Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/258

 212 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9th s. vi. SEPT. 15,1000. 1 Bibliographer's Manual' makes no mention of Henry Rowe, but gives a Rev. Francis Rowe as the author of ' Fables in Verse,' Lond., 1801,8vo.,as well as of 'Tales Original and Translated from the Spanish,' Lond., 1810. A courteous communication from the Librarian, King's College, Cambridge, repre- sents the Rev. Henry Rowe, LLB., not LL.D., as not having been a Scholar or Fellow of King's nor a graduate of Cambridge Univer- sity. Further, a reference to the 'Alumni Oxonienses 'gives "Henry Rowe, s. Nathaniel, London, armig.," as matriculated "at Brase- nose College 27 Dec., 1768, aged eighteen." The Gent. Mag. states that his poems were published in 2 vols. 12mo., 1799. The copy in the library of King's College, Cambridge, is in 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1796. Ringshall Rectory, near Stowmarket, is now in the gift of Pembroke College, Oxford. ROBERT WALTERS Ware Priory. MARRIAGE AS A MALE CHRISTIAN NAMK (9tb S. vi. 25).—In the counties of Essex and Sussex are old and well-known families bear- ing the name of Marriage as the surname. Several descendants through female members have had the name given to them as the Christian name. W. G. N. "NESQUAW" (9th S. v. 395, 500; vi. 37).— " Billing " is used by Mrs. Poyser as a term of affection addressed to her youngest child : " Totty, be a good dilling and go to sleep now" ('Adam Bede,'chap. xiv.). Curiously enough, in chap. vi. Totty is compared to a little pig: "A sort of waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck made her look like the metamorphosis of a white sucking-pig." This description of the child's appearance may have suggested the use of the word "dilling"in the later passage, if_in Warwickshire the word signifies a young pig. JOHN WILLCOCK. Cerwick, N.B. "ALAMAINS" (9th S. vi. 129).—I presume this is Walpole's spelling of "Almains," Germans, a word which seems to have been obsolete in 1776, the latest example in the ' H.E.D.'being dated 1698; and the allusion may be to persons not so much of German nationality as of German views. It would have helped my judgment had your corre- spondent supplied the context. But we know that about the beginning of 1776 active negotiations had taken place between our Government and the petty potentates of Ger- many for the employment of mercenaries against the Americans, so that tha German nterest was doubtless strongly represented at the English Court. F. ADAMS. 115, Albany Road, S.E. Surely Alamains is merely a variant of Almains, «'.«., Germans. See'Almain'in the H.E.D.' The introduction of the second a is due to the Latin form Alamanut, which, according to Lewis and Short, occurs in ^laudian's second poem in praise of Stilicho, .. 17. We should always verify references ; and, in trying to do so in the present case, I ftnd that the reference is wrong. It occurs in 1.17 of the third poem : " Hwc Alamanorum poliis." WALTER W. BKEAT. Is this a variation of Almains ? The Ger- man people were formerly known as the [lrnains (from Allemani=the people of all countries and nations). See Berners's trans- lation of the 'Chronicles' of Froissart and Bailey's dictionary, twenty-fifth edition. I regret that my knowledge of Walpole's writings is so slight that I cannot pretend to offer any suggestion as to the meaning he intended to convey by the phrase "Alamains of the court." ALBERT GOUOH. Holywood, co. Down. SHAKESPEARE AND THE SEA (9th S. i. 504; ii. 113, 189, 455 ; iii. 36, 173; v. 462; vi. 56, 136).—I strangely forgot that Virgil was copying Homer in the passage to which I referred. A few months ago I read carefully the whole of the fifth book of the 'Odyssey,' so I ought to have had in my mind the original o_f Virgil's lines. If there is any Greek original of the following lines of Horace I have never met with it:— Cras fdii- nonius Multia, et alga littus inutili Demissa tempestas ab Euro Sternet, aquae nisi fallit augur, Annosa cornix. Book iii. ode 17. I see no weakness in "Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt," ifcc., or in Virgil's original, rrvv S' Eupos re NOTOS T" lirco-oi/, K.T.A. In a storm sailors will say that the wind blows from all quarters. The first line of MR. SIMPSON'S quotation from Ovid does not affect me much. It may be paralleled by the English expression of seas running mountains high. Sailors use that expression. I think that there is more than exaggeration in some of Shakspeare's descriptions. When a great poet describes a thing both in a natural and in an unnatural manner, the presumption is that he has never seen it. His natural de- scriptions he may have learnt from persons or from books. His unnatural descriptions are because he trusts in himself, and writes on what he does not know. E. YARDLKY.