Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/489

 9 th S. III. JUN

UNE2V99.] NOTES AND QUEEIES.

483

c )inions would be regarded with jealous s ispioion. Possibly Rosalind was as staunch a id enthusiastic in her convictions as Spen- S .clesiastical parties were so bitterly divided in their views and ritual. It is only con- jecture on ray part, yet I am strongly inclined to think that Rosalind rejected the youthful poet not because he may have been in comparatively poor circum- stances, but, in greater likelihood, on account of his determined and maybe occasionally too assertive Puritanism. Also, we can scarcely doubt that priestly influence and the persistent advice of relatives and friends would be brought to bear on the impression- able mind of the maiden in order to induce her to discountenance the wooing of the Church of England Puritan.

We can hardly think that this visit to the home of his ancestors was, upon the whole, a very happy one, seeing he bore away memories associated with the spot as painful as any a sensitive heart is called upon to endure. Here, indeed, in the romantic glens arid on the sweet fields of Hurstwood began a life- long sorrow. Alas ! sad also were the closing years of the great poet, sad exceedingly, embittered with more tragic suffering. As the reader knows, Kilcolman Castle, in Ire- land, was sacked and burnt to the ground, a new-born babe perished in the flames, and Spenser, just able to save and bring away his wife, escaped with difficulty to England, but with shattered prospects and a broken heart. He died, a contemporary said, for lack of bread. He lies in West- minster Abbey, near the grave of Chaucer, his most illustrious forerunner. F.

PEAT. The etymology of this unknown word is so hopeless that even one ray of light may be acceptable. I tried to identify it with beat in the prov. E. sense of " the rough sod of moorland"; but the 'H.E.D.' tells us that this suggestion " is incompatible with the history of peat, g.v." What the history of peat is we must wait to see.

Meanwhile there is a quotation in Ducange, s.v. petaria, which must not be ignored. He says : "Petaria, locus unde eruuntur Petoe, species cespitis nigri, qui e terra palustri et bituminosa eflbditur, forte a Belgico Pet vel Put, Lacus, locus palustris." He then quotes from two charters, one of which seems to be English, and the other is given by Rymer (xiii. 63) as a charter of Margaret of Scotland,

an. 1503. The latter has: "Cum pisca-

tionibus, Petariis, turbariis, carbonariis," &c. Hence it is clear that petaria means a place where peat is dug, and that it is a barbarous Latin word, used in England, hardly older (I suppose) than 1500.

Ducange also gives peta, which is simply the Latin form of our pent : " Leges Bur-

gorum Scotic. cap. 38 : Nullus debet

namare illos, qui portant boscum, turbas, vel Petas ad vendendum, nisi pro bosco, Petis, vel turbis, seu propriis debitis suis."

My suggestion is that peat is an English rendering of a barbarous Law-Latin term peta; and that peta and petaria are nothing but new formations from the M.M.put,pet, or pit, a pit, which is known to have been simply borrowed in very early times from L&t.puteus. If this be so, peat is merely pit, but success- fully disguised by being turned into Law- Latin, and then again Anglicized. This is more likely, I think, than the suggestion in Ducange that we borrowed the word from Holland, though the result is much the same.

I am induced to think that something of the kind took place by a consideration of the word turbary, which is a mere derivative of the Law-Latin turba. And surely turba, also spelt turf a and turva (i.e., turva\ is nothing but the E. turf done into dog-Latin. The numerous references given in Ducange, s.v. turba, are of considerable value, and should be duly considered when peat comes to be treated in the ' H.E.D.'

In Koolman's ' E. Friesic Diet.' we find this

ntry, which seems to give some help, s.v.

put, a pit : " Piitten in 't mor, war de torf

utgrafen is," i.e., a pit in the moor where the

turf is dug out. WALTER W. SKEAT.

SHAKSPEARE AND M. ROSTAND. Among Cyrano's quips and cranks which "all who understood admired, and some who did not understand them," was one already referred bo in ' N". & Q.' in the utterance of which Shakespeare had allowed Jack Cade to an- ticipate him. Even in Shakespeare's time it seems to have been necessary to hammer it nto the audience, but then there was no claque to lead the laughter. While Cyrano, in replying to the exclamation of the hungry cadet before Arras, " Oh ! manger quelque shose a 1'huile," says no more, as he places lis helmet in his hand, than "Ta salade," Jack Cade in Iden's garden says all this :

" But now I am so hungry that if I might have a ease of my life for a thousand years I could stay no onger. Wherefore on a brick wall have I climbed nto this garden, to see if I can eat grass or pick a iallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather, And I think this