Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/382

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. MAY 12, im

8. She fair, divinely fair, fit love for gods !

Milton, 'Paradise Lost,' book ix. line 489. A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair. Tennyson, ' Dream of Fair Women.'

9. Authority melts from me.

Shaksp'eare, ' Antony and Cleopatra,' III. ii. Authority forgets a dying king.

Tennyson, ' Morte d T Arthur.'

10. To have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery.

Shakspeare, ' Troilus and Cressida,' III. iii. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use !

Tennyson, 'Ulysses.' E. YARDLEY.

GEORGE WITHER. (See ante, p. 300.) With regard to the notice of the ' D.N.B.,' I may say that I possess a copy of Wither's ' Collection of Emblems,' 1635, perfect, except tbat the illus- trations only on pp. 173 and 174 are taken out. The portrait is splendid.

F. E. MANLEY.

MAPS. Would * N. & Q.,' by a note, draw the attention of the reading public, of publishers, of printers, and incidentally, I suppose, of authors, to the practice of print- ing maps accompanying books of travel, politics, &c., on the wretchedly thin and weak paper which is so much in use 1 " Of making books there is no end," and, happily, the use of maps is extending. Surely, with the cheapness of paper, and the improvements in the manufacture thereof, a tougher paper might be used with a very small increase of cost. My copy of Von Hohnel's ' Discovery by Count Samuel Teleke of Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie,' Longmans, 1894 (the translation), has the two large maps backed a few inches at the binding with thin linen, at the point where the principal wear and tear comes in. This is an excellent plan, and the maps fold well. No doubt it is necessary to print separate maps, to be folded in pockets in books, on very thin paper, e.g., Mr. Fitzgerald's paper used in that case is too fragile. In cheaper publications, such as Baedeker's, I can understand the desire to put the maps on cheap paper, but when the maps are only doubled once the difficulty does not present itself ; it is when a large map is folded and doubled, and then it is very annoying to find the map cutting and tearing in spite of care, particularly in the case of books published at, say, 21s. to 30s. or so. A really tough paper is sadly wanted. I venture to think this is a matter in which an improvement should accompany the rise in cartography.
 * Climbs in the New Zealand Alps ' ; but the

W. H, QUARRELL.

" SlRVENTE " OR " SlRVENTES." The two

principal branches of ProvenQal poetry were the love song and the satire. The latter is called in Provencal sirventes; the plural is either the same as the singular or (in later times) sirventeses. English writers (e.g., Hueffer in his book 'The Troubadours') employ sirventes in the singular, and either the same or sirventeses in the plural. Why do all our dictionaries, including the * Cen- tury,' omit this normal form, and give only the barbarously truncated sirvente, seldom, if ever, found in any English author? It appears to be peculiarly French. Raynouard uses it (in the * Lexique Roman ';, and Littre admits it to his dictionary along with the more correct sirventois. It seems to have originated in the same manner as our words cherry, sherry, and some others. The final s was mistaken for the sign of the plural, and cut off to make a new singular. This caused the accent to recede from the last syllable to the penultimate sirvente's became sirvente. JAMES PLATT, Jun.

" SK AITS "=SKATES. The 'Century Diction- ary ' does not give the form s/caits, but that spelling must have been long in use, for I find it in the ' Annual Register ' for 1778 ( p. 163 ), while Dickens, in ' Pickwick ' (chap, xxix), several times employed skait as a verb ana skaits as a noun.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

ST. GEORGE OF ENGLAND. The amount of attention and research bestowed this year upon the history and legends of that shadowy hero St. George of Cappadocia reminds me of the spirited ballad in Bishop Percy's 1 Reliques,' with its refrain, St. George he was for England, St. Denis was for

France, Singing Honi soit qui mod y pense.

In this connexion may be mentioned the interesting article by the Rev. A. Smythe Palmer, D.D., in the number of the Guardian for 18 April.

The Russians have a popular expression, " Vot emu Yuriev dien " (" Here is St. George's Day for him"), of which the exact equivalent would be, "Here is a pretty how-d'ye-do for him."

In the Turkish tale ' Ashik-kerib,' by the un- fortunate bard Michael Lermontov, St. George appears as a wonder-worker. Whether the poet translated the story or founded it upon oral tradition during exile I am unable to say. The hero, a musician, starts home for Tiflis to claim his bride, Magul-Megeri, after seven years' appointed absence for the pur- pose of making his fortune, Finding it ira-