All this confusion of thought has arisen through MR. SHORE'S assuming that the 955 boundaries represent the Hundred of Hormer and not, as they purport to do, the land at Abingdon. He assumes that Ceadwealla granted this hundred to the abbey. Now it has never been proved that private jurisdiction in England is as old as 955, to say nothing of the time of Cead wealla. As a matter of fact the abbot's jurisdiction over the hundred dated only from a grant of Edward the Confessor (Chartulary,' i. 465), and not from Cead wealla.

The point is not whether the boundaries between the abbot's land and Oxford followed the modern county boundary, but whether that line is the one described in the chartulary as the boundary of the Abingdon estate. MR. SHORE assumes the identity of the two, and then uses the identity as a proof that his assumption is true. By a similar logical confusion he tells me that "Nature is against me" when I say that Geafling lacu cannot mean "fork-shaped channel." The evidence of Nature merely consists in this, that there is now a fork-shaped channel in the place where MR. SHORE locates this lacu. That is, he wrongly interprets Geafling lacu as "forkshaped channel," he finds such a channel, and adduces it as a proof by Nature herself that his explanation is correct. If the identification were correct, the argument would be much like claiming that London Bridge means, despite philology, "stone bridge," because there is a stone bridge at the place known as London Bridge.

After this it is not surprising to find MR. SHORE saying that he will "not traverse any argument based on charters centuries later that are not immediately concerned with these issues." The charter referred to is one year later only in date, and, as I showed in my last letter, goes over the same line as the imaginary Ceadwealla boundaries between Kennington and Abingdon.

That

of the fabrication of these charters.
I gave as the date of the MSS. of the chartu-
lary. The charters were, no doubt, forged
about the year 1100, the period when most of
the forgeries of O.E. charters were made.
MR. SHORE'S difficulties about the com-
position of their boundaries in O.E. have,
therefore, no existence. The opinion of
Joseph Stevenson as to the authenticity of
these charters is not likely to have much
weight with either philologists or students of
O.E. diplomatics.

MR. SHORE expresses a conviction that if there had been a school of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in the thirteenth century we should not now be discussing whether the late Anglo-Saxon name Oxeneford or Oxenaford ...... was derived from men or oxen." I cannot answer for the thirteenth century, but the much more important evidence of the preceding century does not support MR. SHORE. The famous Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1129 witnessed a deed relating to Osney Abbey, and was therefore resident in or very near Oxford. This city is represented in his Historia Britonum,' x. 4, by a Boso, consul (earl) de Vado Boum.*

It is more to the point to remember that there is here now an efficient English school, in which the older language is scientifically studied. But this and the similar teaching in Cambridge, London, Victoria University, and other places do not protect us from the publication of theories that are incompatible with an elementary knowledge of English philology. No one with such a knowledge would seriously entertain MR. SHORE's notion that Oxenaford and Osanig are derived from Eocce(n). Still less could he believe that Eocce means "increased ken or kindred," MR. SHORE's latest etymology.

were right in assuming that the ken of Eocce(n) represented such a Kentish e, this would afford no evidence whatever that Eoccen-ford was not on this river at Abing

This brings me to the latter part of MR. SHORE's reply, in which arguments against me are, apparently, derived from the representation of West-Saxon y (or, to speak accuThat the Abingdon forgers did not consider rately, the i-umlaut of West-Germanic u) by the Ceadwealla boundaries to include thee in Kentish. It is obvious that if MR. SHORE land between Kennington and Oxford and Binsey is proved by the fact that they deemed it necessary to provide a charter, dated not later than four years after the one upon which MR. SHORE relies, granting to them this land ('Cart. Sax.,' iii. 200). There are also other charters dealing with this district. It is noteworthy that the charter just cited does not mention Eoccenford and the other features that MR. SHORE holds were on the eastern border of this land.

MR. SHORE is wrong in stating that I indicated the thirteenth century as the date

evolved Boso from the name of Boar's Hill, so well * I rather suspect that Geoffrey has, more suo, known to Oxonians. I have not been able to trace the name back to his time, but it was still in the early part of the last century called Bose Hill (see Hearne, 'Liber Niger Scaccarii,' pp. 563, 566). This looks like a derivation of the O.E. personal name Bosa, the Norman-French (Frankish) form of which was Boson (O.H.G. Boso, which is also its Latinized form).

don. It is hardly necessary to say that the explanation is grammatically impossible.

