Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/352

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. in. MAY e, m

quotations are interesting to all students of language. It seems evident that the monetce minutissimce of the Italians were worth about as much as a red cent, a doit, or something less than a stiver. But, after all, was the bagattino a moneta immaginaria ? If so, how could Brother Roland's gold medals be valued at 17,000 pounds of bagattini ?

JAMES HOOPER. Norwich.

" SNACKS." The Academy of 1 April notes a letter by Prof. Skeat in a recent issue of the Daily Telegraph concerning this word, which came to light in a police case, in which it was said two women threw "nasty snacks" at each other. On this Prof. Skeat wrote :

" It is one of the numerous instances which show how Scandinavian we are. Turning to the 'Danish Dictionary,' we find ftnakke, ' to prate, chatter ' ; snakke over sig, 'to talk wildly'; snakke-broder, ' a chatterbox,' lit. ' a snack - brother ' ; snaknom, 'talkative.' The 'Norwegian Dictionary' tells us that such terms are very common in the west and north of Norway."

It may be worth while saying that snack is a very common word in orainary speech, though hardly in the sense given in connexion with the police case. Folks take " a snack " of something to eat the first thing in the morning, and food taken out of the ordinary course is " having a snack " not a full meal. One of two boys picks up or finds something, and his companion calls out " Snacks ! " or " Ah '11 goo th' snacks !" meaning equal shares. A person hitting another a blow gives him "a snack." Other instances may be given, but these are sufficient to show that " snack " is in every-day speech, and not in all cases exactly of the nature of " slang." A kin-word is " snag." Some women are always " snag- ging" at their husbands, and some couples "snag" the livelong day. Halliwell deals with "snack" and "snag" to a certain extent. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

'TARTUFE.' From an interesting note to the ' Meraoires sur la Vie de Ninon de Lenclos ' (Paris, Gamier, no date) it appears that Mo- liere, when writing his comedy of ' Tartufe,' called one day at the Nuncio's before he had decided what name to give to his celebrated impostor, where he noticed two ecclesiastics of a taciturn and sanctimonious air, in whose features he fancied he detected indi- cations of a lack of sincerity. He thought they presented a tolerably good type of the character he purposed to sketch. It happened at the time that some one entered selling truffles, whereupon one of these ecclesiastics who knew a little Italian, on hearing the

word truffe, discarded the devout silence h- had hitherto maintained, and exclaimed a he proceeded to select the choicest of th esculents with a countenance beaming witl satisfaction, " Tartuffoli, tartuffoli, Signo Nuncio." The incident seemed pleasant to i careful observer like Moliere, and he resolve< to give the name of Tartufe to his hypocrite

B. D. MOSELEY. Burslem.

SIR WALTER SCOTT. In that entertaining gallery of bygone literary celebrities entitle< 'The Maclise Portrait Gallery' (Chatto <i Wind us), the letterpress of which is from th< facile and lively pen of Mr. William Bate, (a former contributor to ' N. & O.,' to whos< pages he many times acknowledges himsel to be indebted), there occurs on pp. 36, 37 th< following :

" As History repeats herself so does Biography I round off these necessarily desultory illustration; of the great writer [Sir Walter Scott] by the cita tion of an extraordinary epigram, which, whethe it is to be regarded as a record or a prophecy, cer tainly merits preservation. All that I know of i i is that it is ascribed to ' an old Greek poet wh( I flourished after the time of Hesiod.' \ follows :

"El/ (TKOTiq. 2KOT02 7TTO KCU <tOS ?jfK

Kt'/cA^o-Kov fjilv "AI2TON 6'ov /cAeos

t'/cei.

Which Mr. Bates translates thus : In Scotland there was Scott, and a man emergec

to-day ;

They called him the Unknown, and his fame to heaven made way.

Literary hoaxes are, unfortunately, nol! unknown even in our own day, and inasmuch as, mirabile dictu ! in this very paper he tells) us that several of these were played off upon Sir Walter with some success, I am wondering j whether Mr. Bates was not himself similarly! trapped. In fact, on turning up the word! o-KOTia I find it means " darkness."

M. L. BRESLAR.

Percy House, South Hackney.

[Mr. Bates does not seem to have known Greek well: the epigram as given by him and our corre- spondent will not do. ' Iliad,' viii. 192, enables us to correct an obvious mistake in the second line,; and iiTTtTO for I-KITO will put things right in the first,]

EPITAPH AT DROGHEDA. The Irish epitaph which follows has no doubt been published, but this version may be worth giving. It is from an original MS. in my possession, and is apparently a record made upon the spot. The MS. is headed 'Journal of a Tour through parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, made in June and July, A.P. 1792,'