Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/44

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. in. JAN. u, m

Bordeaux. High mass was celebrated with much ostentation, and a novena for the return of the enfant du miracle took place. A ball was an- nounced, to which nobody but those who wore green and white ribbons should be admitted, and the ball-room was to be decorated in these colours. The tri-colour was to be trampled under foot ; and some young people of the party paraded the streets in tri-coloured slippers. The authorities interfered, and the ball was prevented."

EDWARD PEACOCK.

THE CONVENTIONALIZED TARTAR CLOUD (9 th S. ii. 529). The inquirer's tentative explanation of an obscure passage in K. Kip- ling is ingenious, but incorrect. The following extract is from the Allahabad Pioneer of 3 Jan., 1882. The writer describes a carpet on view at the Lahore Exhibition of In- dustrial Art. The fabric was copied from a Central Asian original :

"The copyists seem to have misunderstood the meaning of the wavy lines in the middle ground ; these wavy lines being a variation of what is known as the ' Tartar Cloud, a conventional representation of clouds in the sky. The Byzantine and other clouds are different."

The inquirer should study the cloud-effects in Chinese and Persian landscapes, and Mr. Kipling should refrain from obscurities which necessitate a reference to ' X. & Q.'

AMICUS.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.

Edited by Dr. James A. H. Murray. Heel

Hod. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) THIS double part of the 'Historical English Die tionary ' is one of the most interesting and attractive yet published. To the close student of the language the "numerous pronominal words derived from and connected with the pronoun he " will, we are told, specially commend it. We do not dispute the fact, but are ourselves most interested in the picturesque words and phrases with which the section abounds. Such words are represented by hey-day, hist, hoar, hobby-horse, hocus-2)ocus, hidalgo, and scores of others. As we turn over the pari we find every page make more or less direct appea" to us, and we mark with gratitude the forms oi speech to be generally avoided, as springing fron mental confusion on the part of their originators A specimen of such is the substitution of high day which, of course, has a meaning of its own for hey-day, of which in some senses it is a pervertec form. Misuse of the kind is sanctioned by Shakspeare Smollett, Fletcher, "Tom" Brown, Motteux (in his translation of Rabelais), and Merivale (in his ' Roman Empire '). Hiccough, again, instead o hiccup, is a late spelling, due to the erroneou impression that the second syllable is cough. 1 has not affected the received pronunciation, ant ought, we are told, to be abandoned as a men error. One is interested to find that hickory, " th<_ wild walnut or hiquery tree," should, in fact, b

pohickory, and is first met with in 1653 in that form. An excellent article is that on hie, the most familiar sage of which in the present century is to hasten. oncerning the curious combination higgleay- nggledy little is to be learnt. It is described as " a iniing compound of obscure origin," and is said to e "mainly an example of vocal gesture, the odd onformation of the word answering to the thing [escribed. " Whether a reference is intended to he disorderly fashion in which pigs huddle together s not decided. Under high we have the collo- luialism "on the high ropes," no instance of the use of which is advanced before 1700. Weshouldhaye anticipated a more remote antiquity. Attention is. drawn in the introductory note to the combinations ligh- church and high -churchman. The sense of 'alutin in high falutin is not clear. The word is not leard of before 1848, which does away with the onjecture, apt to press upon one, that falutin might >e due to a confusion between / and s in saluting. The high saluting of a herald is, at least, kindred with the high-falutin style. We will not venture to press a derivation of the sort in a work such as this. What is said concerning the origin of High-Street is of historical importance. HigMy- tighty is a variant of hoity-toity, which in the pre- sent part is not quite reached. Under hind and hinder much historical information is supplied. Going back a little in the alphabet, we find the word henmn, used to indicate the very picturesque head- dress, high and conical in shape, with a muslin veil attached to it, which was used in France in the fifteenth century. This is curious as an instance of survival in English of a word denoting a thing. French not to be found in Littre, What is in France the name of the headgear pretty and picturesque, if portentous we are unable to say. Questions of interest concerning the silent h are naturally abundant. Many words of four syllables- are given with the accent on the antepenultimate, before which an is substituted for a. In the case of heretical and hermetical no instance of the use of the word with the indefinite article is advanced. Dryden has " a heroical degree," which, of course, is wrong. In the case of historical it is other : " An historical Arthur " is used by J. S. Stuart-Glennie in. the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' and W. Bates speaks

of "an historical knowledge." Under ' Hist !' we would have for our own satisfaction Juliet's " Hist ! Romeo, hist!" There are in the present part 13,768 quotations against 2,021 in the 'Century Dictionary.' The whole of the letter H is, it is consoling to hear, now ready, and will be issued to the world by 1 July. We may urge upon our readers that the discussion of words such as hench- man, long prosecuted in pur columns, may be aban- doned, the latest decisions of exact knowledge being now substituted for wild and often futile conjectures.

Jerome Cardan : a Biographical Study. By W. G.

Waters. (Lawrence & Bullen.) AMONG those who in autobiographies have sought to put themselves before the public in what pretend to be, or are, their true colours, Jerome Cardan or, to give him his real name, Girolamo Cardano is one of the most sincere and outspoken. While the revelations of Rousseau to take the most dis- tinguished of self - analysts are founded upon sentiment rather than conscientiousness, and con- cern others as much as himself, and while those of Casanova to take the most libertine partake