Leland in the sixteenth century. It arose from the mistaken notion that Thamesis, The latter part of MR. SHORE'S letter is so Thames, is a compound of the name of its good an example of the dangers of meddling affluent the Thame and of an otherwise with questions of philology without having unknown Ise or Isis. For some strange undergone the requisite training that I will reason, Leland Latinized the river-name Ouse briefly examine it. A philologist would as Isis, and this imaginary Isis, now repreknow that this change in Kentish is com- sented by the bogus alias of the Thames at paratively late in date, and that it is, there- Oxford, was accordingly seized upon by him as fore, impossible that MR. SHORE's imaginary proof that the river was called the Ouse. In Kentish settlers in the upper Thames valley the spirit of his day he proceeded to derive could have brought it with them. If he were Oxenaford from this non-existent Ouse * It acquainted with the chronology of the change was left for the seventeenth century to from u to y (Kentish e), he would have doubts connect this hypothetical Ouse with the as to the possibility independently of the late Irish uisce (not usque), and this and the undate of the Kentish change. If, however, he related Welsh uisc have in this century been could lay aside these difficulties, he would adduced to explain the name of Oxford. examine, in the first place, the common words These are a few specimens of the nonsense in the Abingdon Chartulary, since their that has been produced by ingenious but morphology is better known than that of ignorant writers in the attempt to prove that local names. He would find, as he would Oxford does not mean the ford of oxen." have expected, that the language has regu- The name of our great university seems to larly the West-Saxon y, not the Kentish exercise as fatal to say nothing of other West-Saxon peculiarities. He would, therefore, waste no more thought over MR. SHORE's theories. But in these columns one is not, unfortunately, addressing an audience with all of whom philological evidence has much weight, and it is, therefore, necessary to examine MR. SHORE'S examples further.

e,

66

an attraction for the unscientific etymologist as the candle does for the moth. W. H. STEVENSON.

'DR. JOHNSON AS A GRECIAN,' BY GENNADIUS (9th S. iv. 451, 545).—In a private but anonymous communication your correspondent "C., of Pall Mall" (sic), complains that, "in supposing that the Madame Vestris referred to by C. was the who was born in 1797, I have arrived at an of that name person erroneous conclusion." Now, C. had said that "her star did not shine in Johnson's time with the brilliancy of her father's." This could only refer to the daughter of one of the famous family of dancers. It is true that the person born in 1797" was the daughter-inlaw, not the daughter, of one of them; but that, I thought, was a pardonable slip of C.'s. Well, I am now told that "the reference of C. was to another Madame Vestris of an earlier date and of equal reputation in her day." I am further informed in this letter that

The astonishing thing about them is that MR. SHORE has not even taken the trouble to assure himself that they contain the vowel in question. He has simply taken any syllable ken, and assumed that it represents an umlauted u. The results are what might be expected from such uncritical recklessness. Kennington is derived not from Kentish" ken=cyn (from kunjo-), but from a distinct name stem, viz., West-Saxon (&c.) cen (from kōni-). The ken of Wacenesfeld has no other basis than MR. SHORE'S impossible division of the name. It is the name-stem wæc plus the hypocoristic suffix en. Lewkenor is a compound of the man's name Leofeca and ora, and is accordingly recorded as O.E. æt Leofecan oran ('Cod. Dipl.,' iii. 293, 6). The fact that Chinnor commences with ch in modern English would prove to any one with an elementary knowledge of O.E. philology that there never was an umlauted u in it, since that vowel prevented palatalization *See his notes to 'Cygnea Cantio' (Itinerary,' ed. and its consequences in English. That is Hearne, ix. 71). It is greatly to the credit of why we say kin, and not chin, for O.E. cyn. Hearne's intelligence that he saw that this etyHere I must leave MR. SHORE and his impos-mology was wrong, and that Oxenaford meant the sible theories.

With regard to the note of R. B. S., the derivation referred to by him is well known. It is really a creation of the imaginative

"the record of the family is interesting, and MR. MARSHALL will find the details of its members set out in the French biographical dictionary immediately to the left on entering the east door of the Reform Club Library [and only there?). He will, on perusing the entries under Vestris in this work,

ford of oxen (ib. iii. 135), although he mistakenly regarded this as an O.E. translation of the Welsh of Oxena-ford. It is the regular name for Oxford in Rhydychein, whereas the latter is merely a translation the 'Bruts.'

obtain information about the lady to whom reference was made, and he will then be in a position to acknowledge in a further communication to N. & Q.' that the phrase of C. was strictly accurate."

one.

