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

 9 th S. III. JAN. 7, '99.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

the word in exactly the same way ('Iliad,' ii. 800 and ix. 385). In the former he joins " leaves and sands " together ; in the latter, "sand and dust." Passing by the other Greek writers, we come to Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal, whose works I have examined, by the help of the " Indices Verborum " in the Delphin editions, without finding a trace of the origin of the phrase as employed by Mr. Asquith. The only classical authority I can furnish for an expression almost identical is Ovid ('Epistolee Heroidum,' v. 115-6), where CEnone, after being abandoned by Paris, remembers the warning that had been addressed to her by Cassandra :

Quid facis, (Enone ? quid arense semina mandas ?

Non profecturis littora bubus aras.

The following lines, from Sannazaro's 'Arcadia,' published in the year 1504, are to the same effect : Solca nell' onde, e nell' arene semina, E tenta i vaghi venti in rete accogliere, Chi fonda sue speranze in cor di femmina.

In quoting this author for the sake of his expression, I must declare that I altogether dissent from the ungallant conclusion he comes to, which has never been shared by his countrymen in his own age or any other. In one English writer I have found the exact phrase. It is in Robert Burton's * Anatomy of Melancholy,' part iii. sec. 2, mem. 1, subs. 2. The words arenas arantes plough- ing the sands, are in a long passage written in Latin, in which tongue he originally intended to compose the whole book, had not the "stationers" very sensibly refused to print it. Did Mr. Asquith get the phrase from Burton 1 There is no mention of it in Dr. Brewer's ' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.' JOHN T. CURRY.

BARRICADE. (See 4 th S. iv. 208.) In the year 1596-7 the Corporation of Plymouth paid "for erectinge of the barracathes and for other charges layed out about the same clxxij/?;. ijs. ijd." (' Tenth Report Hist. MSS. Comin.,' App. IV. 540). This early instance of the English form of the word should be re- corded in ' N. & Q.,' pending the issue of the supplement to the 'H.E.D.' Q. V.

A RELIC OF NAPOLEON LE GRAND. May it be recorded in ' N. & Q.' that a very curious item was disposed of in a London auction- room on 13 Dec., 1898 namely, the bronze mask of the Emperor Napoleon, taken from a plaster cast of his face at St. Helena by Dr. Antommarchi 1 It was stated at the sale that this relic of the great Emperor of France was for many years the property of the club

" Les Fils de la Gloire," which was composed of old officers of " La Grande Armee"; and at the death of each member it was placed on his coffin on the road to the interment, and at the death of the last member of all came into the possession of the recent owners.

HENRY GERALD HOPE. Elms Road, S.W.

BARRACKS. In Sir S. D. Scott's book en- titled 'The British Army,' iii. 399, I find a mention of barracks seven years earlier than that given in the 'Hist. Eng. Diet.':

"Monmouth writes from Ostend in 1678: Many men ill of agues and fevers, which they attribute much to the cold and damp lodging of men in the Barraques."

WALTER W. SKEAT.

" FELICITY," THE INWARDS OF A PIG. There is an oft-told story of a rustic who, when asked to explain the meaning of "felicity' (a word which had been freely used in a sermon to which he had been a supposed listener), re- plied that he believed " 'twere some part of the innards of a pig." I have often wondered what process of mind could have suggested so incongruous a reply, and think I have nov the clue. The poor man thus challenged for a definition simply bethought him of " flick," the common Somerset term for the inner fat of a pig. Given a short vowel (a stiva sound) between /and I, a hard pronunciation of the c, and the absurdity vanishes. For we may not too hastily assume that the parties to the dialogue were thoroughly en rapport. The farmer may have been slightly "chinch"; he may possibly for such things are have in- dulged in forty winks during " sarment," and so have regarded the question as one of a purely abstract character. W. F. R.

Hutton Rectory.

LYKE-WAKE AND LATE- WAKE. It is curious that Scott, in 'The Antiquary,' chap, xl., should make Mr. Old buck commend old Alison Breck for using " lyke-wake " instead of "late-wake," and yet in 'The Lord of the Isles,' vi. xxxiv., published only the year before, should have made Bruce say : Bid Ninian's convent light their shrine For late- wake of De Argentine.

It cannot be that Scott thought "late- wake' more appropriate in poetry, because "lyke- wake " occurs in ' The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' iv. xxvi.:

Our slogan is their lyke-wake dirge.

Probably Scott considered it more suitable to make Mr. Oldbuck, who was of German extraction, prefer " lyke-wake," which he tells his nephew is " genuine Teutonic, from the