Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/444

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

ix. MAY 31, 1902.

This work was also published by J. Jolmson, No. 72, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1784, and reprinted by Sanders <fe Co., No. 7, Mission Row, Calcutta, 1848. W. C. L. FLOYD.

CECIL RHODES'S ANCESTORS (9 th S. ix. 325). Some discussion has lately been going on in the Times as to the locality of the dairy -farm carried on by Mr. Rhodes, ancestor of Mr. Cecil Rhodes. The following extract from 'The Book of Table Talk,' p. 281. published by Charles Knight in 1836, would seem to prove that originally it was at Islington. Later the progress of building may well have compelled him to seek pastures new. The writer, speaking of the Arab notion that anything perfect in quantity is particularly affected by the evil eye, continues :

" It is curious to recognize this superstition of the desert in the neighbourhood of London. We remember when we were children there was a great cowkeeper at Islington of the name of Rhodes, who had no difficulty in keeping nine hundred and ninety-nine cows all safe and sound ; but, do what he would, he could never keep a thousand. If he bought one to make up the number, two or three others were sure to die ; nay, if he purchased ten or twenty at a time, before he could get them home a sudden mortality would dispose of other ten or twenty ; thus always keeping the number down to the charmed nine hundred and ninety-nine. At least so went the story, which no cook-maid, house- maid, or old maid in the neighbourhood seemed to doubt."

J. H. PARRY.

A picture of the altar-tomb erected by the late Mr. Cecil Rhodes in St. Pancras Church- yard to the memory of his ancestors appeared in Black and White of 5 April. At the south end of the tomb are the words "Erected to replace two decayed family tombs by C. J. R., 1890." Almost all the available space is occupied by the names of those buried beneath and of some interred at other places. Three valuable articles on the Rhodes family appeared in the St. Pancras Guardian of 5 Feb., 5 March, and 2 April, 1897. I believe these have since been reprinted in a local magazine.

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

The following anecdote relating to Samuel Rhodes, of Islington, great -great -grand- father of the "Colossus," may be of interest. It was popularly said that he could never successfully keep a thousand cows, a belief, in accordance with the superstition as to un- lucky numbers, which was held by Samuel Rhodes himself, who said that he was tired of trying to increase his stock to 1,000 or up- wards. So surely as he did some misfortune

would happen ; his cows would sicken, or meet with a series of accidents, until the number had sunk below the fatal standard, when all would go well again. His answer to the jests which such an assertion produced was that he was the best judge, as the loss was his, and that for several years he had uninterrupted good fortune even when his stock stood at 999, and misfortune as in- variably when he reached 1,000.

J. H.OLDEN MACMlCHAEL. Wimbledon Park Road.

GREEK PRONUNCIATION (9 th S. vii. 146, 351, 449 ; viii. 74, 192, 372, 513 ; ix. 131, 251, 311, 332). F. J. C. should "verify his references." If he had read my letter appearing at 9 th S. viii. 513 he would have seen that I am in no way responsible for the derivation of salt from the Latin sal. I then said, and I maintain that, according to Prof. Skeat, salt is derived from A.-S. sealt. Since reading F. J. C.'s reply I have again consulted Sk cat's 'Etymol. Diet.,' second edition (1884); also his 'Principles of English Etymology ' (1887). Salt is given as a Modern English word, the Middle English form of which was also salt (the Middle English period being considered by Prof. Skeat as extending roughly from 1200 to 1460). Salt is then put as derived from A.-S. sealt, and absolutely no mention is made of any Anglian word salt. I have not been able to consult Sweet's * History of English Sounds.' M. HAULTMONT.

An old dictionary was responsible for the derivation of English salt from Latin sal, and not the present writer ; and another con- tributor to 'N. & Q.' was responsible for its derivation from sealt. Whether those deri- vations are correct or incorrect does not, I think, much affect the arguments submitted by me, which were concerned with changes in vowel sound, not with letters or deriva- tions. W. H. B.

ST. BEES (9 th S. ix. 267). Authorities agree that St. Bees was Bega or Begga, but differ as to her day and generation. Dr. Owen, in his 'Sanctprale Catholicum,' quotes her death as occurring upon 6 September, 560, and remarks :

" In Cumberland, S. Bega, a virgin, was patroness of the goodly church and monastery of S. Bees, which was a famous place of pilgrimage for the people of the north of England."

Dr. Husenbeth, in his ' Emblems of Saints,' describes her as a widow who passed away 17 December, 689, and quotes ' Chorpgraphia Sacra Bradantise,' in which she is repre- sented as a crowned abbess, holding a model