Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/156

 126 NOTES AND QUERIES. P» s. VL AUG. is. woo. not in Judd Street, but was the name of a subsidiary terrace of houses in New Road, now Euston Itoad, which was abolished in 1857. Irving's second London residence appears to have been No. 52 on the north side of Eustou Road, which was absorbed by the Midland Railway, and here he lived until his removal to Glasgow, where he died in 1834. Irving, in a letter to his wife, describes himself as walking from his house along Burton Crescent to see the church in Regent Square for the second time. Mr. John Hair, one of the elders of Regent Square Presbyterian Church, says :— " While Mr. Irving was minister at Regent Square he lived at Judd Place KIM, a row of houses now demolished, facing the Mew (now Kuston) Road. 111.1 house, -Nil. 13, stood a few paces to the east of the present entrance to the Midland Railway Sta- tion. There was a little piece of enclosure or garden ground between the houses and the road. vVe have this information from Mr. Stacy, now a member of Regent Square Church, whose father lived near Irving. When a little boy Mr. Stacy remembers being borne aloft on Mr. Irving's shoulders when playing in his back garden. Mr. Stacy also informs us that the original glass plate with inscription, intended to be placed in the foundation stone of the church, owing to some flaw, was not used, and had to be replaced. It is to be seen in the Glass Room of the Geological Museum, Jermyn Street."—' Regent Square,' by John Hair, p. 105, note. JOHN HEBB. DORSETSHIRE SPEECH.—The following four words (all in t) may be worth a note :— 1. Toilet, a hayloft. 2. Toll or toll away, to entice, lure. 3. Tuly, poorly, sick. 4. Trapea, to walk, wander, saunter : often in mat part. The last is an old English word of wide extension, carried across to New England in the seventeenth century, and it is quite likely that the other three are familiar to etymologists. FRANCIS KING. [For in"-1 see 8th S. iv., v., /xurim.J "SHUT TO."—Prof. Skeat informs us in hi. 1 Dictionary' that tattoo, in the sense of th drum-beat to call soldiers to their quarters was originally taptoe, and derived " from the Dutch /•'/', a tap, and toe, put to, shut closed," so that the meaning was that it wa, a signal for closing the taps of the public houses, a signification remarkably confirmee by the German Zapfenstreic/i with the sain meaning. This reminds me that the word t is often used in conversation (though I canno find it in any dictionary) in the sense o closed. " Shut (or put) to the door," as in th above quotation from Prof. Skeat> is a ver, omraon expression, and is often used without verb, as in the question " Is the door to 1" presume, therefore, that the to is here also he Dutch toe = closed. W. T. LYNN. HORNBOOKS.—I think there is a general repression that the use of the hornbook was liscontinued in schools at some time beyond .,he reach of human memory. I certainly bought so until a few days ago, when my riend Mr. England Hewlett informed me a man named William Kell, aged about eighty-two, who was born at Kirton-in-Lind- sey, but now lives at Sturgate, a hamlet near iere. Kell remembers quite well seeing the ittle children going to school with their
 * hat he had recently had an interview with
 * iorn books; some bore them suspended

around their necks, others attached to their wrists. Mr. Hewlett is so happy as to possess a hornbook, which he showed to Kell, who at once recognized it, saying those he had seen as a child were exactly like the object before him. it may be well to make a note of the fact that in the seventeenth century hornbooks were sold in the streets by dishonest beggars, in a song called 'The Vagabond,' in Mr. Ebsworth s reprint of ' Merry Drollery' (p. 207), there occurs the following :— Come buy, come buy a Horn-book, Who buys my Pins and Needles : Such things do 1 in the City cry Uftimes to scape the Beadles. EDWARD PEACOCK. Dunstan House, Kirton-in-Lindsey. ETYMOLOGY or " GUM ELEMI." — The 'H.E.D.' describes this interesting word as "of unknown etymology," adding, "The Arabic name lami, cited by some writers, appears, according to Devic, to be known only as a very modern word." Dr. Murray's earliest English quotation for the term is dated 1543. Devic traces the Arabic equivalent, to 1659. The fact that the European form of the word appears rather more than a century earlier is, however, not the real stumbling-block in the way of deriving it from the Arabic. The real obstacle is that the Arabic form cannot be connected with any Arabic root. "J'ignore quelle est la provenance de ce lami" says Devic. if a suitable meaning could be dis- covered in it, the claim of the Arabic word to be considered the original of the Euro- pean term would no longer be open to ques- tion. 1 think i can supply this want. Lami is an adjective, the tull expression being simtag/i lami, parallel to samag/i arabi, gutn arabic, and, without pretending to be an Orientalist, I do not see why, in accordance