Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/385

 9s. vii. MAY ii, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

377

in travelling, or there may be others on eac side of those two ; but the sense is evidentl borrowed from the employment of a bodkii as it is pressed in in piercing holes in cloth Two q notations in the ' H.E.D.' illustrate thi meaning :

While the pressed bodkin, punched and squeezed t

death. Sweats in the midmost place.

1798, ' Loves of the Triangles,' 182 (L.) ;

and "If you can bodkin the sweet creature into the coach," 1791, Gibbon, Let. 31 Maj in 'Mem.' (1839), 354. It is also, perhap* not quite correctly, applied to three persons walking. This arrangement, when a man walks the street with a lady on each side and thus monopolizes the footway, is said tc suggest " an ass between two panniers " ; in Italy " a pitcher with two ears." In Thacke ray's 'Book of Snobs' Aubrey is supposec to come to town in a postchaise and pair sitting " bodkin," probably between his wife and sister (chap, xxxiv.).

J. H. MACMlCHAEL.

J. P. LEMAISTRE (9 th S. vii. 307). Reference should be made to ' N. & Q.,' 4 th S. xi. 394 but more particularly to 7 S. ix. 26, 116. for communications respecting the author- ship of the volume referred to, viz., 'Paris in 1801.' EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

'CHILD'S OWN BOOK' (9 th S. vii. 248). I have a copy of this dear old book, fifth edition, 1836, printed for Thomas Tegg & Son, Cheapside. The preface to the first edition (prefixed to the fifth) is signed J. M. My copy is in a sad ramshackle state, hardly worth the expense of a new coat, which I am sorry for, as otherwise I should have it bound for the sake of the days described in Mrs. Gemmer's little poem ' Baby-Land,' when I

Heard the fairies singing, And sat upon my nursery floor,

And set the bells a-ringing.

It is profusely illustrated, and at the end are several poems : ' We are Seven,' ' John Gilpin,' Southey's 'Battle of Blenheim,' and others. Benedictus sit liber, notwithstanding its dilapidations, for the sake of the

Dear childish days that were as long As twenty days are now.

When was the first edition published ?

JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Ropley, Hampshire.

An edition must have been issued long before 1861, as I find it in 'The London Catalogue of Books published in London

from the Year 1810 to February, 1831,' wherein it is described as a square 18mo, price 7s. 6d, Miller publisher. In the next volume of the 'Catalogue,' of works issued between 1831 and 1855, another edition of the book is described as "illustrated, 16mo, price 7s. 6d, Tegg publisher."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

NOTE ON A PASSAGE IN CHAUCER'S 'PRO- LOGUE ' (9 th S. vi. 365, 434, 463 ; vii. 30, 95, 175, 238). I fail to see that ago, is not included in the expression " such a collocation of letters as cege, ege, ige" If PROF. SKEAT intended to limit his statement to the collocations named, the form of his statement was not correct, and a point not stated must of necessity be missed. At the same time the perf. partic. of dragan is drcegen, and the noun meaning anything drawn is drcege. So that if in a peculiar dialect the g in dragan was guttural, the g in drcege would have the same value. The two forms haga and hege show a close relationship between aga and ege. The g of hege came into the M.E. hegge and into the modern hedge. It not only did not disappear early, but has not done so yet. If in A.-S. the g were a mere glide, where did the M.E. form come from 1 That the diphthongs formed
 * rom ceg and ag differed does not indicate any

difference in the value of the g in the two groups.

Diegel is not the only A.-S. form of the M.E. Mghel. Digel is given in Bos worth-Toller's Dictionary ' ; authorities, Gregory's ' Dialog.' and homilies of ^Elfric. And as A.-S. spell- ngwas purely phonetic, there could be no difference in the value of the g in digel and n wrigels. That dighel, which occurs in a MS. >f 1275, did not come into the fourteenth cen- rury at all is a remarkable statement. Is it easonable to declare a word obsolete twenty >r thirty years after it is used in a MS. ? yVere M.E. MSS. never read after they were written ?

In the following are evidences of the guttural value of the g in question. In Bos-

orth-Toller's ' Diet./' under ' Tigel,' is tighel- ana ; under l Tigel-stan ' is a quotation from Reliq. Antiq.' (i. 54, 30), "Cover hit wele with a teghell-stane." Bosworth ('Diet.') tates, " To this day porringers are called tigs >y the working potters." InWright-Wiilcker's Voc.,' No. XIII. (495, 1), is hroftigum, a ontracted form of hroftigelum (a roof tile). , n Bosworth-Toller's 'Diet.,' under 'Wrigels,'

ivrieles and ivriheles, from ' Ancren Riwle,' 22, 19, and 420 (note). Under 'Eage,' ege eye) is eghe (Orrain, 1200 A.D.), pi. eg/me