Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/361

 S. III. MAY 6, '99.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

355

by walls (as disclosed by the excavations on site), a larger number, by far, than ha >een found on any other Roman site in Britain } erhaps I may quote from my book that

1 ; a term more appropriate than sel, to qualify thi ( hester of mansions and palaces and dwellings, coul( i.ot have been devised."

MR. HARRISON states :

"As in the case of most of the other chesters an< < esters in this country, the first element of Sitcheste is beyond all reasonable doubt a relic of Celtii nomenclature."

Doubtless many place-names with Chester a? the substantival element have a Celtic prefix but the only other place-name cited by MR HARRISON of which Chester is an element is Woodchester, the prefix of which is certainly Saxon not Celticand a Saxon prefix to th< Saxon chester is not exceptional. MR. HARRI SON cites Woodchester as a place-name iden tical with Silchester in signification each meaning the chester in the wood. I will em ploy the same name Woodchester as illustra tive of the identity (not of signification but of the process of the naming of the two places The Saxons, finding a chester in a wood in Gloucestershire, defined it as the wood chester from wud-u, a word in their own language meaning a collection of growing trees. Find- ing a chester in Hampshire covered with dwelling-houses, the Saxons defined it as the r /-house chester ; in their own language sel ceaster, sel meaning a dwelling-house.

MR. HARRISON'S other comment that re- lative to my statement " Not a single Roman place-name has survived " would, treated exhaustively, occupy too much of your space; but I may explain that I did not, when making the statement, overlook the neigh- bouring Speen and its Roman name Spince. I was inclined to cite Speen as a possible exception a possible survival but as I had much information (though as yet incomplete) which seemed to point to a Saxon derivation I of the name Speen, I was impelled to regard Spince as a Roman place-name that had gone the way of all others. FREDERICK DAVIS. I Palace Chambers, Westminster.

"WORLD WITHOUT END" (9 th S. ii. 525). Might I supplement MR. LYNN'S note on the 'oregoing 1 I am aware it is only reslay ing the slain to show up the philological iniquities of the noun D^IJJ alone, quite a batch of inomalies might be produced without any Difficulty ; but with regard to the cita- tions from Psalm xlv. 7 (not 17, as printed tit the above reference) and Isa. xlv. 17, ^overdale's transcription is most unscien-
 * he early translators of the A.V. With respect

tific ; Wycliffe's is not much happier ; the Douay (which Kitto adheres to in the Psalms and rejects for Coverd ale's in Isaiah) is clearer in rendering, neater in expression, yet not quite perfect. I doubt much whether it can possibly be improved upon in the vernacular ; all others seem cumbrous beside it. Benisch apparently consulted Gesenius, keeping at any rate to accuracy.

The confusion has arisen from misapplica- tion of the proper signification of Oulom, pi. Oulamim, pi. gen. Oulmi. It is used in four separate senses in Scripture: (1) world, (2) time past, (3) period or time, (4) eternity. No. 1 is sparsely, No. 4 is abundantly ex- emplified there. "Binim yemmi oulom" is an example of No. 2 ; " ay ved oulom " of No. 3 ; "achuzass oulom" of No. 4. No. 4 is mostly found conjointly with ahd= eternity, in which case its application should never be in doubt by any one. Therefore a literal and not less beautiful rendering of Ps. xlv. 7 would be, "Thy throne, O God, is from eternity to eternity," using No. 4 sense, and of Isa. xlv. 17 would be, "as long as the ages of eternity shall be," using No. 3 sense.

M. L. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney.

BINGHAM ARMORIAL (9 th S. iii. 48). What authority has T. W. C. for the existence of a " village of Bingham in Dorset "? Hutchins's 'History of Dorset' knoweth it not. There is Bingnam's Melcombe, a charming manor- house. It is, however, Bingham's no more. It was sold out of the family a few years ago, after being Bingham's for six hundred years. And there are " Bingham's Lands " in Map- powder parish and elsewhere, perhaps, but no village named Bingham in the county, as far as " we Do'set " ever heard.

H. J. MOULE.

Dorchester.

The family of Bingham were thought to be

of Saxon origin, but now they are considered
 * o be descended from De Binsli (from Binsli

or Binly, near Neuchatel in Normandy), rloger de Busliasco, circa 1086, held the lonour of Tickhill, also held Sutton, co.

Somerset, from Roger de Arundel, and one his lordships was Bingham, co. Notts. The elder branch ended with Idonea, who

married Robert de Vipont, and carried the Kckhill estate into that family. A younger ranch then held Bingham, and about the r ear 1166 John de Bingham witnessed various barters, and from that period the family

issumed that designation. The lordship of 3ingham was forfeited soon after 1199. From ohn descended Robert, Bishop of Salisbury,