Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/202

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th S. VII. MARCH 9, 1901.

the text ; but I cannot say that I find^ it a much more literary or intelligible production than the version ne gives. I shall be glad to send it to him for inspection, if he cares to see it. HERBERT E. CLARKE.

11, Queen's Road, Beckenham.

"NuNTY" (9 th S. vii. 130). This word was familiar to me, from my earliest recollections, in East Yorkshire. It was most commonly used by women in describing articles of dress, and I think the main idea was that of skimpiness or scantiness. A bonnet or a jacket that seemed too small for the wearer, and whose trimmings were tame and insuffi- cient, was said to be "nunty." Applied to persons, it generally meant stumpy, stunted, insignificant. W. C. B.

THE DOG AND THE GAMEKEEPER (9 th S. vii. 107). The story is sufficiently ancient and well known to have become included among a series of such anecdotes in a small handbook of Welsh arid English for day-school use. In the Welsh version the species of the dog is not named, the river is the Seine, and many of the details given in Le Petit Temps are missing ; but we have the pleasing additional information that the animal was highly grati- fied to have saved its master.

JEANNIE S. POPHAM.

There is a would-be Italian quotation in the first paragraph of this contribution that calls for correction. One knows " Se non e vero, egli e stato un bel trovato," from Doni's 4 1 Marmi,' and " Se non e vero, e molto ben trovato," from Bruno's ' Gli Eroici Furori,' quoted usually without "molto"; but "si non vero e " (three mistakes in four words), within quotation marks, one does not find. ARTHUR MAYALL.

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS (9 th S. vii. 28, 93). I find that the 'D.N.B.' creates considerable havoc among the Douglas marriages given in Sir Robert Douglas's ' Peerage of Scotland ' (ed. Wood, 1813), vol. i., and agrees with SIR HERBERT MAXWELL in preferring Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander the Steward, to a daughter of William de Keith, as the first wife of Sir William "leHardi" and mother of the good Sir James. Barbour calls James, High Steward of Scotland, the hero's "erne," or uncle. The aforesaid ' Peerage,' moreover, gives Elizabeth Steward to another William de Douglas, Lord of Lugton and ancestor of the Earls of Morton. A. R. BAYLEY.

St. Margaret's, Malvern.

A FRIDAY SUPERSTITION (9 fcl1 S. vi. 265, 373, 454). Few servants care to enter a new situation on Friday. That I knew, but was

surprised to find there was also something about Saturday. With difficulty I got at the reason. " Of course they did not believe it,

but " They looked at each other and

shook their heads. It was that Saturday, though " no harm to the servant, was unlucky for the mistress, and a girl coming in on that day would not do to keep." These servants had been quite twenty years in London, one from Hants and the other Huntingdonshire. They said all servants knew about Satur- days. IBAGUE.

[We find, on inquiry, the idea is general. A servant who arrives on Saturday is sure to run away.]

SERJEANT GEORGE HILL. 1716-1808 (9 th S. vii. 68). His father was the Rev. Nathaniel Hill, M.A., sometime rector of Waddington, co. Lincoln (aged about ten years at the Heralds' Visitation of Northamptonshire in 1681), who, on the death of his elder brother Edward Hill, 8 April, 1709, succeeded to the family estate of Rothwell, co. Northampton, where he died 28 April, 1732, leaving by his wife Elizabeth, only daughter and heir of Stephen Lodington, of Waddington aforesaid, the said George Hill as his eldest son and heir. He was born at Waddington in 1716, and died 21 February, 1808, aged ninety-two, being buried at Rothwell. A full account of this family of Hill is given in the Genealogist (New Series), vol. xv. G. E. C.

MARGERY (9 th S. vi. 151, 352, 455; vii. 38). At 9 th S. vi. 455 MR. JOHN T. PAGE asks whether Margett is a variant of Margaret. These names were certainly at one time con- sidered distinct, no identity being recognized between Elizabeth and Isabel ; between Margaret, Maryet, and Margery ; between Gelian arid Julian ; between Agnes and Anne. The passage I cite is from the black-letter case of Mariot v. Mascal, Common Bench, Hilary Term, 29 Eliz. It throws light also on the use of two names or words in baptism, the two (or more) being counted as one Christian name ; and on change of name at one's confirmation :

" Le Ley ne voile suffer ascun chose d'estre

alter en le Christian nome de home queux jeo voile breifrnent reporter, & primes est d'estre agree q'un ne poit aver deux nomes Christians a un temps eins poit aver deux parols ou plusors pur un nome, come Thomas Maria Wingfield, & Thomas Maria est le nome de Baptisine, & Wingfield le surnome, et issint est de John Fitx-llalph Chamberlen, John Fit /-Ralph est le nome de Baptisine, & Chamberlen le auter nome, q'l nome ne poiet estre alter, sinon q'un soit Baptise per un nosrne, & apres confirms j> auter, en quel Case ad estre tenus q' le nome de Baptisine est a respects alter, & le nome per quel est eonfirme est le nome del person, & c tat nome doit