Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/454

 378 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9»s.vi,Nov.io,i9oo. may still be seen. Anne Taylor, of Ongar, married the Rev. Joseph Gilbert Their eldest son Josiah, I observed, died at Ongar, aged seventy-eight, on 15 Aug., 1892. I am afraid these particulars may not be very helpful, but in the hope that they may form connect- ing links in the chain I send them on. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire. ANCIENT TOWERS IN SARDINIA (9th S. v. 497 ; vi. 29).—I examined some of the nuraghi (called runaghi in some parts of the island) when I was in Sardinia in 1891. They and the curious little old parish churches and the museums at Caghari and Sassari (or Tatari, locally) well repay the archaeologist. A fortress is a dwelling, and ancient dwellings were fortresses. The nuraghi were fortified dwellings with spiral staircases in the thick- ness of their walls leading from one story to another. They are round pyramids or steeples. They have no cement or mortar to hold the stones together. In the subterranean cham- bers which some of them have pieces of lava fill the interstices of the stones and keep the earth from pressing in. Whence did the builders fetch their lava? I think each of these wonderful structures which I saw stands near a stream or a spring. Without water, no dwelling. When they were new they must have served to pass messages by flags, mirrors, fires, or shouting from the top of one to the next, and so all across the island. They were, in fact, the telegraph posts of that remote epoch, the stations of rude geodesical surveyors. The peasants around them speak almost the Latin of St. Gregory. I noted their sardonic laughter. PALAHEDES. "FRAIL" (9th S. iv. 436, 507; v. 51, 158).— On 22 April, 1537, John Husee sent to Lady Lisle, " packed in a fraille, two little barrels of suckat, weighing 181bs., the one of flowers of oranges, the other of fine succado, at M. the lb."—' Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII.,' vol. xii. pt. i. p. 451. Q. V. "SKILLY" (9th S. vi. 306).-The word as given by Webster and in the ' Imperial Dic- tionary ' is skillif/alee. They do not give skilly as a main word, but the latter has it as a con- traction. Skilly is, nevertheless, given by Halliwell. In no case is the derivation sup- plied. It is scarcely possible to look up the word without finding an association with skillet; and hereupon one agrees with the contributor that Webster's derivation of this word may be wrong. May not both skilly and skillet be derived from M.E. schelle, O.E. scyll, O.N. skell, meaning "shell, drinking vessel, anything hollow " 1 This is, of course, only a guess. With regard to the third and fourth syllables of skilliqalee it is worth noting that the earliest form of the F. galima- frde, a word with a somewhat similar mean- ing, was calimafre'e, but cali in this case was only a prepositional prefix. There is a Lan- cashire dialect expression skilly-an-wack, which equals " prison fare." ARTHUR MAYALL. In prisons as well as workhouses the gruel is called skilly—"skilly an' a spoon_" as I have heard it called by casuals on coming out after a " night in." Skilly is, I take it, a form of skinny=poor, thin ; and many folk say skiUflint tor " skinflint." THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop. HUNTER STREET, BRUNSWICK SQUARE (9th S. vi. 285).—Your correspondent expresses the hope that a name-tablet might be affixed to the nouse at 53, Hunter Street, where John Kuskin was born. He and other readers will be interested to hear that this has very recently been done, so that all who pass by may note one more association of a London street with a great Englishman. W. H. D. THE BLACK ROOD (9th S. vi. 309).—A query, with remarks thereon occupying a column, and the reply, extending over a page and a half, will be found in ' N. & Q.,' I'1 S. ii. 308, 409. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. NOTES ON BOOKS, ftc. One Hundred Book-P/alti. Engraved on Wood by Thomas Moring. (De la More Press.) Fifty Book-Plato. Engraved on Copper. (Same author and publisher.) VERY far from exhausted is the interest in book- plates, and the appearance of Mr. Moring's two handsome volumes will whet afresh the ap)>etite of amateurs. The book-plates now supplied by Mr. Moring are mostly his own design, and exclusively his own execution. They are issued in small and strictly limited editions, and are in each cose accompanied by introductions, which Mill be found useful to the student. In the prefatory remarks to the fifty book-plates executed on copper Mr. Moring strongly advocates the employment of heraldry in book-plates. The temptation to use heraldic designs as a mark of ownership is too strong to need much enforcement on a general public. Most book-plates are heraldic. Where, even, the entire design in not such, subsidiary details are apt to be so., More finished execution,