Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/126

 218 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. iv. sept. 9, '99. John Maclean's 'History of Trigg Minor,' 407-409, and the 'Bibliotheca Cornu- C. Boase and myself. W. P. Courtney. biensis ' of Mr. G. Reform Club. The Devil's Door (9th S. iv. 127, 178).—For an interesting note on the doctrine of regions, see Hawker's ' Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall,' art. ' Morwenstow.' My object in writing is to give your readers a copy of an epitaph now against the east wall, but formerly against the north wall, towards the west end, of the churchyard of St.Uni Crowan, in Cornwall:— Why here ? Why not ? 'lis Holy Ground ; And here none will my dust confound. My Saviour lay where no one did, Why not a member as his Head ? No quire to sing, no bell to ring! Why, Sirs ! thus buried was my King ! My King in Joseph's garden lay: Why may not I in the church-nay? And that I might be nearer yet, I would as He was near Sun-set. I Grudge the Fashion of this day, To fat the Church and starve the lay. Though Nothing now of me be seen, I Hope my Name and bed is Green. The last line contains a play on words which will not be clear to all your readers, containing, as it does, a reference to the Cornish meaning of the name of the deceased, Richard Tregeare, the green place. Tregeare died 24 Dec, 1668, and the monument is stated on its face to have been erected by his son. The same epitaph is repeated in Grade Churchyard near by. Ygrec. " Three Pound Twelve " (9th S. iii. 249).— I, too, possess a thick brass token of exactly the same dimensions as tho one described by Mr. Thos. Ratcliffe. Mine, however, has only "Three Pound Twelve" inscribed (within a floriated shield surmounted by a crown) once. On the obverse runs the following in- scription round a head : " Johannes V.D.G. Port et Alg Rex 1747." Immediately above the date is the mark of the mint, "Kirk." Like Mr. Ratcliffe I should like to know its history. Chas. F. Forshaw, LL.D. Hanover Gardens, Bradford. Anglo-Saxon Speech (9th S. iv. 45, 94, 137). —I thought it was generally accepted that the Devonshire pronunciation of wood as 'ood, wool as 'ool, woman as 'ooman, &c, was due to the notoriously strong Cymric influence in the extreme south-west of England. The Welsh w is sounded oo, and English-speaking Welshmen pronounce the three words indi- cated exactly as Devonians do. Hy. Harrison. Authors of Quotations Wanted (9th S. iv. 130).— Not as ours the books of old. This quotation is incorrectly punctuated. Dashes should occur in place of the commas, and there should be a comma after " type." It is, of course, from Austin Dobson's' To a Missal of the Thirteenth Century.' How remarkable it is that there should be any reader of ' N. & Q.' who does not know his Dobson on such a salient point as this ! Arthur Mayaia. From lower to higher, from simple to complete, This is the pathway of the Eternal Feet, &c. This is from ' The New Creed : Songs Unsung,' by Sir Lewis Morris. J. Foster Palmer. PisttllatttoMS. NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. English Etymology. By F. Kluge and F. Lutz. (Blackie & Son.) The linguistic reputation of the authors stands so deservedly high that their collaboration upon a manual of English etymology leads us to expect a work of sterling value. Indeed, Prof. Kluge's well-known German ' Etymological Dictionary is already a very adequate guide to this subject for those who know how to use it aright. The present glossary, though far more concise and limited in scope, embraces some of the recent results of ety- mological research, and some speculations also, we cannot but think, which are too hazardous to find place in a book intended for educational purposes. While there is very much that may be heartily commended in the work, so far as it goes, it is right to say that it has no pretensions to completeness. It claims to be no more than a glossary of selected words the history of which bears on the develop- ment of the language at large. It is the principle, or want of principle, which governs the selection with which we have to find fault. While we are encumbered with unnecessary help on the perfectly obvious provenance of such words as halo, nude, number, view, and vigil, we look in vain for many difficult and controverted words. Among our test words we took biy, buy, and skates, and each time drew a blank. The meagre information that wicked is an extension of Mid.-Eng. wiclce does not take us far; that wasp (waps) ever signified " the weaver," when he is so patently "the wapper" (t".e.,striker= stinger), is most unlikely; and that bad is to be identified with Old Eng. aba'ded, "forced, com- pelled," it would be hard to substantiate. We notice that Dr. Palmer's derivation of the much debated word clever is favoured, to the exclusion of Dr. Murray's diver; and Archbishop Trench's old account of lewd, as being lay, un- learned, Lat. laicus, stands here to the disparage- ment of Prof. Skeat's Im'wed, feeble. In many instances, indeed, the etymologies given appear to be distinctly reactionary. Bird is correlated with breed and brood; and notch with the really alien nock. To suggest that Ember-days may have origi- nally meant "days of procession" is to miss the point of the compound; there are obvious difficul- ties in equating yew-yaw with Fr. jou-jou ; and we should like some evidence that the straw of straw- berry is cognate with Lat. fragum, and that storm is