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NOTES AND QUERIES, p* s. vm. DEO. 21, MOI.

with the soft s sound, i.e., as the English z. Without, therefore, going as far as to say that it is absolutely sure that vas was pro- nounced as varze^ it may safely be said that it is most probable. M. HAULTMONT.

PRISONERS OF WAR IN OUR LITERATURE (9 th S. vii. 469; viii. 46, 153). Once again, trusting to the unvarying kindness of the Editor, and relying upon the indulgence of the readers of 'N. & Q.,' I venture upon offering another extract from the 'Annual Register' for 1812. It is a trifle "out of date," yet at the present moment, when the treatment of prisoners of war has become, perhaps, the most important political ques- tion of the hour, it may be interesting, if to nobody else, at least to the "man in the street."

" August 19. French Prisoners. As a proof of the good treatment of the prisoners of war in this country, the following comparative statement of those sick and in health will be the best answer to the calumnies of the Moniteur :

Thursday, August 20.

On board prison-ships. In health. Sick.

Hamoaze 6,100 61

In Dartmoor depot ... 7,500 74

This small proportion of sick is not the common average of persons not confined as prisoners of war. At Dartmoor depot 500 prisoners, such as labourers, carpenters, smiths, &c., are allowed to work from sunrise to sunset ; they are paid 4fZ. and 6d. per day, according to their abilities, and have each their daily rations of provisions, viz., a pound and a half of bread, half a pound of boiled beef, half a pound of cabbage, and a proportion of soup and small beer. They wear a tin plate in their caps, with the title of the trade they are employed in, and return every evening to the depot to be mus- tered."

In this same volume, and also in previous and subsequent volumes, of the 'Annual Register' there are to be found most in- teresting paragraphs respecting the French prisoners in England : how the officers fought duels among themselves ; how 1,000 of them escaped (or tried to escape); how several English men were severely punished for aid- ing and abetting, with many other interest- ing old-world details.

HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

d, Kentrew Koad, Lower Kennington Lane.

CLOCK AND WATCH FIGURES (9 th S. viii. 385, 465). Like one of your contributors at the last reference, I was of opinion that dialling as surviving from sundials would account for the use of IIII for IV; but is the evidence from this source sufficiently definite to justify the opinion ? I ask for the sake of information. So far as my means of judging, which are not special, go, the facts

are the other way, and Britten appears to be justified in his attitude. Unless it can be shown that IIII was the rule on sun and moon dials the argument is of little or no value. What is the evidence ?

ARTHUR MAYALL.

" PAR VER ALLEY " (9 th S. viii. 325, 451). Modern writers on architecture certainly count what is generally called the nave as an aisle. Mr. Charles Herbert Moore in his 'Development and Character of Gothic Architecture ' (Macmillan, 1899) talks of the cathedral of Paris having five aisles. Notre Dame has a nave with two aisles on each side. From the description of Mr. Moore, MR. HUSSEY would be justified in speaking of the nave as "the centre aisle." Mr. Moore is an American, but his book is already almost a classic. French writers speak of Notre Dame as having five "nefs." "Aile" is the French equivalent of our aisle, but I find "nef laterale" is quite as frequently used as "aile." The space to the west of the cathedral of Paris is known as Parvis Notre Dame. Formerly it was called "Parvis paradisus," " the earthly paradise leading to the celestial Jerusalem," as one writer inter- prets it. MR. HEMS'S explanation of the word parvise in England is doubtless correct. CHARLES HIATT.

MR. HARRY HEMS is confusing two distinct words, namely, "aisle," from ala, and "alley," from Old Fr. alee, connected with aller, to go, walk. It would be wrong, as he says, to speak of the "centre aisle" of a

church, but the common phrase "middle alley " is quite right. T T v

Durham.

J. T.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The, Epistles of Erasmus, from his Earliest Letters to his Fifty-first Year. Arranged in Order of Time by Francis Morgan Nichols. (Longmans & Co.)

MOST that we know concerning Erasmus is derived from his correspondence, which, beginning with letters to his personal friends and associates, ended by embracing the men of highest rank and dis- tinction of his epoch. An arrangement of this is an indispensable preliminary to our obtaining that life of Erasmus for which the world, in spite of all the works between Beatus Rhenanus and Seebohm, is yet waiting. For various reasons, probably to some extent prudential, Erasmus shirked during his lifetime the task, to which he was more than once bidden by his friends, of arranging under dates the epistles which, with or without his connivance, were given to the world. Students in the following centuries have mourned his timidity or reticence. In the present volume