Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/356

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NOTES AND QUERIES, fe* s. vin. o<*. 26, 1901.

referred to "this particular meaning," viz., that at the first reference ; and " this second meaning," viz., the one referred to in addi- tion by myself. By "meaning" I meant meaning, not application of meaning. As regards philology, my points were that "racing," in the sense of making lineable, was derived from reiza=& line, and that "racing," in the sense of rushing, was derived from rces = & rush or race. Reiza was conjec- tural, roes based upon authority.

On the general question of etymological terminology and demonstration, it is well to mark the distinctions used by Prof. Skeat in his 'Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language,' and explained in the introduction thereto. AETHUR MAYALL.

SWEENY TODD (9 th S. vii. 508; viii. 131, 168, 273). If this gruesome topic is not yet quite exhausted, it may be as well, by way of completion, and in confirmation of the con- clusions of myself and MR. CLAYTON, to add the late Mr. Sala's own words :

"He [an editor] lived long enough to see my first story in print, and mildly to reproach me for some slight grammatical error of which I had been guilty. That was in the year of grace eighteen hundred and forty-six."' Dead Men tell no Tales, but Live Ones Do ' (the first of nine stories entitled lhat Man's Life : the Story of an Old-fashioned Editor ), by George Augustus Sala. London, John Dicks, c., n.d.

I have always been under the impression that the legend of 'The Demon Barber of Ifleet Street ' was suggested to the " penny shocker of the eighteen thirties by the incidents of the cause celebre in Scotland of the sixteenth century, the revolting trial of bawney Bean and his associates, introduced by Mr. S. R. Crockett in his powerful romance of 'The Grey Man of Auchinleck,' the scene in ' Sawney Bean ' transferred to London and Fleet Street, where, to my per- sonal knowledge, a penny pie-shop carried on its business in the forties of last century on the very site attributed to it in the tale under discussion. Whether the adjacent house (at that date thriving as a cook-shop conspicuous for that succulent kind of York- shire pudding described by Dickens in 'David Copperfield under the name of " spotted covey, from the raisins liberally adorning its greasy surface) was a barber's shop oncS 1 no not know.

These two apparently very ancient houses stood about the centre of a group extending

vard iee S! fc C0me u f St Dun tan's Church yard to the south-west corner of Fetter Lane Many readers will remember them, for they were demolished but a very few

years ago ; their upper stories were of wood, and they were surmounted by a peculiar wooden parapet or balustrade gallery over- looking the busy thoroughfare below. When the pie -shop discontinued purveying its special comestibles (and I have, as a boy, many, many times "sampled" its excellent wares), it was carried on as a bookseller's business under the conduct of a dealer of extremely peculiar views named Truelove, who also long ago disappeared. The house was said to have been formerly occupied by the cele- brated Mrs. Salmon's waxworks, when that exhibition early in the nineteenth century was transferred from " over the way."

I take the opportunity of adding that the "melodramatic playwright named Saville Faucit," mentioned by MR. CLAYTON, was also an eminent melodramatic actor, Edward Faucit Saville, a predecessor in the " breezy " line of jeune premier, of which an able modern representative on the London stage was the lamented William Terriss, whose tragical death at the hand of an assassin appalled us but, as it were, the other day. To those who fondly remember in the days of their boyhood a partiality for Skelt's " penny plain and twopence coloured " theatrical portraits, pleasant memories will be recalled by the limned likenesses of E. F. Saville as the pirate king, the bold smuggler, the heroic naval officer, &c. ; but all will be interested in identifying this player -playwright as the brother of one of the most accom- plished actresses that ever with resplendent talents adorned the annals of the British stage, the venerated and respected Lady Martin, whom we all in youth, maturity, and middle age warmly appreciated under the name of Helen Faucit. GNOMON.

Temple.

[The AthencKum of 29 April, 1899, mentioned that Mr. Truelove, the publisher, formerly of the

btrand, and latterly of Holborn, has died at an

advanced age."]

LITTLE JOHN'S REMAINS (9 th S. viii. 124, 250). In the fifties, being then a bound apprentice lad in Sheffield, 1 remember to my shame making a pilgrimage on foot from the "City of Soot" to the graveyard of St. Michael's at Hathersage (formerly Heather Edge). This occurred, by deliberate selection, upon a moonlight night, the ten or twelve mile tramp there and back being thought nothing of in those days. Armed with the paternal garden trowel, I quietly stole around the south side of Hathersage Church bo the spot where a small head and a root stone tradition said at once marked