Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/210

 172 NOTES AND QUERIES. rw S. VI- Sm 1.1m would be within three or four hundred yards; it was probably on the Roman road between Lincoln and Doncaster; and it would be in the village of Owston. It would be round in shape and have a moat to it, the road going round it leading from Haxey to Owston. Then, according to Pope Gregory’s instructions to St. Augustine, the Christians turned the temple into a church, destroying the idols of course but preservirigl what was consistent with hristianity. e moat and the road would be undisturbed. Then the Mowbrays, seeing the strength of the position (com- man ing as it did the ferry across the Trent connecting the high road to Lincoln, and also situated high enou h to be clear of the floods from the l`rent), built their castle close by, keeping the moat intact and con- structing an outer one for the court and castle, which would enclose the inner one with its church, as well as a considerable portion of land as now seen. There would then have Erobably been only two moats, instead of t ree as some suppose. If the inner moat round the church is not of pre-Christian origin then the Mowbrays must have constructed it, and this seems strange. Supposing they built the church within the castle yard to serve as a private chapel, one does not see any reason for their making a moat round the church inside the outer moat. Whether there was a church at Owston before the Mowbrays came is not known; we onl know that the present one was founded’ by the Mowbrays, and was partly built by them. But it is quite certain that the Isle of Axholme was a populous and important district long before King Edward the Confessor’s time, and also that it was a favourite spot for the battles between the kings of Northumbria and Mercia, as the isle was on the borders of the two kingdoms and commanded the ferry across the Trent connecting the road between Doncaster and Lincoln. Also the Trent made this part of the country particularlly easy of access. Several relics-Roman. orman &c.-found in the Owston new churchyard and in the district show that the place was of some importance. It is, there ore, uite ossible that the inhabitants erecteld a lieathen temple, or something of that kind, before Christianity was established. 'However, the positions of the church and the moated mound are such as will always command attention; and it is to be hoped further investigation may eventually exp ain exactly how they originated I have written at this length so as not to omit anything that may be of use to your correspondent. What I have to say on the subject are only humble suggestions, made b one who would like to call forth more efiicidation from others who are more quali- fied to speak. M. H. HAYLLAB. Owston. QUOTATIONS IN TEXT-Books (9“' S. vi. 24).- My e es recently fell upon some remarks by MR. THOMAS BAYNE, in which he finds fault with me for certain misquotations in my text-book on ‘English Grammar and Com- position.’ Among the eight examples that he quotes four (viz., those in php. 60, 93, 242, and 294) are admitted. But t e other four are not admitted, two of them being misprints, and the other two not quotations at al. 1. As reglards the four that are admitted, I am sorry t at greater care was not taken at first in verifying the references; but as the book has been scarcely two years in circula- tion, and as the printer has already received instructions to _make the necessary changes in the next issue, I trust that no great harm has been done. 2. As regards the two misprints, viz., “ swings” for swims in p. 232 and “ divine’s ” for divinefs in p. 242, which the critic mis- took for misquotations, I need only say that t pographica errors will sometimes occur in the course of a closeli printed book of 340 pages. The critic mig t, I think, have given me credit for knowing something more about the laws of rhythm than to have supposed that an iambic pentameter could end with such an “unmelodious” jargon as “the glad dzjvimfs theme,” or that Dryden could have written such jargon. 3. As regards the two extracts which he censures as misquotations, I have only to repeat that they are not quotations at all, and are not given as such in the pages (238 and 99) in which they occur. The first, “ The child is father to the man,” is given by me as a “proverb," that being the form 1n which, within my experience, the saying is usually repeated and in which it is currently known. I gave it merely as an example of epigram, whatever the source of the proverb may have been. It may be uite true that Wordsworth, in the line quoted by MR. BAYNE. uses “of ’ for to, and that Wordsworth borrowed the thought from Milton (‘ Par. Reg.,’ iv. 220). But all this was beside my purpose. The other example of alleged misquotation is the sen- tence in p. 99, “Though he punish me, yet will I trust in him.” This sentence is one among twenty-five others, all coined by my- self, in which the student is asked to ‘ pick