Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/63

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s. in. JAN. 21, mi NOTES AND QUEKIES.

n mind that the termination -ey often stands or island. Thus Guernsey appears to mean
 * green island" (Groen-s-ey), and Jersey is

Derhaps " Caesar's isle," so that it may very veil be that the -ey in Chaussey is not a cor- uptiori of -ee. In 'Les Travailleurs de la Mer,' Victor Hugo, in describing the formid- ible rocks off this part of France, calls one of
 * hem Chouzy, a form of the name not men-

tioned by your correspondent.

T. P. AKMSTKONG. Putney.

"INTERLUNAR CAVE" (9 th S. ii. 509). Milton uses this fanciful expression to depict the situation of the moon when she is invisible from the earth. She then hides herself, ac- cording to Pliny ('Hist. Nat.,' ii. 6), and is believed to rest from her work. "Mensis exitu latet," is his statement, " quum laborare non creditur." Interlunium is Pliny's word for the period intervening between the dis- appearance of the old moon and the advent of the new. The Latin naturalist also antici- pates the English poets in applying the epithet "silent" to the moon when she is in her transition stage. " Quern diem," he says, "alii interlunii, alii silentis lume appellant" ('Hist. Nat.,' xvi. 74). After all, the point is one that should cause very little difficulty to the readers of Milton and Shelley.

THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, N.B.

The following note may be of service :

"By an interchange of metaphors not uncommon in classical poetry, a word which properly applies only to sound is nere applied to sight, and silent

meaning: the phrase ' silens Luna' was employed by the Romans to denote the moon during that period which elapses between the disappearance of the old moon and the appearance of the new. Cf. Pliny, ' Nat. Hist.,' i. xvi. 39, ' Quern diem alii inter- lunii, alii silentis Lunce appellant.' ' Interlunar cave ' is simply a poetical expression for the moon in this eclipsed state, and the epithet ' vacant ' is used because the moon is, as it were, useless or emit- ting no light, the poet remembering, no doubt, the expression of Pliny, xvi. 39, ' Luna ibi vacat apera et minister io sup.' ' Samson Agonistes,' edited by J. Churton Collins.

R. M. MARSHALL. 21, Magdalen Terrace, St. Leonards-on-Sea.

CURE FOR CONSUMPTION (9 th S. ii. 466, 515). W. C. B. quotes Mrs. Barbauld, who states the German doctors sent their patients into the cowhouses. It is worth noting that Eugene Chavette, in his witty, though not over-refined * Lilie, Tutue, Bebeth,' burlesques this regimen in relating the discovery of the

Duchesse de Fouines by her lawyer Crochard in the establishment of Tante Tutue. The duchess, after being ordered by "un petit medecin de campagne " to try existence in "la societe des vaches," falls under the in- fluence of a somnambulist (Tante Bebeth), who orders her to pass her time in an "atmosphere saturee d emanations trente fois plus bienfaisantes que celles d'une etable," with the result that she spends two years as deputy dame du comptoir in "un de ces etablissements discrets qui par seance de- mandent trois sous au consornmateur," with complete success. It would be interesting to know if Chavette's satire had any originality in it. W. H. QUARRELL.

The delusion prevailed in France also. The adventures of a young lady who lodged over a cowshed supply the motif of one of Madame de Genlis's juvenile stories. Is there not a tradition that similar good results were got by inhaling the steam from new bread 1

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings.

LOCAL NAMES OF THE COWSLIP (9 th S. ii. 87, 192, 517). Miss Baker says, in her 'North- amptonshire Glossary,' that the word paigle is now seldom used in this county, " except in the comparison ' as yellow as a paigle.' " In this locality the flowers are always spoken of as cowslips. I cull the following from Hogg and Johnson's 'Wild Flowers of Great Britain '(1863) :

"Cowslip is the name the flower has borne from the earliest Anglo-Saxon times, and probably re- ferred to the sweetness of its perfume. It seems to have been the popular nanie, and payel that adopted by the monks and mediciners of the mediaeval age. Pagellus in monkish Latin, found in. many old charters, signifies a small country district, andpagel, its contraction, implied a little rustic, a pet name very applicable to the flower, for it is found only in very open pastures. It has been called also pa Isy- wort, and for the same reason that the French name it herbe de la parcdysie, the flowers being considered efficacious against nervous disorders."

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

MYRMECIDES (9 th S. iii. 5). The reference is to an ancient sculptor and engraver of Athens or Miletus, called Mvp/z^Kt'S^s. He was cele- brated for the minuteness of his work in ivory, some of which was on so small a scale that it could hardly be seen unless placed upon black hair (vide Smith's 'Diet, of Biog.,' s.v.). In the quotation from Bishop King, were " is doubtless the singular of the im- perfect subjunctive, so that "some Myrme- cides" is parallel to "some mute inglorious Milton "a use of " some " which, I am told,