Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/452

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. in. JUNE 10,

Hand (so called from a burn which had caused the sinews to contract), Cut Nose, No Knife, or White Forehead, from a scar. Nicknames might also be derived from biographical in- cidents, as Ta-shunk-ah-ko-ke-pah-pe, the Man afraid of his Horses. But the majority of names were given at birth and in a manner quite unique. When the child was born the father went out of the lodge and gave his boy the name of the first object which met his eyes. Thus we may account for curious names, such as We-lo-lon-nan-nai, the Forked Light- ning ; Ta-ton-ka-ig-oton-ka, Sitting Bull ; Mock-pe-lu-tah, Red Cloud; Black Kettle, Black Horse, Wolf that lies down, Crouching Panther, Big Eagle, Tall Bull, Little White Bear, Hairy Bear, or Black Hawk to give only the translations of some names, without inserting the polysyllabic forms given by Catling. ISAAC TAYLOR.

1 BEWARE THE CAT,' 1584. It is now rather more than forty years since a descrip- tion of this very curious old book, supposed to be unique, was given in 'N. & Q.' (1 st S. v. 318), and* in reply to the inquiry what had become of it since it was bought by the late Thomas Thorpe at the sale of Heber's books, it was suggested just a year after (1 st S. vii. 487) that it had probably been bought by Dr. Thackeray, of King's College, Cambridge, and given by mm with the rest of his black-letter books to the College Library. I do not know whether the inquiry was ever followed up ; at all events, nothing has ever appeared on the subject from that day till now in ' N. & Q.' Heber's copy was, as I have said, believed to be unique, and to this day I have never heard of any other. One thing is very certain, viz., that Dr. Thackeray never had Heber's copy, and therefore cannot have given it to King's College, for after being some time in Thorpe's hands it was bought by the late Mr. Corser, at whose sale in July, 1868, it was bought by Joseph Lilly. Beyond this I know nothing of it, and it may still be as Heber believed it to be, "unique." F. N.

P.S. Heber bought it at the Roxburghe sale in 1812.

EARNSHAW AND THEODORE HOOK. In ' The Life and Remains of Theodore Edward Hook,' by the Rev. R. H. Dalton Barham (best known as the author of the * Ingoldsby Legends '), there is an anecdote (p. 40) of the hero with a companion, when finding themselves money- less during a long ride, obtaining a dinner, though strangers, from Mr. E w at Ruislip by Hook's pretending that they had called owing to their wish to see so celebrated a

man. This anecdote is copied into Walford'j| ' Greater London,' vol. i. p. 243, and we ard told that Hook said to his companion that he knew only the name of the owner of the villa at which they were calling, and that he was "E w, the celebrated chronometer-maker, \vhc

?ot the 10,000. premium from Government and I hen wound up his affairs and his watches [the latter operation, we may remark, required repeti- tion, though the former did not] and retired from business."

There can be no object now in concealing the name of the chronometer-maker in question, it being evidently Thomas Earnshaw, who died in London in 1829. But it is not true that he i received 10,000/. from the Government. That ! sum had been offered for a means of deter- i mining the longitude satisfactorily ; and both Earnshaw and Arnold were awarded 3,000/. for their great improvements in the art of chronometer-making as a contribution towards the solution of the problem. W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.

PALGRAVE AS PROFESSOR OF POETRY. Re- viewing Miss Palgrave's biography of her | father, F. T. Palgrave, in Longman's for May, p. 94, Mr. Andrew Lang makes these ' observations :

"Mr. Palgrave's adventures with the Oxford Chair of Poetry suggest reflections. When Mr. Shairp left that tripod, Mr. Palgrave's uncle, Sir Francis Doyle, succeeded for ten years. Then there was a contested election between Mr. Pal- grave and his friend, Mr. Courthope (1885)."

As a matter of fact, Principal Shairp was Poetry Professor whenhediea, 17 Sept., 1885. He had held the post from 1877, when he i succeeded Sir Francis Doyle, who had been occupant of the chair during the previous ten years. When Principal Shairp's candi- dature for the post in 1877 was announced Palgrave, a likely and formidable rival, stood aside in his favour, and in due course his own turn came. THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, KB.

TWENTY BEST BOOKS. In spite of their world-wide empire a cosmopolitan taste in literature does not appear to characterize the British public. I find that Truth has been \ soliciting its readers for a list of the best , twenty books, and that thirteen of these are English. Happy land that has produced so i many masterpieces when all other countries together have produced so few. France, "great in all the arts, in none supreme," furnishes one name Moliere to the list; i modern Germany, so distinguished for learn- ing and philosophy, nothing not even Heine's | poems ; Italy, two, Virgil and Dante ; Greece, ' one, Homer; Spain, nothing; Scandinavia,