Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/56

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NOTES AND QUERIES, p* s. VIIL JULY 13, 1901.

I have read his latest article very carefully, but cannot see that the omission of the words " whereas " and " as I said " about which he complains so bitterly makes any difference to the sense of the paragraph; nor does any context which he himselt quotes do so either.

FATHER ANGUS, who "knows very well what he is writing about," is left without an attempt at a reply, doubtless for this very reason that reply would be too difficult, also his name is welt known. Now with me it is altogether different. I never pretended to know any more on this matter than what I had seen with my own eyes walking about London. (Is ME. ARNOTT quite sure, by the way, that Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, St. James's, Paddington, and St. Mark's, Marylebone Road, were all built "in the years preceding the Oxford movement "? I am not.)

As to my " nom de plume," that is hardly a crime in * N. & Q.'; if so, I should have blushed for it thirty years back when I used one first in these pages unrebuked. MR. ARNOTT should be grateful for this, since he has found it so much easier to attack an unknown individual than to reply to a known one. IBAGTJ&

ERNEST BUSSY (9 th S. vii. 449). This promising young poet died in 1887, at the very early age of twenty-three. His poems, with a short biographical sketch, were pub- lished at Lausanne (his birthplace) in 1888, in one volume. A small collection of fugitive pieces, entitled ' A mi-voix,' appeared during the author's lifetime (Lausanne, 1885).

KOBERT B. DOUGLAS.

64, Rue des Martyrs, Paris.

SCOTT QUERY (9 th S. vii. 510). - In the "Dry burgh Edition" of the Waverley novels, vol. xiv. (1893), the meaning of "on the viretot" is given in the glossary as "on the trudge, on the tramp a phrase used in Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale.'"

A. & C. BLACK.

" BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA " (9 th b. vii. 449). It is a curious fact that three of the nve quotations given in the 'H.E.D.' under 'Devil' are from Scottish authors. Ine earliest, from Col. Kobert 'Monro, his Expedition and Observations' (1637), part ii. p. 55, 1 give at greater length :

" At the Leaguer of Werben on the Elve against

General Tilhe his Army I was ordained with my

Musketiers to remain on our former Poste, his Majestie and the rest of the partie being retired within the Leaguer. Incontinent from our Batteries, our Lannon did play againe within the Leaguer,

which continued the whole day, doing great hurt on both sides, where the whole time, I, with my partie, did lie on our Poste, as betwixt the Devill and the deepe Sea, for sometimes our owne Cannon would light short, and grase over us, and so did the enemies also."

Q. V.

This seems to be a free rendering of the Greek v E/i7rpoo-0ev KP^/XVOS, oirurOev XVKOI ("A fronte preecipitium, a tergo lupi"), a proverb whose origin Erasmus (' Adag., ch. iii. cent. iv. proy. 94) leaves unexplained. The devil is again substituted for the wolf in the familiar English adaptation " Talk of the devil," &c., of the classical " Lupus in fabula " (Plaut., 'Stich.,' iv. 1, 71; Cic., 'Att.,' xiii. 33, 4, &c.). J. M. C.

It has been suggested to me by Mr. H. S. Cuming that this phrase was adopted, if not originated, by the Koyalists in allusion to Cromwell, " the deep C.," the relationship of the devil to the deep " C." being implied in a book or pamphlet of the time entitled "A True and Faithful Narrative of Oliver Crom- well's Compact with the Devil for Seven Years on the day on which he gained the Battle of Worcester. Printed and Sold by W. Boreham at the Angel in Paternoster Row, 6d." This modern sense of "deep," meaning profound in craft and subtlety, was certainly prevalent in Cromwell's time (see 'H.E.D.,' s.v. 'Deep,' 17). The earliest in- stance of the saying given under ' Devil ' is 1637 : Monro, 'Exped.,' ii. 55 (Jam.), "I, with my partie, did lie on our poste, as betwixt the devill and the deep sea." It was also formerly " Between the devil and the Dead Sea " (ibid.).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Hazlitt, 'English Proverbs,' 1882, has "Be- twixt the devil and the Dead Sea," and refers to Clarke's ' Parcemiologia,' 1639.

A. C. LEE.

Waltham Abbey.

See 7 th S. i. 320, 453. At the first of these references the Editor remarks that " the origin of this is unknown to us." At the second reference illustrative quotations are given dated 1637 and 1697. G. L. APPERSON. [Other replies acknowledged.]

" SHOEHORNED " (9 th S. vii. 289, 395). None of your correspondents has mentioned the word " shoehorning," a term used (privately) in auction-rooms in Furness and Cumberland. It is not uncommon, after a sale by auction, to hear such remarks as " There 's been a lot of shoehorning to-night " when any article has been bid up falsely above what is considered its value. "Shoehorning" therefore means lifting up the price, in the same way as the