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W. H. STEVENSON. in the form of cordiner, is applied to the craft "CORDWAINER" (9th S. iv. 436).--This word, be derived from Cordova, in Spain, noted for of shoemakers in Scotch burghs. It is said to leather is known in Scotland as cordovan. its leather manufactures. Tanned horse Jamieson says that the name of cordwainer was generally given in Europe to one who wrought in foreign leather. French cordonnier, corduannier; makere, a leather-dresser. Auchterarder.

Swedish

corduwansA. G. REID.

from the common noun. But in Edgware, can only be settled by documentary evidence, co. Middlesex, and Edgeworth, co. Glou- which possibly does not exist. cester,* we have records of the masc. ending -es, so that these names must be from men's names, the gen. sing. of the common noun being ecge. I suspect that a personal name occurs in the Domesday Book_name for the hundred of Christ Church, co. Hants. It is written Ege-iete (i. 516, col. 1), Eghe-iete (i. 386, col. 2, 43b, col. 1, 44, col. 2), and Eghe-iet (46, col. 2). The latter part of the name is undoubtedly O.E. geat, dat. geate, and the first part is ecg plus a vowel (Eghe, 264, col. 2, 264b, col. 1, now Edge, co. Chester, represents the dat. sing. Ecge). By the time of the Survey the weak-ending -an had sunk down in compounds to -e, so that this may be an O.E. *Ecgan-geat (cf. Wigheiete, i. 166b, col. 2 Wiggangeat, Wyegate, co. Glouc., 'Cart. Sax.,' iii. 585, 23). It might represent an Ecges-geat, for the gen. sing. masc. is frequently given as e in Domesday and in later records. Later forms do not throw any light upon the origin. It occurs as Eggieta (Latinized) in Pipe Roll, 14 Hen. II., 182; Eggiet(h)e in the rolls 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Hen. II. But whatever the original form of this local name may have been, we have in it a form that would regularly yield Edgett. A natural feature that could give its name to a hundred might easily be recorded in a family name.

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BOUDICCA REPULSED AT VERULAM (9th S. iv. 457).-There is no ground for supposing that Verulam was the scene of the defeat of Boudicca (Boadicea). Tacitus ('Ann.,' xiv. 31-37), in relating the battle, does not mention any place. Merivale (History of the Romans,' ch. li.) conjectures that it was fought near Camulodunum (Colchester); for this view he refers to Mr. Jenkins in Archaologia, 1842, and to the Quarterly Review, vol. xcvii. Orelli on Tacitus, Ann.,' xii. 32, mentions the opinion that Camulodunum was Maldon, near Colchester; but this view is decidedly disapproved by Hübner in Pauly's 'Real Encyclopädie,' new ed., art. 'Camulodunum.' Verulam was taken by the Britons and the population slaughtered in the insurrection. B. H.

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Edgett is, moreover, derivable from the masc. name Ead-geat (written Eddiet in Domesday), since hundreds of these O.E. personal names are still preserved as family names. Nor does this exhaust the possibilities," for, by the processes referred to above, *Eadan-geat, Eades-geat, compounds of geat with hypocoristic forms of names beginning with Ead-, might also produce a modern Edgett. Probabilities are in favour of the Hampshire local name or the personal name Ead-geat, and the question which it really is

*

*The former, an O.E. *Ecges-wer (written Egceswer in an eleventh-century Westminster charter dated 978, 'Cart. Sax.,' iii. 605, 12), occurs in the Pipe Roll, 15 Hen. II., p. 173, as Eggeswera; in 1168-1173 as Egges-were (Cat. of Ancient Deeds,' A 2097); Eges-were, A 2146; in 1266, Egges-were, A 1737, &c. The Gloucestershire village, O.E.* Ecges weord, appears in Domesday, i. 166b, col. 1, 167b, col. 2, as Egeis-uurde, Eges-worde.

It is noteworthy that there was an Eces-geat, possibly miscopied for Ecges-geat, in Bicingtun, or Bickton, par. of Fordingbridge, co. Hants ('Cart. Sax.,' iii. 252, 3, from the Liber de Hyda,' where it is wrongly identified by Dr. Birch with Bighton, which is phonologically improbable), in the vicinity of the hundred in question.

