Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/393

 9*s.ix.MAYi7,wu2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


 * 38/>

Black Swan,' it would not have been mis- leading, which a total change of name is bound (more or less) to be. * The Collegians,' again, is sometimes published under Griffin's title, more frequently under that of the, perhaps, better-known dramatized version. Mrs. Kadcliffe's novel ' The Italian ' (by some considered her best work) has been published as 'The Italian Monk.' A cheap edition recently appeared under the title k A Sicilian Romance.' I have seen a version of St. Pierre's * Paul et Virginie ' called * The Shipwreck,' and one of Dumas's 'Count of Monte Cristo ' called ' Edmond Dantes.'

In cases where the author's name is well or fairly well known, and is still appended to the work, one cannot be led far astray ; but where the name is not used, or where (as in some library catalogues) it does not appear with the title, a change is apt to con- fuse many readers. The custom is, I assert, reprehensible, and ought not to be followed by any respectable publisher.

Doubling or reduplicating the titles of books is another fruitful cause of confusion. Thus the ' Canterbury Tales ' of Chaucer and the ' Canterbury Tales ' of Miss Lee are not quite the same. So, too, we have the * Teares of the Muses' by Spenser, and 'Lachrymse Musarum ' by an old poet and also by a modern one. Even such an innocent and trifling matter as that of Stevenson borrow- ing the title of 'Underwoods' from Ben Jonson is not to be commended. Let every man keep his own beauties.

Another matter some what analogous, though not so important, which sometimes leads to confusion, and is also censurable, is the custom of referring to ancient authors by different titles. Thus we can say Tully (like Gold- smith) or Cicero and be equally correct ; but surely Virgil (or Vergil) is better than Maro, and Ovid than Naso, because they are more in accordance with the prevailing practice of our best scholars. I have heard a man say that he was acquainted with Suetonius, but had never read Tranquillus, yet in a good (that is, a carefully compiled) catalogue I have seen a reference to the latter, but none to the former. In such a case (though we could not say there was any error) we might say that if we must have Tranquillus, we might be complemented with Suetonius also, as the more common and more generally used name.

A very interesting volume might be written on book-titles. Concerning misleading titles some interesting notes have appeared in 'N. & Q.' We cannot read the title of a book with the contents of which we are wholly

unacquainted (especially if the title be a striking one) without forming some idea of the contents. Thus I had hoard of 'The Scarlet Letter ' for many years before I read Hawthorne's romance ; and I had woven (I cannot tell how) around the name a romance of my own. I had come to believe that * The Scarlet Letter ' was an epistle written in his own blood by an unfortunate prisoner. The rest of the story followed as a matter of course. I only mention this as an example of what I mean. I am sure other readers of * N. & Q.' have been thus not unpleasingly led astray by the titles of works which they have not read if they would but confess it.

THOMAS AULD.

[Most well-known classical authors have names which may be regarded as the recognized English forms, having beaten others out of the tield. We should say Virgil, Cicero, and Ovid ; we have never seen " Tully " or " Naso in a modern book.]

KNURR AND SPELL. In the course of con- versation with a Yorkshire friend some time ago about this game, which is still played with keen enthusiasm in the more countrified parts of the West Riding and on the out- skirts of the large manufacturing centres, my attention was caught by the use of the expresion on avont (pronounced by my friend on a vont) in the sense of the French phrase en avant and the golfer's fore. I know little of the origin of the game of knurr and spell, but think it well, invited by your motto " When found, make a note of," to communi- cate this in the hope that it may serve some reader. Halliwell does not afford any light on it under O, A, or E. Possibly Wright may. Skeat says knurr is of O.L.G. origin. LIONEL CRESSWELL.

Wood Hall, Calverley, Yorks.

" MUNTJAC." The origin of this well-known zoological term, since 1780 the usual European name of a small Japanese deer, has hitherto been involved in obscurity. The word is omitted from Yule's ' Hobson-Jobson,' just the work in which one would expect to find it, and it is absent even from Scott's l Malayan Words in English' (American Oriental Society's Journal, 1897). The 'Imperial Dictionary ' calls it a ''native name.' 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' says "one of the native names." The 'Century Dictionary calls it Javanese, but I do not find it^m the ' Javanese Dictionary ' of Jausz, 1876 ; on the contrary, the Javanese equivalent is kidawr, as explained by Dr. Murray in the latest volume of the * N.E.D.' There are, however, two other languages spoken in Java, Madurese and Sundanese, and 1 have