Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/529

 9* s. viii. DEC. 28, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

521

is Indian corn boiled, of which they make

their drink." "This is called posole, and by the English poor soul." The editors of the 'N.E.D.' may be glad to know of this.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

MONOSYLLABLES IN LITERARY COMPOSITION. Instructors in the art of literary composi- tion usually condemn a string of monosyl- lables, but in the well-known hymn ' Lead, Kindly Light,' written by a master of the English language, you may count thirty con- secutive words of one syllable only. They offend neither the eye nor the ear.

HENRY TAYLOR.

Birklands, Southport.

[Milton often uses a series of monosyllables. In the second book of ' Paradise Lost ' we have

The Fiend O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or

rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

LI. 947-50.

Such lines are not uncommon in the book : Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of

death. L. 621. And again Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire. L. 912.]

" SWEDE ": A GHOST- WORD. I was for some time mystified about this word, which occurs in an Anglo-Saxon version of the Athanasian Creed, printed in W. de G. Birch, k The Utrecht Psalter/ 1876, p. 299. The Latin " neque substantiam separantes"is there glossed "na swede syndriende." But swede here is merely a misreading of A.-S. spede, which means sub- stance, abundance, wealth, as well as success (see Toller-Bos worth, s.v., and Ettmiiller, 'Lex. Anglo- Saxonicum,' 719). An Anglo-Saxon p is often difficult to distinguish from a,w. A similar blunder occurs in Wright's ' Vocabu- laries,' i. 45, 49, where swediende should be spediende, suffering from rheum or phlegm (A.-S. sped) Toller. A. SMYTHE PALMER.

S. Woodford.

ZOAR CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK. The destruc- tion of this curious old building in King's Court, Great Suffolk Street, is worthy of notice, though the claim made for it that John Bunyan occasionally preached in it would seem to be extremely doubtful. It does not appear to have been used as a place of public worship previous to 1800, though it existed as a public house clubroom in the seventeenth century, and may possibly have been used for secret religious meetings by one or other of the sects which abounded in Southwark at the time. Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q.' will tell us something of

the history of this rapidly disappearing old landmark. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

Rodney Place, Clifton.

ANAGRAM. In the very interesting and picturesque church of Launcells, a little over a mile from Stratton, near Bude, there is a dilapidated monument bearing the following inscription :

"A Memorial for the Erecters | of the Monu- mente | Ana Grammata | Johannes Chamondvs | Nos in Deo canamus | Qui obiit : 14 Octob. 1624."

It is difficult to imagine a much worse ana- gram. Mention of several members of the Chamond family will be found in the his- tories of Launceston by Messrs. Peter and Mr. Bobbins. Launceston has been fortunate in its historians. C. E. D.

COMPULSORY COSTUME FOR JEWS AND CHRISTIANS. The Khalif Mutawakkil in A.D. 846 decreed that Jews and Christians should wear yellow and not white garments. When riding they were to use wooden stirrups. (Sell's ' Essays on Islam,' 1901, p. 187.) This is the earliest regulation known to me.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

CHILDREN AND PHONETICS. The Spanish grammarian in teaching his countrymen the French language has well said that on this side of the Pyrenees b and v are distinct letters, but a recent experience has made me doubt whether they are quite as distinct as they might be. On reading through the dictation papers of twelve children, discovered that four or five of them had spelt abeyance with a v, and innovations with a b. Among allied misunderstandings I found that the words " this fire " had become " this spire " in one case, and "dispire" (what- ever that may be) in another, but had been properly rendered in the remaining ten cases. The word trammelled had varying fortune as regards the spelling, and two writers agreed in writing it " travelled," thus giving another instance of uncertainty in distinguishing labial sounds. On the whole, the papers were good, not one of the children being really a bad speller. H. RAYMENT.

Sidcup, Kent.

DICKENS AND WESTLAND MARSTON : AN INTERESTING LETTER. Among a number of MS. papers (in my possession of the late Dr. John Westland Marston, the dramatist, being chiefly portions of the original rough drafts of, and notes for, several of his plays, is a copy in a lady's hand (probably that of his wife) of a letter from him to his friend Charles Dickens, the novelist, relating ap-