The geat of this name has nothing to do with geat, but represents either the deity Geat or the

I cannot agree with MR. HOOPER that it is Boadicea" as "the more correct name." He a mere duty" to use Boudicca" instead of conflicting. In the Annals, xiv., it is as may not know that the MS. evidence is very Boudicca" (37). On the other hand, both follows: Boodicia" (31), "Bouducca" (35), the MSS. of the Agricola of Tacitus Voadicca." Orelli, the best editor, reads (16) have the a, reading "Voaduca" and "Boudicea"; but there seems to me quite sufficient evidence to warrant in current speech a retention of the form which has been fixed as English. Such changes in names are often attempted, but hardly ever carried through where a word has become a national English possession apart from its use by the learned. HIPPOCLIDES.

MAY ROAD WELL, ACCRINGTON (9th S. iv. 396, 464).-I do not like to destroy the pious inferences which the theories of your correGermanic tribal name Gautōz, the Gautar whose name is preserved in the Swedish province of Götland (O.N. Gaut-land), Germanic au having developed into O.E. ea.

spondent prompt, but I am afraid they are not correct. I know the neighbourhood and the well intimately. I have known many who have gone on the first Sunday in May to dilute their potations with its water. I think the practice has entirely died out. In Lancashire the use of the "apostrophe s" when speaking in the possessive case is largely ignored. Not far from the well is a hill known as "John Hoyle coppice"-the coppice of John Hoyle. The well is known as "Mary Hoyle well -no doubt, in my mind, meaning the well of Mary Hoyle. Who John Hoyle was I cannot ascertain, but I opine that John and Mary were of one family, and that while to the one is assigned the "coppice," to the other is assigned the well.

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B. S.

"A PICKLED ROPE" (9th S. iv. 479).-In the phrase in Fletcher's Bonduca,' "A pickled rope will choke ye," Petillius, who has previously told his soldiers, ungraciously enough, to eat turf, timber, old mats, or shoes, exhorts them further to fall in love, a state which in war is assumed to stimulate bravery, and calculated to make them forget all about eating, failing to do which they may expect a rope's-ending for cowardice. Hence the phrase appears to mean a castigation (with a pickled rope) will correct the cowardice that is assumed to characterize one who has neither this incentive to courage nor that of having enough to eat. Compare a rod in pickle," i. e., soaked in brine to keep it supple for chastening purposes, and the phrase "to rope's-end," i. e., to chastise with the "whipped" end of a rope, formerly a punishment much resorted to illegally at sea:

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Buy a rope's end; that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates
For locking me out of my doors by day.

'Comedy of Errors,' IV. i. 16.

"To choke" here means to correct, reprove. A "choke-pear" is figuratively a reproof, correction, a check by which one is put to silence; and to "choke a person off," . e., to stop his garrulity, is still a vulgar expression. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE' (9th S. iv. 164, 231, 312, 338, 426, 502). With regard to the above song, I have always understood it was written in honour of the "Allied Armies" during the Crimean War. At all events, I distinctly remember it then, as a child of some ten years old; and the cover of the song was adorned with the Union Jack and the French tricolour flags. Wherever the word "Columbia" occurs in the song as printed in your issue of December 16, it was Britannia" in the version I

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remember in the year 1854. The first verse ran thus:

The

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Britannia, the pride of the ocean,

The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine of each sailor's devotion,
No land can compare unto thee.
Thy mandates make heroes assemble,
With Vict'ry's bright laurels in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble

When borne by the Red, White, and Blue.
second verse was much as stated, but
third concluded quite differently, viz. :—
May the French from the English ne'er sever,
But each to their colours prove true,
The Army and Navy for ever,

(And?) Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue.

I do not think there can be any doubt that your correspondent S. J. A. F. is right about its having been originally an English song. F. W. H.

I am emboldened to make a suggestion which may settle this controversy. Your correspondent T. A. O. mentions (iv. 338) the coincidence of the above song, at the time of and following the Crimean War, with the equally well-known 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer!' My own recollection is to the same effect; and if reference could be made by any of your correspondents who may be in a position to do so to the veteran author of the lastnamed song, Mr. Henry Russell, whose residence is 18, Howley Place, W., I have little doubt his well-stored memory could authoritatively intervene. I well remember hearing Mr. Henry Russell sing 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer in his entertainment at some date prior to May, 1856, and my recollection is that I was familiar with that song and 'The Red, White, and Blue' in about an equal degree for a good while before then. Some time since I read Mr. Russell's book of with America and the friends he made there; reminiscences, a good part of which deals and whether the origin of the song is British or American I am pretty certain he would

know.