Brosse, sœur et héritière de Jean de Brosse, dit de Bretagne, et arrière petite-fille de François de Luxembourg, premier vicomte de Martigues de cette maison, second fils de Thibaut de Luxembourg, sieur de Fiennes, frère puîné du fameux connétable de Saint-Pol."—Vol. viii. p. 155, note.

The name of St. Pol is mentioned in the list of nobles who rebelled against the Crown in 1614, under the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Bouillon. John, Count of Brienne, who was King of Jerusalem and afterwards Emperor of Constantinople, might seem from his name to have belonged to this family. But Anquetil says nothing about him.

Were it not for the challenge conveyed in the last few words, I should have taken no notice of this anonymous letter. But the answer is plain. The other Madame Vestris, mentioned in what I suppose to be the Biographie Universelle,' which is not so rare a work as to need the particular instructions given above for finding a copy, must be, I presume, the famous French actress, born 1746, died 1804. This reference is, for other I think that I ought to call attention to reasons, no more accurate than the former C. had said that she was the daughter dates. Anquetil says that from Henry of of Vestris. This lady was nothing of the sort. Limbourg, who died in 1280, proceeded the She was the daughter of no M. Vestris, "pre-principal families of St. Pol and Brienne. ceptor in dancing" or in anything else. She Voltaire speaks of a Count of St. Paul who John, Count was the daughter of an actor, Dugazon, who flourished in the year 1204. had a son and another daughter, both in "the of Brienne, Emperor of Constantinople, profession." She married Paco Vestris, an flourished in the year 1228. It is clear that indifferent actor, and brother of the famous there were Counts of St. Paul and Counts of Vestris, the dancer. But she was in no way Brienne before the time of Henry of Limbourg, who was Count of Luxembourg related to the dancer. She was a great tragic E. YARDLEY. actress. She never danced. She never taught through his mother. dancing. She acted at the Comédie Française, and for a short time at the Palais Royal, from 1768 to her death. She was never in London. Johnson was never in Paris. She is not a new fact to me. But she was just as much out of the question as the Madame Vestris who charmed London in the early part of this century, if we may still call it by that name, under the Editor's authority and protection.

JULIAN MARSHALL.

EARLS OF ST. POL (9th S. iv. 169, 293, 386, 444). I transcribe from Anquetil's history other notes concerning this family. François de Luxembourg, Duc de Piney, lived in the year 1590:

"Il était arrière petit-fils d'Antoine de Luxembourg, comte de Brienne, et baron de Piney, fils puîné du fameux Louis, connétable de Saint-Paul; sa petite-fille Marie Charlotte porta les biens de sa branche dans la maison de Clermont Tonnerre, et Madelaine-Charlotte-Bonne-Thérèse, fille de cette dernière, dans la maison de Montmorenci, par son mariage avec François Henri de Montmorenci, comte de Bouteville, connu sous le nom de Maréchal de Luxembourg. Les biens de la branche aînée étaient passés à la maison de Bourbon par le mariage de Marie, petite-fille du connétable, avec François de Bourbon, comte de Vendôme, bisaïeul de Henri IV."-Vol. viii. p. 118, note.

The following note seems to show that the name of one of the branches was Martigues, and not Marigues, as given in another part of the work :

Marie de Luxembourg-Martigues était fille de Sebastien de Luxembourg-Martigues, comte, puis duc de Penthièvre, du chef de sa mère Charlotte de

"HOASTIK CARLES" (9th S. iv. 477; v. 16).—

The parishioners of Cowling, another parish in Craven, have the story of the floating moon told of them, and are locally well known as the "mooin-rakers." Stanbury, near Haworth, and Trawden, near Colne, have the cuckoo tale as part of their parochial assets. The same tale, too, is told of Zennor and of St. Agnes people in Cornwall. Of "sacred" Haworth it is said that when the church tower needed heightening the farmers of the parish willingly gave manure to spread round the base of the tower that it might grow the more rapidly. Fearing the vengeance of a certain society on account of this last paragraph, I merely append my initials.

