Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/469

 s. viii. DEC. 7, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

461

due to transcription." They contain about half as many errors as words.

But the "nameless clergyman" should have been identified by an editor so well acquainted with the literary history of the period. He was undoubtedly the Rev. Joshua Barnes, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, 1695-1712, of whom the great Bentley said that " he knew as much Greek as a Greek cobbler." This is proved by the mention of } AvaKpe<av X/noTtai/os at p. 186. Barnes's edition of Anacreon (or rather of the frag- ments attributed to him) was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1705. It is dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, and contains "effigies" of Anacreon, of the duke, and of Barnes himself. Barnes's ' Ana- creon Christianus,' in Greek and Latin, with copious notes, is printed at pp. 384-401. Barnes's life is, it need scarcely be said, in- cluded in the 'D.N.B.' C. E. D.

GUINEA. The ' N.E.D.' says : " The guinea is the ordinary unit for a professional fee and for a subscription to a society or institution; the prices obtained for works of art, racehorses, and sometimes landed property, are also stated in guineas. Otherwise the word is now only occasion- ally used."

And a quotation is given " 1885, Act 48 Viet.

c. 16, 16: 'Such substitutes shall be

paid at the rate of seven guineas per day.'"

What is remarkable about this quotation is that the legislature has done all it can of late years to discountenance the guinea. This course it seems bound to take, as it will not coin guineas. Notwithstanding this, how- ever, various officials act contrary to the authority that coins them! Thus in the Morning Post for 11 October I read that a person was fined six guineas and nine guineas costs. Now, if this bill of nine guineas " costs " was put before one of the other officials to wit, a taxing master he would say : " Guineas ! No guineas allowed. The legislature gives solicitors ten shillings or twenty shillings in the Acts of Parliament regulating costs : the odd shillings must be taxed off." However, solicitors do charge guineas as an ordinary fee, and even (as a sort of protest, I suppose) put them in bills which may be taxed.

But why should legal professional men be thus limited, when tradesmen and others are not interfered with 1 A walk along any street in the empire at once discloses the fact that the guinea is universal. The tailors charge guineas for almost everything ; the bootmakers do the same ; but I have not observed that butchers have yet adopted the guinea. All furnished houses, and frequently

apartments, are let in guineas. The origin of this, I am told, was that the odd shillings were to pay the agent's commission. This may pernaps be the origin of some auc- tioneers selling chattels for guineas. But practically, in the present day, if a furnished house is let for, say, one thousand guineas for the summer season (about May, June, and July) a common price in London the owner takes that sum and the agent charges his commission on 1,050.

What the * N.E.D.' says was no doubt per- fectly accurate for that time, but the guinea has made rapid progress in public favour recently. There seems to be no stamping it out not even at the Royal Mint.

RALPH THOMAS.

BALL'S POND ROAD, NORTH LONDON. A correspondent in the Daily Mail of 9 Nov. answers the oft-repeated question as to the origin of the nomenclature of this well-known London road. His reply is, I think, worth preserving in the pages of ' N. & Q.' :

" Ball's Pond was formerly a spot famous for bull-baiting and other brutal sports. It derived its name from a person named John Ball, who kept a house of entertainment there about the middle of the seventeenth century. A large pond, which remained till the commencement of the nineteenth century, was coupled with the name of the host" Parochial Report of St. Paul's Church, Canonbury.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME. 1, Rodney Place, Clifton.

SHEEPSHANKS EPIGRAM. (See 2 nd S. xii. 68, 98, 359.) The following epigram is given in an interesting book, 'Reminiscences of Oxford,' by a friend of mine, the Rev. William Tuckwell, M.A., formerly Fellow of New College, Oxford ; but I do not think that he is correct in attributing it to the Rev. Edward Nares, D.D., formerly Professor of Modern History and Fellow of Merton College : The Satyrs of old were Satyrs of note, With the head of a man and the feet of a goat ; But the Satyrs of this day all Satyrs surpass, With the shanks of a sheep and the head of an ass.

Looking over an old volume of * N. & Q.' often a pleasure mingled with pain for the loss of many correspondents I find the author- ship of the epigram discussed, and variants of the above form given ; and though the authorship is not proved, yet it is said to have been written on a Fellow of Jesus Col- lege, Cambridge, named Sheepshanks, who had spelt the 'Satires' of Juvenal as "Satyrs." Before the Christian era it is remarkable to note the general belief in satyrs, and we find them alluded to in Isaiah xiii. 21 and xxxiv. 14 as haunting desolated Babylon. The Hebrew word is