Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/113

 9* S. IV. Sept. 9, '99.] 205 NOTES AND QUERIES. ^^ demolished Ranger's Lodge in Piccadilly, is flanked by two large houses—the eastern one formerly the residence of Hudson, the Railway King, and for many years of the French Ambassador; the western lately the house of Capt. Sir H. Naylor-Leyland. When these were built they seemed so very large to our grandfathers, but, above all, so preposterously high, that some ready wit dubbed them Gibraltar and Malta, because they ' never would be taken,' and the late J. R. Planche made them the subject of a sparkling little farce that amused the town for a season. The ambassador, however, finds the house not large enough for him, and for its exten- sion two or three shops, including a tavern, have been demolished. Thus, says the Daily Telegraph, Knightsbridge no longer presents the curious spectacle of a church (once a lazar-house) situated between two public-houses, or, as the local wits had it, 'a heaven between two hells.' It is rumoured that negotiations are afoot for the purchase of the church and most of the shops in the row for the erection of another giant hotel." John Hebb. Canonbury Mansions. " Marsouin."—In Nugent's modern French dictionary, and also in an older one of 1769, I find the word marsouin, with the definition, " s.m., porpoise, sea-hog." In Webster's ' Dic- tionary ' I find the following: " Mere, n. [written also Mar, A.-S. mere, mdreX <fec. A pool or lake," &c. Now, under the word 'Swine,' in Webster's, Bailey's, Ash's, and other dictionaries, no French form of this word ('Swine,' "hog tribe, of either sex") is to be found. Yet if mar=sea,, and souin= hog (as above), that last word, souin, is surely the equivalent of our own word swine; so that mere (otherwise mar, Webster) swine would be a very parallel form of this queer French word marsouin. We have the mar form of mere ( = sea), I suppose, in Margate, Martoa (near Blackpool), and other places. The tendency of vowel-sounds, we are told (Dr. Delaunay and others), is to become lower in tone. The modern French sound of the word mer (sea) = the sound of our word mare (female of the horse tribe); and the French will tell us they get their word from the Latin direct. In spite of this and of the above " tendency," the Romans, we are nowa- days told, sounded mare with the a as in our word far. If in marsouin, mar=sea, how can we know that word was not formerly sounded as the letters mer are at present sounded ? In other words, how can we know that, as to the vowel-sound, the French word mer is not the traditional sound of that word, for which the Latin had the letters ma.r.e. as the signal t Boscombrosa. " Silver-cooper "=Crimp.—Under' Crimp,' sb., the 'H.E.D.' has the following quotation from Stedman's ' Expedition to Surinam,' ii. 28: " Trepanned into the West India Com- pany's service by the crimps or silver-coopers as a common soldier." The curious word silver-coopers is an amusing corruption of the Dutch ziel-verkoopers, lit., "soul-sellers," a term applied to crimps often met with in Dutch narratives of voyages in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. Donald Ferguson. Croydon. The Sun drawing Water. — Said a weather-wise man the other day, "Wey'll have rain sown. T' sun wer drawin' warter finely last night." He explained that an hour before sundown the sun was sending downward broad, bright sun-rays. This was what he called the sun drawing water. Thos. Batcliffe. Worksop. Pinaseed. (See 8th S. xi. 377.)—A very coarse copy of verses, entitlea ' Namby Pamby ; or. a Panegyric on the New Versi- fication, addressed to A— P—, Esq.,' is printed at the end of a copy of the fourth edition (London, 1726) of Arbuthnot's 'Dissertation on Dumpling.' On fol. e ij are the following lines, which seem a propos to the corre- spondence under this head :— Now he acts the Grenadier, Calling for a Pot of Beer : Where's his Money ? He's forgot: Get him gone, a Drunken Sot. Now on Cock-horse does he ride ; And anon on Timber stride, See-and-Saw and Sacch'ry-down, London is a gallant Town. Now he gathers Riches in Thicker, faster, Pin by Pin ; Pins a-piece to see his Show; Boys and Girls flock Row by Row ; From their Cloaths the Pins they take, Risque a Whipping for his sake ; From their Frocks the Pins they pull, To fill Namby's Cushion full. So much Wit at such an Age, Does a Genius great presage. Second Childhood gone and past, Shou'd he prove a Man at last, What must Second Manhood be, In a Child so bright as he ! Bobt. J. Whitwell. C.C.C., Oxford. " Housen."—Some weeks ago in one of my Friday rambles in the vicinity of Hadley Woods I fell in with a farm labourer, who, talking of one of his mates, said : " He knowa all the housen [i. e., publics! between here and 'Atfield." I was so struck to find the old Saxon plural lingering in the common speech of a son of the soil (who admitted he had lived all his lifetime within a stone's throw of