Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/475

 9""S. IV. Deo. 16,'99.] 507 NOTES AND QUERIES. " noon-meat," or a meal taken at noon. The companion word noon-schench, i.e., "noon- drink," is the modern nunchifm or nunckeon. All this has been explained by me already at least three times : (1) in my larger ' Ety- mological Dictionary,' *. v. ' Nunchion'; (2) in 'N. & Q.,' 5* S. iv. 366 ; (3) in 'The Student's Pastime,' p. 90. I sometimes wonder how often one has to explain things before they become "generally known." See also Way's note on nunmete in the ' Promp- torium Parvulorum.' Walter W. Skeat. Nimmits (not nimmet) means lunch all Devon over. See Mrs. Sarah Hewett's illus- tration of the use of the word in her ' Peasant Speech of Devon' (Stock) : " Car out tha nimmits tii tha ineyn za quick 's yii can, else they '11 be famished tii death, and dry jist chucked." Harry Hems. Fair Park, Exeter. Halliwell gives "Nunmete, a luncheon, 'Pr. Parv.'" This would seem to be noon- meat or mid-day meal. John P. Stilwell. Dieskau (9th S. iv. 381, 446). — Ludwig August, baron, born Saxony, 1701 ; died at Surenne, near Paris, 8 Sept., 1767; lieutenant- colonel of cavalry under Marshal Saxe in the Netherlands; in 1748 brigadier-general of infantry; commander of Brest; sent to Canada, 20 Feb., 1755; defeated at Fort Edward, 8 Sept., 1755, and left on the field with four wounds. He is not mentioned in the ' Bio- graphic Generate'; but see Drake's' American Dictionary of Biography'; Parkman's ' Mont- calm and Wolfe,' vol. i. 285 seq.; ' New York Colonial Documents,' vols. vi. and x.; W. L. Stone's ' Life of Sir William Johnson.' O. H. Darlington. " Frail" (9th S. iv. 436).—Here this word is used to denote the light framework of wood on which glaziers carry sheets of glass. C. S. Ward. Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke. Poet's Immortality predicted by Himself (9th S. iii. 84; iv. 33, 172).—The following instances occur in the history of Italian literature. In the sonnet which closes his satire against France,' Misogallo,' Alfieri thus prophetically anticipates the opinion of pos- terity about his work :— Odo gia dirmi: o Vate nostro, in pravi Seoofi nato, eppur creato hai queste Sublimi eta, che profetando andavi! His great contemporary Parini, whose monument has just been inaugurated in this town, thus addresses the "villan sollecito" towards the end of his magnificent ode ' La Vita Rustica";—- Te eo' miei carmi i posteri Faro passar felice; Di te parlar piu secoli S' udira la pendice : E sotto 1' alme piante Vedransi a riverir Le quete ossa compiante I posteri venir. In the same way, though not with the same success, Giovanni Fantoni, a second-rate poet of that epoch (eighteenth century), hints at his fame in future ages :— A me lusinga Eternita con l'ale L' itale corde Cangiato in cigno ridero de' stolti Figli del fango. ' Ad Alcuni Critici.' Well known is the concluding line of Foscolo's sonnet' On Himself,'— Morte sol mi dara fama e riposo. Only death, indeed, gave him that fame and that repose for which he vainly longed in his lifetime. Alessandro Manzoni, pious and modest as he was, had still a true conscience of his own worth, and called his ode on the death of Napoleon, ' The Fifth of May,' " a song which perhaps will not die ":— E scioglie all' urna un cantico Che foree non morra. It is really the most splendid piece of lyric poetry of which Italian literature of the pre- sent century can boast. Another contemporary poet exclaims :— Ma nei giorni futuri a me fia merto V aura del vero che il mio canto informa.* But the most striking case is that of the French novel-writer Stendhal. On 30 Octo- ber, 1840, he wrote to Honore de Balzac :— "Je suis fataliste J'aurai quelque succes vers 1860 ou 1880, mais je ne serai pas lu avant. Je le sais, et je renvoie a cette epoque les jouissances de l'iniprime." The prophecy has'/been fulfilled a la lettre, as one of his biographers has pointed out.t A jvropos of such predictions, the following passage of one of your writers may, perhaps, prove to be of some interest:— " So strongly is he [man] disposed to link his feelings with futurity, that shadows become realities when contemplated as subsisting there, and the phantom of posthumous celebrity, the faint image of his being impressed on future generations, is often preferred to the whole of his present existence, with all its warm and vivid realities."X (Dr.) Paolo Bellezza. Circolo Filologico, Milan. t Colfgnon, ' L'Art et la Vie de Stendhal,' Paris, 1868, p. 44. X R. Hall, ' Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte.'
 * G. Revere, ' Osiride,' Roma, 1879, p. 199.