Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/362

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

. m. MAY e, m

and the Earls of Lucan. I fail to see the simi- larity between the Bingham and Butler crests, and can find no connexion with the Le Gros- veneur family. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

MACKENZIE (9 fch S. ii. 408, 494). This name is really Mac Kennie (Mac Kenneth), but no Lowlander seems ever to treat the ante- penultimate letter other than as 2. Is not Menzies often thus pronounced by educated people in Scotland, and alternatively Ming-is, not Mengies 1 J. D.

Occasionally this name seems to have been

S'onounced, either provincially or locally, ackenyie, as the following quotations may show. The boys at Edinburgh used to go up to the mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie, in the Greyfriars Churchyard, -and call at the keyhole :

Bluidy Mackenyie, come oot if ye daur, Lift the sneck, and draw the bar !

In ' Wandering Willie's Tale ' in ' Redgaunt- let,' considered by Dean Stanley one of the most graphic scenes in the Waverley Novels, we read :

"There was the Bluidy Advocate MacKenyie, who for his worldly wit and wisdom had been to the rest as a god." Letter Eleventh.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

NAME AND COMPOSER OF SONG (9 th S. iii. 128, 213). The following song was published by Boosey & Co., 295, Regent Street: "Re- member or Forget. Words and music by Hamilton Aide." Probably the words were written in imitation of Christina Rossetti's 'Song.' The latter could be sung to the music of the former. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

St. Austin's, Warrington.

ROYAL ROADS TO KNOWLEDGE (9 th S. iii. 263). Proclus Diadochus (so called as being considered by his admirers the successor of Plato) was born A D. 412 and died 485. The passage to which MR. BUTLER refers will be found in the second book of the prologue to his commentary on the first book of Euclid (chap. iv. in Thomas Taylor's translation), where we read (Friedlein's edition, published at Leipzig in 1873, p. 68) :

yeyove Se ovros [i. e., Euclid] 6 dvyp kirl rov TTpatrov TLro\fiaLoV KCU yap 6 'Apxi/z^Sr/s 7rt/3aAu>v /cat ra> 7rpa>ra> i^vr/fjiovevet rov Kat fjievTOi KOL (f>a(rlv on HTO- Trore avrov, et rts eartv Trepi

6 Be direKptvaTO, CTTt yeco/urpiav.

eeVcu j3a.ari\.ii<r]V arpaTrov

But surely this is not contradictory to the explanation of the phrase in the ' Century Dictionary,' since Euclid probably intended to refer to such short or direct cuts in material roads, and to inform the king that he must not expect anything similar in the study of geometry. The late Dr. Cobham Brewer mentions the anecdote in his 'Dic- tionary of Phrase and Fable,' but perhaps Whitney wished to save space.

W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

ASPIDISTRA (9 th S. iii. 248). Wittstein (' Etymologisch - botanisches Handworter- buch ') says from " CCO-TTIS (Schild) und ao-rpov (Stern, Bild, Abbild), d. h. Schildahnlich, in Bezug auf die Narbe." Ker-Gawler, who introduced the name ('Botanical Register,' 1822, plate 628), gives no derivation, but the comments upon the form of the gynseceum he adds to his technical description seem to confirm Wittstein's suggestion. He says, "The pistillum reminds us of a mushroom in miniature," and he refers to "the large umbrella-shaped stigma"; here we have an j explanation of the first element in the name, and the star-like shape of the flower in the I figure satisfies the second element. At the ! same time Ker-Gawler supplies a clue to the train of thought that determined the name by his remark, "We are indebted to Mr. Brown for the suggestion of its affinity with Tupistra, a genus established some years ago by ourselves." This latter genus is described in Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1814, plate 1655, and the star-like outline of the whole flower and the top of its style sufficiently warrants its name. In describ- ing Tupistra Ker-Gawler says nothing about the derivation of the word, but speaks of the species which is the basis of the genus as the Amboyna Tupistra. Wittstein curiously mis- interprets this, and states (I.e., p. 908) as the etymology of Tupistra, " Name des Gewachses auf Amboyna." SENGA.

From Greek do-iriSiov, a little shield, dimin. of acrTrts, a shield, which the involucres of this tribe of ferns resemble. W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

MASS^NA (9 th S. iii. 188). With regard^o Benjamin Disraeli's statement that Massena and the most famous of the French marshals were Jews (vide ' Coningsby,' p. 250, new edition, Longmans, Green & Co., 1879), I may be permitted to direct attention to the fact that, in his reflection on the number of per- sons of Italian origin who have played pro- minent parts in France, Capt. the Hon,