W. B. H.

[Further contributions on this subject not invited.]

PREFACES (9th S. iv. 479).-Isaac D'Israeli, in his 'Curiosities of Literature,' says "that long before the days of Johnson it had been a custom with many authors to solicit for this department of their work the ornamental contribution of a man of genius. Cicero tells his friend Atticus that he had a volume of prefaces or introductions always ready by him to be used as circumstances required."

A correspondent in 'N. & Q.' (6th S. xii. 427) asked, "When were prefaces first introduced?" and stated that Howell, in his preface to An Institution of General History,' asserted that

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101, Sandmere Road, Clapham, S. W.

THE SURNAME MORCOM (9th S. iv. 148, 312, 406, 467).-If SIR HERBERT MAXWELL will refer to iv. 312, he will see that he is not quite justified in saying that I hazarded a remarkable "assertion" regarding the derivation of Malcolm. An assertion I take to be a plain declaration of fact or belief. I made no such declaration. I thank him for his reply, which is highly interesting to me, and probably to others who know no Gaelic; but his letter would have been just as valuable without the first six lines.

Fort St. George.

FRANK PENNY, LL.M.

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Marguerite Blount published several stories at about the dates 1855-59 in Reynolds's Miscellany. They were, however, I think, short stories mostly. No doubt this reply, with that before given by MR. BRISCOE, will convince BRUTUS that he was wrong in assuming that she and Miss Braddon the same." Nevertheless, it has often been said that some of Miss Braddon's earliest work appeared in Reynolds's Miscellany, as it has likewise been said that before the first of her great successes ('Lady Audley,' 1862) Miss Braddon appeared on the stage. Both statements have been denied, and yet I have read in the Era, under a date in 1876, that "Miss Braddon reappeared on the stage at

Jersey." The "reappearance," likely enough, was at some charitable performance or the like, but the Era's paragraph seems to imply that our English novelist had previously played as a regular actress. J. W. M. GIBBS.

HANNAH LEE (9th S. iv. 477).—I believe that this "pretty," or, to speak by the card, most affecting story, is narrated in 'The Snowstorm,' one of the tales in 'Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,' by Prof. Wilson, and may be found in vol. xi. p. 48 of his collected Works,' edited by his son-inlaw, Prof. Ferrier, Edinburgh, 1865.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

"HOASTIK CARLES " (9th S. iv. 477).-"Hoastik carles" are Austwick men. Austwick is in Craven, and its folk have a reputation akin to that which has made the wisdom of those of Gotham proverbial for all time. They, too, tried to hedge in a cuckoo; and several other absurd stories are told of them. They are said to have had but one knife or whittle, which they kept under a tree. Once, when some labourers wished to save themselves the trouble of carrying it back, they stuck it in the ground, and, seeing a black cloud immediately overhead, thought that the place was sufficiently marked; but the tool was never found again. A farmer, wishing to get a bull out of a field, asked nine neighbours to help him to lift it over the gate, and they being unequal to the task, one of the number went through the gateway to look for further aid. It then struck somebody that the bull might leave the field by the same way. Another carle lifted a wheelbarrow over twenty-two stiles rather than take it by a road which was about a hundred yards further round than the path across the fields. See Clouston's 'Book of Noodles,' pp. 53, 54. ST. SWITHIN.

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It is a pity that Lucas did not know better than to begin guessing that the carles " doubt spirits of the woods." They are simply the people of Austwick, a village near Clapham, in Yorkshire, who are credited by their neighbours with having been the originals of the wise men of Gotham." The walling-in of the cuckoo arose from their attempt to secure perpetual summer by building a wall around the bird. Just as the wall was finished the cuckoo flew away, and "they had never thought o' that." The favourite name for these folk is "mooin-rakers," because they tried to rake the reflection of the moon out of a pond, thinking it was a big cheese. By the way, has any one collected all the places

supposed to be the original home of the "Gotham" stories? H. SNOWDEN WARD.

