Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/246

 238

NOTES AND QUERIES.

V. MARCH 24, 1900.

use in the cavalry and other mounted branches of H.M. army, to describe the straps by which the sword and sabretache are attached to the sword-belt, i.e., the word " carriage " applies to each strap separately. In the infantry the same are known as " slings." " Billets " are the short pieces of leather by which the sword and sabretache are attached to the carriages.

C. S. HARRIS.

CYCLOPS (9 th S. v. 103). The evolution of a singular "Cyclop" from the form Cyclops, itself a singular, seems something like that of " pea " from " pease," originally a singular. See Latham, and ' N. & Q.,' 9 th 8. v. 147. In the latter case Latham says the s was mis- taken for the plural sign ; perhaps the same mistake may have produced " Cyclop." No Greek scholar, I should think, would use the barbarous form " Cyclop." Pope does ; but we know Pope was not a Greek scholar. Cowper uses " Cyclops " for the singular and plural both. The more correct plural is, of course, " Cy elopes," as given in Latham, who treats the name as a foreign word. Annan- dale gives plural "Cyclops," apparently re- garding it as now naturalized. But even in Shakspeare (' Hamlet,' II. ii. 495) " Cyclops " seems used for the plural, if the plural " ham- mers," which follows it, is any guide. Dr. Johnson (see Macaulay's 'Essays') used the proper singular : " Black as a Cyclops from the forge " ; and I should be disposed to class such a form as "Cyclop" with "aborigine,'" which I have seen printed as the singular of " aborigines " ; witn the French gentleman's blunder " les omnibi " ; and with the extra- ordinary coinage " elephanthrope," which may actually be seen in an old number of All tht

Year Round, where it was used to express " elephant-hater."

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. [The ' H.E.D.' gives " Cyclops, also Cyclop."]

DRAWINGS BY SIR JOHN GILBERT (9 th S v. 108). Many of his best designs in wooc drawing, in which his success as an illustrate was without precedent, will be found in the London Journal for 1845 and following years and also in Reynolds^ Miscellany, Mucl valuable information on this subject will b met with in Mr. Rpget's 'History of the Ol Water-Colour Society,' published in 1891 The names of the books wholly or in par enriched by Sir John Gilbert's designs occup; nearly six pages of the British Museum Library folio Catalogue. ROBERT WALTERS.

The London Journal, beginning early in th forties, had novels running week by week, a well illustrated, one of them being Reade

Never too late to Mend,' which has been so uccessfully dramatized for the last thirty ears, and Miller's country novel 'Gideon Giles tie Roper,' &c. After them came the reprint f Sir Walter Scott's novels, which it was aid at the time that the Journal had given 0,0001. for. However, they were well illus- rated by a leading picture in John Gilbert's tyle, the error of that day among engravers n wood being too prevalent of making all he figures so tall, the women being depicted is quite 6^ ft. high, and the men 7 ft. His lorses and his armed knights were excellent, ind the dresses were well designed for the >eriod they illustrated. Critics implied that Vtr. Gilbert copied George Cattermole's style, >ut there was no more reason to say that han for Charles Cattermole, the nephew, to >e accused, as he was by Mr. Tom Taylor, of copying Gilbert. Each worked on his own ines, and it was a libel on Charles Catter- mole to say he would copy Gilbert when he lad his uncle to refer to for style, and Charles Jattermole was too careful in all his work to iced any example. Any one would secure j;ood bargains in buying up the old volumes )f the London Journal, and I have for years advised young friends to purchase them at ild bookstalls on account of Sir John Gilbert's work. ESSINGTON.

[Very many contributions, mostly conveying the same information, are acknowledged.]

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Babylonians and Assyrians. By the Rev. A. H.

Sayce. (Nimmo.)

A GRATIFYING proof that the importance of the study of ancient civilizations for a right under- standing of the religious, intellectual, and institu- tional problems of the present day is becoming widely recognized may be discerned in the fact that two London publishers have simultaneously started a series of handbooks dealing with the primitive culture of ancient races. The prospectus of a Semitic series issued by Mr. Nimmo is one of unusual attractiveness, and promises the English reader authoritative treatises on these subjects from the hands of such eminent scholars as Glazer, Hommel, and Hilprecht.

The first issue of this important series, for which \ve augur a great success, fittingly begins with the Babylonians and Assyrians, and is written by our own distinguished Assyriologist, Prof. Sayce. He restricts himself to the archaeology of Babylonia, more especially the customs, institutions, culture, and social life of its people, as illustrated by the contract tablets and letters, leaving the subjects of its religion and the history of its discovery to be treated later by other scholars. The Babylonians were keen traffickers, whose royal princes did not disdain to engage in trade. Prof. Sayce therefore devotes one chapter to their commercial trans-