Minor Notes.
Sign of Rain.—Not far from Weobley, co. Hereford, is a high hill, on the top of which is a clump of trees called "Ladylift Clump," and thus named in the Ordnance map: it is a proverbial expression in the surrounding neighbourhood, that when this clump is obscured with clouds, wet weather soon follows, connected with which, many years since I met with the following lines, which may prove interesting to many of your readers:
"When Ladie Lift
Puts on her shift,
Shee feares a downright raine;
But when she doffs it, you will finde
The raine is o'er, and still the winde,
And Phœbus Sloane againe."
What is the origin of this name having been given to the said clump of trees?
J. B. Whitborne.
Communications with Iceland.—In the summer of 1851 I directed attention to the communications with Iceland. I am just informed that the Danish government will send a war steamer twice next summer to the Faroe Islands and to Iceland,
calling at Leith both ways for passengers. The times of sailing will probably be announced towards spring in the public prints. This opportunity of visiting that strange and remarkable island in so advantageous a manner is worthy of notice, as desirable modes of getting there very rarely occur.
The observing traveller, in addition to the wonders of nature, should not fail to note there the social and physical condition, and diseases of the inhabitants. He will there find still lingering, fostered by dirt, bad food, and a squalid way of living, the true leprosy (in Icelandic, spetalska) which prevailed throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and which now survives only there, in Norway, and in some secluded districts in central and southern Europe. He will also note the remarkable exemption of the Icelanders from pulmonary consumption; a fact which seems extraordinary, considering the extreme dampness, inclemency, and variability of the climate. But the consumptive tendency is always found to cease north of a certain parallel of latitude.
Wm. E. C. Nourse.
8. Burwood Place, Hyde Park.
Starvation, an Americanism.—Strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless quite true that this word, now unhappily so common on every tongue, as representing the condition of so many of the sons and daughters of the sister lands of Great Britain and Ireland, is not to be found in our own English dictionaries; neither in Todd's Johnson, published in 1826, nor in Richardson's, published ten years later, nor in Smart's—Walker remodelled—published about the same time as Richardson's. It is Webster who has the credit of importing it from his country into this; and in a supplement issued a few years ago, Mr. Smart adopted it as "a trivial word, but in very common, and at present good use."
What a lesson might Mr. Trench read us, that it should be so!
Our older poets, to the time of Dryden, used the compound "hunger-starved." We now say starved with cold. Chaucer speaks of Christ as "He that starf for our redemption," of Creseide "which well nigh starf for feare;" Spenser, of arms "which doe men in bale to sterve." (See Starve in Richardson.) In the Pardoneres Tale, v. 12799:
"Ye (yea), sterve he shall, and that in lesse while
Than thou wilt gon a pas not but a mile;
This poison is so strong and violent."
And again, v. 12822:
"It happed him
To take the botelle there the poison was,
And dronke; and gave his felau drinke also
For which anone they storven bothe two."
Mr. Tyrwhit explains, "to die, to perish" and the general meaning of the word was, "to die, or cause to die, to perish, to destroy."
Q.
Strange Epitaphs.-The following combined "bull" and epitaph may amuse your readers. I copied it in April, 1850, whilst on an excursion to explore the gigantic tumuli of New Grange, Dowth, &c.
Passing through the village of Monknewtown, about four miles from Drogheda, I entered a burial-ground surrounding the ivy-clad ruins of a chapel. In the midst of a group of dozen or more tombstones, some very old, all bearing the name of "Kelly," was a modern upright slab, well executed, inscribed,—
"Erected by Patrick Kelly,
Of the Town of Drogheda, Mariner,
In Memory of his Posterity."
———
"Also the above Patrick Kelly,
Who departed this Life the 12th August, 1844,
Aged 60 years.
Requiescat in Pace."
I gave a copy of this to a friend residing at Llanbeblig, Carnarvonshire, who forwarded me the annexed from a tombstone in the parish churchyard there:
"Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Here lie the Remains of Thomas Chambers,
Dancing Master;
Whose genteel address and assiduity
in Teaching,
Recommended him to all that had the
Pleasure of his acquaintance.
He died June 13, 1765,
Aged 31."
R. H. B.
Bath.