Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/114

 206 P"- S. IV. Sept. 9, '99. NOTES AND QUERIES. London) that I want to record the fact in ' N. & Q.' M. L. Breslar. " Onto."—The appearance of this ugly and useless compound deserves a word of notice. The 'Century Dictionary' cites Mr. Rider Haggard and Mrs. Humphry Ward as sanc- tioning it. The American newspaper re- porter has " caught onto it" with alacrity. Richard H. Thornton. Portland, Oregon. Russian Word. — In France, recently, I joinedinaconversationof which Russia wasthe subject. Wediscussed its peopleand language, matters of which I am profoundly ignorant, and which I was therefore able to approach with an open mind. As evidence of freedom from prejudice, I began by suggesting that the Russians were a race of semi-barbarians, speaking so crude a jargon that for all prac- tical purposes it had to be superseded by French. But a gentleman, in some way which I could not understand connected with public instruction in France, who spoke as one having authority, assured me that, so far from this being the case, no more romantic or more gentle-hearted a peasantry existed, whilst they were blessed with a language of such exquisitely poetic form that the tenderest sentences had been crystallized into single words. He then pronounced something which he said was a single word meaning " that one being but to gaze into whose eyes suffices to wholly satisfy one's love." His statement may have been accurate; I was certainly powerless to refute him; but it seems an extensive meaning for one word, and I must say I should like a little verification. If the readers of 'N. & Q.' bear him out, Russian must be an entertaining language to study, and I think I shall make a start myself as soon as I meet with a teacher competent to furnish the requisite explanatory demonstra- tions. Frank Rede Fowke. 24, Victoria Grove, Chelsea. Miss Di Bertie.—There is apparently some confusion as to the identity of this lady, who is mentioned by Horace Walpole in a letter to Montagu of 5 June, 1746. Miss Bertie was a schoolfellow of Mrs. Delany (in 1706), who gives the following account of her ('Corr.,' vol. i. p. 3): " Miss Dye Bertie, a daughter of Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, who after leaving school was the pink of fashion in the beau monde, and married a nobleman." It appears, however, from the ' Dictionary of National Biography' that Mrs. Oldfield had no daugh- ter, so that Mrs. Delany's account of Miss Bertie's parentage would seem to be incorrect. Miss Bertie's marriage to a nobleman also lacks confirmation. She was still unmarried in 1746 (at the date of her mention by Horace Walpole), but on July 30, 1752, she appears to have married George James (known as " Gilly") Williams, the friend of George Selwyn and Horace Walpole. In the an- nouncement of the marriage in the Gentle- man's Magazine it is stated that the bride was "Miss Bertie, one of the daughters of the late Countess of Coventry"; while in Burke's account of the Williams family ('Landed Gentry,' vol. i. p. 445) she is de- scribed as "Diana, daughter of the Earl of Coventry." The " late Countess of Coventry " was Elizabeth Grimes, alias Graham, second wife of Thomas, first Earl of Coventry. She was a niece of the earl's housekeeper. Ac- cording to Collins, the earl had no legitimate issue by Elizabeth Grimes. I should be glad of any further information tending to recon- cile the statement of Mrs. Delany with those of the Gentleman's Magazine and of the 'Landed Gentry' as to Miss Di Bertie's parentage. H. T. B. " As mean as tongs."—I have occasionally heard this phrase in Sheffield. The associa- tion of the vice or defect of meanness with a pair of tongs or pincers is curious. The same association appears to occur in the words " pinch," to save money penuriously; " pincher," a niggard ; " nip-cheese " or " nip- fig," a miser; and in such phrases as " nip, scratch, and bite," as applied to a struggle to make ends meet. I suggest that these words and phrases arose from the old practice of clipping money. At the present day the banker's weighing-scales, to say nothing of the rigour of the law, have put an effectual stop to this trick. S. O. Addy. A Cyclopedia of British Domestic Archeology. — A recent letter in these columns, suggesting the production of a new cyclopaedia and the form it should take, prompts me to impart to 'N. & Q.' a con- viction of my own that no work of the kind is more urgently needed than a good cyclo- paedia of British domestic archaeology. In endeavouring to determine the age of different features outside and inside an old country house and of small objects occasionally un- earthed about it, I have toiled through innumerable books and papers for definite information on minor points, and the diffi- culties and disappointments I have expe- rienced have often set me sighing for the ideal work that ought to be found in the British Museum and other public libraries, and that would unquestionably, by affording