Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/264

 332 [9th S. IV. Oct. 21, NOTES AND QUERIES. that Dags burg may have been the private possession of a bishop and not have belonged to the see of Strassburg :— "Gertrude, HUe d'Herman IV. [Margrave of Baden, d. 1190. whilst crusading], devint femme d'Alliert, dernier Conite do D.igsbourg, dont elle eut une tille nominee oonirne elle, qui avant etc inaricc trois fois, sans avoir jamais cu d enfans, laissa le Conite de Dagsbourg a Kmicon, Conite de Leiningen, on Linange, son dernier niari, ciui le donna en tief a Bert hold de Teck, Eveipie de Strasbourg." The birthplace of Leo IX. is immaterial in this connexion, and the pilgrim in Alsace can choose between the modern chapel near Zabern and the twelfth-century tower near Egesheim. C. 8. Ward. Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke. "Vole" (9th S. iv. 222).—Prof. Skeat's un- rivalled knowledge of the meaning of words and the value of phrase renders his castigation of naturalists all the more tremendous, yet is there not something to be said for the culprits! What is the offence? Naturalists have "glibly" used "the ridiculous word We" to denote a genus of mammals separated by recent classification from the kindred rats and mice, it is certainly convenient to find a distinct English appellative for a new genus. Is it possible that the learned Professor's vehemence and the application to students in another branch of science of such terms as "extreme absurdity" and '' nonsense " arise from the weakness of his own case? Without calling in question his discretion in excluding from his ' Dictionary of the English Language'(1 have only the first edition at hand) a word which has incorporated itself automatically with com- mon as well as scientific parlance, it may be noted that other words of analogous, though more remote, origin are admitted without scruple. The nearest word I can think of is " mole," explained in the ' Dictionary ' to be a shortened form of "moldwarp"—the animal that casts up mould or earth. Now if, as Prof. Skeat maintains, it is as absurd to speak of a "vole-mouse" as a "vole" as it would be to say "coach " instead of "coach- horse," surely it is equally reprehensible to use the abbreviation "mole," which literally means no more that " earth." Such purism would lead common men parlously near pedantry, and many convenient words that have slipped in at the back door would have to be relegated to the index erpiirgatorius. Not to mention such abbreviations as "cab" and " hack " (both in the ' Dictionary '), how could we designate the numerous species of pheasant—Phasiana avis, the bird of Phasis— which are not found in Colchis? Would there not be as much "absurdity" or paradox in speaking of a Japanese pheasant as of a " water-vole "? Prof. Skeat pounces on the naturalists, but theirs is a science as exact as etymology; they might fairly take ex- ception to certain definitions in the admirable dictionary referred to above. Look up "shel- drake " and you will find it explained to be "a kind of drake," whereas "drake" is defined as " the male of the duck." What then becomes of the female sheldrake? Prof. Skeat is right in supposing that it is too late to ask naturalists to give up the word " vole"; it comes in far too handy, and I respectfully submit that there is fair pre- cedent for its recognition. Herbert Maxwell. "Bold Infidelity, turn pale and die" (9th S. iv. 268).—This epitaph is said to have been written upon three of his children, who died between 1813 and 1818, by the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, for forty years vicar of Biddenharn, near Bedford, who died in 1850. (See Murray's 'Handbook for Herts, Beds, and Hunts,'' p. 148.) The continued text is as follows :— Beneath this stone three infants' ashes lie, Say are they lost or saved! If death's by sin, they sinned because they 're here; If heaven's by works, in heaven they can't appear. Keason : ah, how depraved! Revere the Bible's sacred page,—the knot's untied : They died—for Adam sinned; they live—for Jesus died. John Pickford, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbtidge. Ringing Bells during a Thunderstorm (9th S. iv. 223). —I do not know in what edition of Wynkyn de Worde's ' Legenda Aurea' the following passage appears, but I have a note of it as on p. 90 :— "The evil spirytes that ben in the regyou of th' ayre double moche when they here the belles rongen when it thondreth, and when greto tempeste, and outrages of whether happen to the end the feindes and wycked spirytes," &e. Did not the custom of tolling a bell on the death of a person originate with this idea of keeping off the evil spirits, the bell having been anciently symbolical of the proclamation of the Gospel? J. Holden MacMichael. Cromwells ok Henbury (9th S. iii. 307, 494; iv. 91).—Sir Ralph, fourth Baron Cromwell, who died in 1455 s.p., had appointed his re- lative Sir Gervase Clifton custodian of the Wimbledon manor, where John Cromwell, of Norwell, Notts, is said to have settled as fuller and copyholder. He died in 1480, having married a daughter of William Smyth,