Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/221

. OCT. 7, 297 NOTES AND QUERIES. sound. Most of the Welsh symbols were copied from Latin, but w was not one of them, for the plain reason that the Latin alphabet possessed no such character. It employed the " single u " instead. WALTER W. SKEAT. The omission of the w from certain words is not confined to those who may claim to be of Cymric stock. Woman, wood, wool, &c., are all pronounced minus the w by natives of the Cotswolds, where few words of Celtic derivation are met with. B. B. CHODOWIECKY (9th S. iv. 228).—Mr. Austin Dobson's Chodowiecki article, 'Eighteenth Century Vignettes,' Second Series, pp. 204-25, should be read in this connexion. It is definitely stated there that work on the large scale was not this artist's forte, and it is a reasonable supposition that he did not engrave the Ziethen plate himself because he was engaged upon minuter work that he could do better. AETHUR MAYALL. Chodowiecki's engraving 'Ziethen sitzend yor seinem Konig' is enumerated as No. 565 in Engelmann's ' Catalogue of Chodowiecki's Complete Engravings' (1857-60), and was finished in 1786 (not in 1785), according to Oettingen's recent monograph on Daniel Chodowiecki (8vo., Berlin, 1895), p. 306, a work which contains many fine reproductions of Chodowiecki's original drawings, vignettes, etchings, and paintings in oil or water, and may well deserve the perusal of all students interested in this great artist and master of engraving and miniature painting. H. KREBS. That Chodowiecky did not illustrate all his own works is evident. I find, in addition to the engraving named by MR. HAYES, that Chodowiecky's portrait in the under-men- tioned work, published at Berlin in 1808, was executed by Meno Haas :— "Chodowiecki's Werke. Oder: Verzeichniss aammtlicher Kupferstiche, welche der verstorbeue Herr Daniel Chodowiecki, Director der Kcinigl. Preuss. Academic der Kiinste, von 1758 bis 1800, verfasst, und herausgegeben von D. Jacoby senior, Kunsthandler." EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. I believe an account of him appeared in one of the recent volumes of the Magazine of Art. S. L. P. Ulveraton. JACK BIRKENHEAD (9th S. iv. 208).—Most probably the author of Mercwrius Aidicus, a journal which communicated the intelli- gence and affairs of the Court at Oxford to the rest of the kingdom, and published in 1642. Birkenhead was the author of some satirical poems. In the ' Lives of English Poets' (Robert Bell) is the following summary of Birkenhead :— " He possessed the exact qualities that would have fitted him for the office or court jester—great courage in words, scoffing humour; an unscrupulous conscience, or rather, no conscience at all; consider- able shrewdness, and an inexhaustible fund of arch and mischievous drollery. He brought no weight to the cause he espoused, but his banter was so pert and bold, and he was so prompt in seizing upon happy occasions for its employment, that he may be regarded as one of the most expert and successful guerilla partisans on the side of the Royalists." Birkenhead was the son of a publican (or a saddler), and was born at Northwich, Che- shire, about the year 1615. He died at Whitehall, 4 December, 1679, and was "buried near the school door at St. Martin's-in-the- Fields." See also ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' RICHARD LAWSON. [Other replies acknowledged.] MUMMY PEAS (9th S. iv. 145, 198, 252).—Aa MR. WILSON is curious as to the effect of extreme cold upon seeds it may perhaps be of interest to give a recent illustration. At Dover, on 15 September, Sir W. Thisel- ton-Dyer described, at the meeting of the Britisn Association, experiments which he had carried out in conjunction with Prof. Dewar to ascertain the influence of the temperature of liquid hydrogen on the ger- minative power of seeds. The experiments showed that life was sustained at a tem- perature so low that ordinary chemical action was stopped. Seeds of barley, vegetable marrow, mustard, and the pea were actually. immersed in liquid hydrogen for upwards of six hours. The seeds came out of the ordeal bright and apparently unchanged, and all germinated after they were planted. The lowest temperature to which they were subjected was 453° Fah. below the tempera- ture of melting ice. See the Times of 16 September. The early series of ' N. & Q." also contain numerous references to the vitality or otherwise of " mummy seeds." R. B. SCHOPENHAUER (9th S. iv. 169).—It is a pity MR. DAWSON does not name the translator. Another translation, by Mrs. Rudolf Dircks (" Camelot Series," Walter Scott), has it :— " However, the principal thing must always be to let one's observations precede one's ideas, and not the reverse, as is usually and unfortunately the case; which may be likened to a child coming into the world with its feet foremost, or a rhyme begun without thinking of its reason." A. B. D. Irvington, N.Y.