chambers's 'Popular Rhymes of Scot- land,' p. 207. The obvious if trite reflection in the circumstances is that the rule which inculcates the need of verification should admit of no exceptions. THOMAS BAYNE.

THE SWALLOW. The following passage from the Board of Agriculture's leaflet No. 55, which has just been circulated, seems to call for a word of comment :

"This bird is sometimes called the 'chimney' swallow, sometimes the 'barn' swallow. Macgii-