Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/515

 g*s. V.JUNE 23, iwo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

503

Churton Collins, I understand, calls il magical ; but somewhere I have seen il strongly condemned. "The bright death,' it was contended, is a commonplace image, anr much less forcible than the original direct statement ; " the victim's throat," again, is less direct than "my tender throat"; and, finally, " and I knew no more " is feeble in com- parison with the abrupt "and nothing more." This was written with a full know- ledge of what scoffing critics had previously said of "that unreasonable young woman" who apparently wished for something more than a cut throat. I have a notion that the defence of the original reading occurred in one of a series of articles on Tennyson by the late G. H. Lewes. I shall be glad if any one can say whether this is so, and, if so, where the articles are to be found. Their date must have been about 1866. C. C. B.

Undoubtedly dimness of sight is meant. The casement small panes cannot be seen, and only the square of the window as a glimmering area of light. W. R. G.

Compare Leigh Hunt, * Hero and Leander, canto ii. ad Jin. :

And when the casement at the dawn of light Began to show a square of ghostly white.

PERCY SIMPSON.

The answer is both. The casement cannot be seen until dawn approaches, and there- upon the gradual weakening of the eyesight isolates it from its surroundings. A similar mesmeric effect can be obtained by looking for some minutes at any prominent or luminous object. ARTHUR MAY ALL.

When unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square. Any one who has passed sleepless nights will recall his pleasure at the first signs of dawn when before his weary eyes the dark casement slowly grew " a glimmering square." ALFRED F. CURWEN.

WEATHER FOLK-LORE (9 th S. v. 436). The "peesweep" is the lapwing, whose "familiar cry is echoed in the names Peeivit, Scotch Peesweep, Old [1 Middle] English Wype* and French Dixhuit" says the writer of the article 'Lapwing' in ' Chambers's Encyclopaedia.' Brockett in his * Glossary ' has the following : "Peewit, Peezweep, the lapwing, or bastard

are " Lincolnshire names for the lapwing," says Dr. Smythe Palmer ('Folk -Etymology,' p. 442), who gives a list of names in different languages for the bird, to which may be added the German Kibitz or Kiebitz. See also liis article on ' Peasweep/ with an illustrative quotation where the word is so spelt.
 * Wipe (Swedish vipa, Danish vibe) and py-wipe

plover ; so called from the well known un- remitting querulous cry of the bird." In his notice of 'Storm' he remarks : "The Lambing- storm, and the Peewit, or TuiMt-Storm. are also spoken of ; a cover of snow frequently falling at the time." Tuiffit is " the lapwing, or plover," as he tells us later, with a cross- reference to Pee-wit, Peez-weep ; and pee-wit- land and tuiffit-land are terms applied to "cold, wet, bad land," such as is the bird's usual habitat. F. ADAMS.

Peesweep, the Scottish name for the peewit or lapwing. HERBERT MAXWELL.

[Many similar replies received.]

CHRISTOPHER MERRETT (9 th S. v. 436). Was he not the son of the author of the ' Pinax ' ? His son is mentioned in the forewords to that book, 1666 (B.M. copy). S. L. PETTY.

PROVERB (9 th S. v. 434). A very similar ' old proverbe " to that quoted by your correspondent from Hearne's 'Kemarks and Collections' occurs in a curious epitaph at " St. Edmund's, Lombard Street [London]," given by the Rev, John Lambe, M.A. (of Clare Hall, Cambridge), Rector of Ridly, co. Kent, in one of his interesting MS. note- books (c. 1720) in my possession, as follows : Man, thee behoveth oft, to have this in mind, That thou givest with thine hand, that shalt thou

find,

For Widows be slothfull, and Children be unkind ; Executors be covetous, and keep all that they find. If any body ask where the dead s Goods became

They answer

So God me help and Halidam, he dy'd a poor Man : Think of this.

Mr. Lambe adds :

Com'union. I am of Opinion it means the Blessed Virgin, Halidam, for Holy Dame."
 * ' Weaver thinks Halidam means the Holy

I certainly endorse the reverend gentle-

an's opinion, and consider the proverb, if not also the epitaph, to be at least as early as the fifteenth century. There is, indeed, a Chaucerian air about them. W. I. R. V.

'LAZY LAURENCE" (9 th S. v. 394). It is interesting to know that the fourth cardinal sin, so graphically described by Chaucer in the ' Persone's Tale,' is under the patronage _l a saint, albeit an imaginary one. Dr. Brewer, in 'Phrase and Fable,' has :

" Lazy as David Lawrence's dog. Here Lawrence s a corruption of Larrence, an imaginary being supposed by Scottish peasantry to preside over the azy and indolent. Laziness is called Larrence. But is this quite correct? The saying, in one form or another, prevails far beyond the imits of Scotland ; and is it the case that /here, or anywhere else, the word larrence is