Austwick, near Settle, is the "Gotham" of Yorkshire, and Austwick people are usually spoken of as "Austwick carles." The walling

in of the cuckoo is attributed to the folk of many sequestered places, but there is in the first series of William Dobson's 'Rambles by the Ribble' (Preston, 1864) a diverting folktale to the disadvantage of the " carles," which may be new to your readers. At p. 40 Mr. Dobson writes:

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Not many years ago I saw some beautiful stack finials at Bishopthorpe, near York. "Cocks I think they were, and I believe they (or their descendants) are still presiding over the ricks in the yard I have in mind. I dare say MISS FLORENCE PEACOCK knows what Mr. Baring-Gould says about these things in 'Strange Survivals.' ST. SWITHIN.

"A common joke against Austwick people is to cry Whittle to the tree.' When knives and forks were somewhat more of luxuries than at present, and their use had not penetrated into...the northern dales, it is said that a whittle'...was the only knife in Austwick. It was common to the township, and when those who used it had done with it they had to put it in a tree in the centre of the village. If it was not there when wanted, the person requiring it went through the village calling out, Whittle to th' tree; Whittle to th' tree.' The whittle at last was lost. It was taken once by a numerous party of workmen to the adjoining moor (Swarthmoor) to cut up their pies for dinner. To save them the trouble of taking it back, they discussed where they should put it, so that they could find it when they came next day. Looking round for some object to know the locality by, for then, as now, trees were a rarity on Swarthmoor, it was at last agreed to stick it in the ground under a very black cloud, which was the most remarkable object in sight. This was done. When next they went to Strathmoor it was a fine day, the cloud had moved off, and the whittle could not be found."

Q. V. "DozZIL" OR "DOSSIL" (9th S. iv. 479).My father, a Lincolnshire man, remembers these objects, which he calls "dossels," being in use over forty years ago. They were then, he tells me, very common, being made of wood or tin, in the shape of a cockerel," and usually served as vanes. It was also customary, I am informed, to fix at each corner of corn-stacks, in an upright position, a bunch of corn "heads." These also were called "dossels."

I remember seeing a "dozzil" at Cleethorpes last summer, not on a stack, but fixed to the top of a long pole standing in the back-yard of a house outside the town. It was in the shape of a cock and made of tin, serving as a vane. Gainsborough.

H. ANDREWS.

Figures such as are mentioned in this query, but very well made of straw, are more numerous this winter than I have seen them before, on stacks around Mill Hill, in the district between Edgware and High Barnet. They are mostly imaginary fowl, particularly strong about the tail, elevated on sticks

Is not this word-like "Dosset" for Dorset, or "fossick" for fore-seek, which would appear to have been the original meaning of the latter-a corruption of " dorsal," something placed on the back of an object, such as a corn-stack, to protect it from the ravages of the birds--in short a scarecrow, or rather a bird-scare? I remember being told of an old gentleman who was accustomed to suspend a tin semblance of a cat from his fruit trees, presumably to scare the birds away. By the way, the dialect word "fossick" still means also to "fore-seek" or "prospect" for gold in new ground, as well as in abandoned workings.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

"MIDDLIN'" (9th S. iv. 416, 495).-C. C. B. is certainly correct in saying that this word is not a peculiarity of the Manx dialect. Nor was its use in England confined to the North. "Pretty middlin'" was formerly in West Surrey and in Hampshire probably the usual answer to an inquiry after the health of a countryman.

R. L.

JAMES COX'S MUSEUM (9th S. ii. 7, 78; iv. 275, 337).-"The great room in Spring Gardens," otherwise Wigley's Auction Room, stood, according to F. G. S., at the southwest corner of Spring Gardens, and on one's right hand on passing from that street (which was never a thoroughfare for vehicles) into the park. The Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain exhibited here until 1780. Wigley's Auction Room was burned down 2 April, 1785, during a representation of Mount Vesuvius at Cox's Museum. F. G. S. elsewhere states that Wigley's room occupied the site of the London County Council offices; but in this he is mistaken, the Council's offices occupying the site of Berkeley House, which was purchased from the Government by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1862, and the present building

erected on the site (see Hon. Grantley T. Berkeley, 'Life,' &c., vol. i. p. 78, &c.). Cox's Museum appears to have stood on the site of No. 13, Spring Gardens, a house built by Mr. Decimus Burton for his residence, adjoining the Council's offices to the northward, and now in the Council's occupation. JOHN HEBB,

Canonbury Mansions, N.

