Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/203

 S.V. MARCH 10, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

195

name-fellow. Gerarde's ' Herball ' says of th sweet-potato : "It hath long, rough, flexibl branches trailing upon the ground like unt those of Pompions." I suppose the recumben stems of pumpkins and melons are "vines everywhere. In ' Bordello' Browning says:

Observe a pompion-twine afloat, and must have meant some kind of Cucurbita

M. C. L.

HANNAYS OF KIRKDALE (9 th S. iv. 69). should be glad if H. G. H. could give me som particulars such as dates of birth, marriage and death of Sir Samuel Hannay's daughte who married a Mr. Woodroffe, and died ir 1813. Her portrait was painted by Romnej in 1790. W. ROBERTS.

47, Lansdowne Gardens, S.W.

" COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS " (9 th S. iv. 534 v. 46). As a sort of supplement to the in teresting note by F. H. in reference to m own, perhaps it may not be irrelevant to giy( the two instances that I have come across ir ' Don Quixote.' Both are from the Seconc Part. In chap. i. the Knight says to the Barber :

" Y es posible que vuesa merced no sabe que la. comparaciones que se haceii de ingenio a ingenio, de valor a valor, de hermosura a hermosura y de linage a linage son siempre odiosas y mal recibidas ? "

And in chap, xxiii. we find

" Cuente vuesa merced su historia como debe, que ya sabe que toda, comparacion es odiosa, y asi no hay para que comparar a nadie con nadie."

It is curious to find also in ' Don Quixote a proverb analogous to " Trust in God and keep your powder dry," viz., " A Dios rogando y con el mazo dando," which Jarvis renders with some licence, " Pray devoutly, and ham- mer on stoutly"; Viardot more closely, "En priant Dieu tu dois donner du maillet."

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.

Bath.

An earlier instance of this saying occurs, it is said, though I have not verified it, in Boiardo's * Orlando Innamorato ' (c. vi. st. iv. 1, 1), in regard to the comparative merits of Orlando and Rinaldo. Boiardo died in 1496. I believe 'Don Quixote' has "Com- parisons are offensive" not " odious."

J. H. MACMlCHAEL.

"OUT OF PRINT" (9 th S. v. 124). MR. CECIL CLARKE is bold. Old traditions and sayings die hard, and some of them will " lif for efer dill the shudgemend day, yes, pless der hearts." "Out of print" is, of course, most ridiculous, but it is generally under- stood, and " the satisfactory substitute " will be difficult to discover. May I suggest " out

of type," or "type distributed'"? "Out of type" would, I think, be satisfactory, for, after all, print is but a facsimile of type.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Bradford.

Following MR. CECIL CLARKE'S remarks on this phrase let me relate an incident which occurred a few days ago. When I purchased, on behalf of my company, the British rights in a German piece of music, the Berlin pub- lisher wrote, "Please send me a copy when the piece is out of print." He had evidently heard the phrase, and attributed to it exactly the opposite meaning to that which it bears. By the way, my experience is that " O. P." often means that the "collector" has been too lazy to ask for the work, or that the publisher's counter-man has been too lazy to look for it. J. SPENCER CURWEN.

OLD AGE AT FIFTY (6 th S. vii. 68, 337). The following passage, extracted from God- frey Goodman's ' Fall of Man ' (1616), pp. 83-4, well illustrates the Elizabethan "point of view " as regards this topic :

" As you walke in the streetes, obserue the num- ber of passengers, iudge of their yeeres by their cotnplections ; or looke into the Register booke of your Churches, and you shall finde more lining

vnder the age of thirtie, then aboue If man

comes vnto fortie yeeres, then all his acquaintance is among the dead : he scornes to conuerse with young men, to take their counsell or aduice whom be knew boyes without vnderstanding, and are still boyes, in respect of him self e."

On p. 365 he says, "I think that seuentie yeeres then [i. e. in David's time] had the same proportion that fiftie yeeres naue now at this time." Hakewill, in his 'Apologie,' written to refute Goodman's argument, leaves }hese statements uncontradicted, though mentioning several instances of longevity. RICHARD H. THORNTON. Portland, Oregon.

ON THE WORD "Up" (9 th S. v. 121). MR. THOMAS, in his very amusing note, does not nention " fill up," which is Scriptural. Many oeople would say a thing is " filled up " who vould not say it is " full up." Is not " full jp" due to "filled up"? C. C. B.

MR. RALPH THOMAS does not observe that n all the examples he adduces in justifica- ion of the expression "full up," the word

up" is used in qualification of a verb and

ot of an adjective. It does not follow that >ecause to " fill up " is good idiomatic English,

full up " is good English too. Even in the ^ulgarism to " wash and brush up," the word

up " is probably employed to indicate that he word " brush " is not intended to denote