J. H. R.

HAWKWOOD (9th S. iv. 454; v. 11).-It is better to say that Byron alludes ironically to Hallam as "much renowned for Greek." His note to his line is as follows:

:

“Mr. Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's 'Taste,' and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein: it was not discovered that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity." E. YARDLEY.

Oriental porcelain their makers lived to approach-no decent Chinaman would have looked. In no respect are they equal to even moderately fine Oriental porcelain. On these bodies the decorations are manifestly Orientalized, but not Oriental in their coloration, brightness, clearness, delicacy, or finish. auctioneers say are Oriental porcelain painted These are what the dealers and in Lowestoft, or wholly from Lowestoft. The latter assumption is probably the less incor"LOWESTOFT CHINA" (9th S. iv. 498; rect; as to which it is not to be forgotten v. 12). Are not some of the divergent that other factories than the East Anglian authorities quoted by MR. HERBERT B. one turned out porcelain which was quite as CLAYTON more or less correct in regard to the good, while some shops, especially in later painting on what is called Lowestoft china? days, when the right clay had been found Very different sorts of ware are thus outside of China, produced bodies which left named; the best and finest kind has a pure, nothing to be desired, except, perhaps, a slight highly finished and glazed body, which differs addition to their toughness. It was in the in no respect whatever from the choicest decorations the defects existed, and therein Chinese output, and, in that way, is mani- neither Lowestoft, Nantgarw, Worcester, festly Oriental. On this body the decorations, Bristol, Swansea, nor Derby, was ever fit to including armorials, emblems, and what not, hold a candle before artistic eyes when the are generally, and to artistic eyes unques-immemorial art of China was looked at. It is tionably, of Oriental execution; their colora-"the seeing eye that profits by seeing." Such tion, its brilliance, harmonies, and design, was the case with Sir A. W. Franks and Mr. leave, to me at least, not the least foundation Litchfield. for a doubt about this. I take it that these Apart from all this there is something to specimens, of which I have capital instances, be said for a notion to the effect that a are wholly Chinese, made in the Flowery Land Chinese painter or two were imported to to order, so far as regards their armorials, Lowestoft to paint on Lowestoft ware. emblems, and the like purely European ele- know of one Tan-chet-qua, or an artist of ments, from drawings sent abroad for the some such name, who exhibited at the purpose. Several of my plates are enriched Academy and sat, if it was the same person, with escutcheons which no Chinaman de to Reynolds himself. It may be taken for signed and no Englishman reproduced upon granted, however, that if a Chinaman had porcelain; the tints are not, except in a been imported we should have his name general way, heraldic, and as to the drawing among the records of Lowestoft, which I of the charges let the heralds who executed understand are in existence somewhere. Nor, them dread the vengeance of the College I fancy, would Lowestoft have been alone in of Arms. Death could not shield them. On such an importation, say at Worcester, where the same plates blossom immortal flowers, they strained every nerve to produce colorgorgeous in colours and gold, and such as no able imitations of the Celestial ware, or man of Lowestoft or elsewhere in this brumous at Derby, Nantgarw, and Swansea. The isle ever painted, at least during the eigh-factory-books and pay-bills of some of these teenth century, nor in that manner, at any works have been printed, but among them I time before or after. No, not during the have not found the name of a Chinese. nineteenth century, happy as that is in flower painting. As to the Oriental bodies of white ware which Mr. Chaffers could not find at Lowestoft, the probability is that they never existed; but as to the country being inundated with them in 1802-when the famous factory there came to grief-may I say that it takes many "pots" to overwhelm country, especially if the factory has long been moribund? On the other hand, there are among my plates and dishes not a few at which-though the bodies may be more or less good and fine, indeed only inferior to the

0.

We

"A GOOD PENNYWORTH" (9th S. iv. 436, 522). -There was an earlier version of this expression, viz., "Robin Hood's pennyworths":

"Walton the Bayliffe leavyed of the poore mans goods 77 att Robinhood's peniworths."— Cases in the Court of Star Chamber, Camden, 8vo. p. 117. a This is explained by :

"To sell Robin Hoods pennyworths.-It is spoken of things sold under half their value; or if you will, his ware, and lightly parted therewith; so that he half sold half given. Robin Hood came lightly by could afford the length of his Bow for a yard of Velvet."-Fuller, Worthies of England,' p. 315.