Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/499

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m. JUXE 24,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

493

I

might spoil the general harmony. The pur- suit of the same sound through a series of lines may be remarked in Shakspeare's most melodious passages. There is very much harmony in the sound of s before another consonant. A few instances will show this : Asbestos, Asdrubal, Aspramont, Carapaspe, Caspian, Esmeralda, Istamboul. The first of the above words is entirely without liquids, yet it is very harmonious. It owes its euphony to the sb and the st. E. YARDLEY.

THE MAGNETIC POLE (9 th S. iii. 447). This expression is not strictly accurate, as there are doubtless two magnetic poles ; but the locality of the southern is not exactly known. The northern was discovered in Boothia Felix on 1 June, 1831, when Lieut, (after- wards Sir) James Clark Koss, whilst on a voyage under the command of his uncle Sir John Koss, took part in a sledging expedition, and came upon a spot (longitude and latitude as given in Black) near the west coast of that peninsula where the needle stood exactly vertical. W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

The discoverer was Sir John Ross, on 1 June, 1831 :

"Long. 96 40' 45" west, lat. 70 5' 17", within 1 min. of the Magnetic Pole. Total inaction of horizontal needles delicately suspended. Amount of dip, 89 59'. On low land near the coast." Ross's 'Arctic Expedition,' 1 vol. 4to., London, 1835.

ALDENHAM.

LIDDELL AND SCOTT (9 th S. iii. 466). The form in which the epigram reached me many years ago was :

Two men wrote a lexicon,

Liddell and Scott ; One of them knew Greek,

The other did not.

Whether this agrees with the original or not I cannot say. It is certainly more pointed than the form quoted by ST. SWITHIN.

SAMUEL E. GARDINER.

BASILICAS (9 th S. iii. 276, 322, 449). The question lies in a nutshell. In the first century Jewish synagogues and pagan courts of justice were constructed on the same model. Is it more probable that the pri- mitive Christians built their churches on the plan of the synagogues where they had been accustomed to. worship, or on the plan of the places where they were summoned for condemnation ? MR. BADDELEY thinks that the one, while I think that the other, is the more consonant with the laws that govern human nature. In the fifth century the now dominant Christians doubtless appropriated

any buildings they could get hold of, even heathen temples, as in the case of the duomo at Syracuse, constructed out of a temple of Minerva. The resemblance to the type of the pagan basilica may then have caused the transference of the name to a building whose origin had been forgotten. ISAAC TAYLOR.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: 'GuY MANNERING' (9 th S. iii. 188, 429).

" Timmer-tuned, adj., having an unmusical voice, von schlechter musikalischer btimme."

The above is taken from

" Pocket Dictionary | of | the Scottish Idiom | in which the signification of the words | is given in | English and German, | chiefly calculated to promote the understanding | of the works of | Sir Walter Scott, Rob. Burns, | Allan Ramsay &c. | with | an appendix containing Notes | explicative of Scottish customs, manners, traditions &c. | By | Robert Motherby. | Konigsberg, 1826. 1 Printed For Brothers Borntraeger."

In the preface :

" The chief foundation of this little dictionary is a similar work in duodecimo, printed in Edinburgh in 1818, without the name of the author affixed to it, with the glossaries to Burns's, to some of Scott's, and to one of Ramsay's works, along with such verbal communication as he could gather in his neighbourhood."

DOTTLE.

"No GREAT SHAKES" (9 th S. iii. 169, 277, 352). What do your nautical readers think of Admiral Smyth's definition 1

" To shake a cask : to take it to pieces, and pack up the parts, then termed 'shakes. 3 Thus the term expressing little value, 'No great shakes. '"'Sailor's Word-Book.'

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Mayford, Wimbledon Park Road, S.W.

In ' N. & Q.,' 3 rd S. ii. 52, a correspondent H. D. E. suggests that it is from the Arabic shakhs, Lat. vir. Thus, " no great shakhs," a mere nobody. G. H. THOMPSON.

Mr. Rider Haggard puts the expression into the mouth of an old Welshman : " He ain't no great shakes, he ain't, but he's a sound man," <fec. ('Beatrice,' p. 192).

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings.

LIST OF KNIGHTS (9 th S. iii. 427). I sent a somewhat similar inquiry to 'N. & Q.' some time since, but I think without eliciting a reply. Shortly after my query appeared I came across a very useful little work by Francis Townsend, ' Calendar of Knights,' 1828, from 1760 to the date of the book itself. Since then I have found a much more ex- haustive work, Sir N. H. Nicolas's 'History of the Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire,' 1842, in four imperial quarto