"KING OF BANTAM " (9th S. iv. 419, 488, 526). -I should like to make an addition to my note. In reference to Congreve's 'Present Majesty of Bantam,' there is a tale by Aphra Behn, called 'The Court of the King of Bantam.' In it a rich noodle, Mr. Would-be, believes himself the King of Bantam, and is duped thereupon in true Restoration fashion, If MR. PERCY SIMPSON will refer, he will find that Congreve very clearly had Mrs. Behn's tale in his mind.

GEORGE MARSHALL.

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GROLIER BINDINGS (9th S. iv. 518).-The painted bindings are probably of a later date than the others. Mr. Herbert P. Horne, The Binding of Books,' p. 89, dates this style of work as belonging to the middle of the sixteenth century. One may possibly put a similar interpretation upon the sentence referring to Grolier, at vol. iv. p. 41, of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' which reads, "Some of his later covers were resplendent with gold and coloured ornament, most elaborately tooled." This, however, is so general in its reference that it is scarcely evidence. The sequence of usage of the different mottoes is some help. It is most likely that the "amicorum motto, previously used by Maioli, came first (Quarterly Review, July, 1893, p. 189). The motto "Eque difficulter," with the cloud, nail, and hillock design, came next (Bookbindings Ancient and Modern,' Joseph Cundall, p. 34); and afterwards the "Portio mea Do mine sit in terra vi | venti | um legend. There were others occasionally used. See The Binding of Books,' supra, p. 78. An article in the Saturday Review for 30 Dec.,

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1882, noticing the Beckford sale, second part, indicates that the "painted interstices" and the "scrolled tooling" were used with the "Portio mea" motto. On the whole it would seem that the painted bindings were, at any rate, of the middle, if not of the later, period. ARTHUR MAYALL.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

A Life of William Shakespeare. By Sidney Lee. (Smith, Elder & Co.) WITH a celerity all but unparalleled, and with an absence all but complete of serious opposition, Mr. Lee's Life of Shakespeare' has established itself in supreme authority. A year or two ago it was but a solitary article-although naturally the longest and most important in that great work, now on the point of completion, the Dictionary of National Biography.' A few months later it appeared in the convenient shape in which it will still be most read, obtainable upon our early stage and upon Shakeand now, with illustrations that throw all the light speare's associates and friends, it comes forth in an illustrated library edition, fitted to grace the handsomest and best-furnished shelves. So far as regards the text, Mr. Lee's scholarly and monumental work has undergone little alteration. Such errors and misprints as have been detected have been corrected; the remarks on Shakespeare's autographs tion is now given in the bibliography of the Siband handwriting have been expanded; a descripthorp first folio, recently brought to light, with its presentation from William Jaggard, the printer, to his friend and ally Augustine Vincent, the herald; and further details have been supplied concerning certain of Shakespeare's printers and publishers. None of these things affects, however, the original scheme of the work, nor has Mr. Lee, though some of his opinions have elicited, as was ment, felt called upon to modify any of his more but natural, expressions of dissent and disagreeimportant conclusions, and the book is practically the same that we reviewed little more than a twelvemonth ago (see 9th S. ii. 458).

As a work of reference, and as a handsome and

desirable volume, the work in its new shape gains greatly. Its beautiful cover, as a note inserted informs us, is taken from a fine binding of English workmanship of the sixteenth century in the British Museum, originally executed for Robert Dudley, the famous, or infamous, Earl of Leicester, Shakesubstituted for that of the earl. The frontispiece speare's crest, in its proper heraldic colours, being consists of the monument affixed to the north wall of the chancel of Stratford-on-Avon Church, which is given in the colours believed to have constituted its original adornment. Four other likenesses are the engraved portrait on the title of the first folio, reproduced-the Droeshout (or " Flower") portrait, the Ely House portrait, and the seventeenthcentury bust in the Garrick Club. Then follow portraits-all carefully selected by the author, with a view of facilitating the study of the poet's lifeand anonymous picture of Queen Elizabeth, from of Shakespeare's closest acquaintances; the quaint the painting at Ditchley; the Earl of Southampton, from an original painting at Welbeck; Burbage,

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