REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.
Depinges (No. 18. p. 277., and No. 20. p. 326.).—I have received the following information upon this subject from Yarmouth. Herring nets are usually made in four parts or widths,—one width, when they are in actual use, being fastened above another. The whole is shot overboard in very great lengths, and forms, as it were, a wall in the sea, by which the boat rides as by an anchor. These widths are technically called "lints" (Sax. lind?); the uppermost of them (connected by short ropes with a row of corks) being also called the "hoddy" (Sax. hod?), and the lowest, for an obvious reason, the "deepying" or "depynges," and sometimes "angles."
At other parts of the coast than Yarmouth, it seems that the uppermost width of net bears exclusively the name of hoddy, the second width being called the first lint, the third width the second lint, and the fourth the third lint, or, as before, "depynges."
W.R.F.
Lærig.—Without contraverting Mr. Singer's learned and interesting paper on this word (No. 19. p. 292.), I hope I shall not be thought presumptuous in remarking that there must have been some other root in the Teutonic language for the two following nouns, leer (Dutch) and lear (Flemish), which both signify leather (lorum, Lat.), and their diminutives or derivatives leer-ig and lear-ig, both used in the sense of tough.
Supposing the Ang.-Sax. "lærig" to be derived from the same root, it would denote in "ofer linde lærig," the leather covering of the shields, or their capability to resist a blow.
I will thank you to correct two misprints in my last communication, p. 299.; pisan for pison, and 'Ιοαννης for 'Ιωαννης.
By the by, the word "pison" is oddly suggestive of a covering for the breast (pys, Nor. Fr.). See Foulques Fitzwarin, &c.
B.W.
March 16th.
Lærig (No. 19. p. 292.).—The able elucidation given by Mr. Singer of the meaning of this word, renders, perhaps, any futher communication on the point unnecessary. Still I send the following notes in case they should be deemed worthy of notice.
"Ler, leer—vacuus. Berini Fabulæ, v. 1219. A.-S. ge-lær."
Junii Etymol. Anglicanum.
"Lar, lær—vacuus."
Schilteri Glossarium Teutonicum.
Respecting "Lind," I find in the version by Thorkelin of De Danorum Rebus Gestis Poema Danicum Dialecto Anglo-Saxonica (Havniæ, 1815), that "Lind hæbbendra" is rendered "Vesilla habens;" but then, on the other hand, in Biorn Haldorsen's Islandske Lexicon (Havniæ, 1814), "Lind" (v. ii. p. 33) is translated "Scutum tiligneum."
C.I.R.
Vox et præterea nihil (No. 16. p. 247.).—The allusion to this proverb, quoted as if from the Anatomy of Melancholy, by "C.W.G." (No. 16. p. 247.), may be found in Addison's Spectator, No. 61, where it is as follows:—
"In short, one may say of the pun as the countryman described his nightingale—that it is 'vox et præterea nihil.'"
The origin of the proverb is still a desideratum.
Nathan.
Vox et præterea nihil (No. 16. p 247.).—In a work entitled Proverbiorum et Sententiarum Persicarum Centuria, a Levino Warnero, published at Amsterdam, 1644, the XCVII. proverb, which is given in the Persian character, is thus rendered in Latin,—
"Tympanum magnum edit clangorem, sed intus vacuum est."
And the note upon it is as follows:—
"Dicitur de iis, qui pleno ore vanas suas laudes ebuccinant. Eleganter Lacon quidam de luscinia dixit,—
Φωνα τυ τις εσσι και ουδεν αλλο,
Vox tu quidem es et aliud nihil."
This must be the phrase quoted by Burton.
HERMES.
Supposed Etymology of Havior (No. 15. p. 230., and No. 17. p. 269.).—The following etymology of "heaviers" will probably be considered as not satisfactory, but this extract will show that the term itself is in use amongst the Scotch deerstalkers in the neighbourhood of Loch Lomond.
"Ox-deer, or 'heaviers,' as the foresters call them (most likely a corruption from the French 'hiver'), are wilder than either hart or hind. They often take post upon a height, that gives a look-out all round, which makes them very difficult to stalk. Although not so good when December is past, still they are in season all the winter; hence their French designation."—Colquhoun's Rocks and Rivers, p. 137. (London, 8vo. 1849.)
C.I.R.
Havior.—Without offering an opinion as to the relative probability of the etymology of this word, offered by your various correspondents (No. 17. p. 269.), I think it right that the use of the word in Scotland should not be overlooked.
In Jamieson's admirable Dictionary, the following varieties of spelling and meaning (all evidently of the same word) occur:—
"Aver or Aiver, a horse used for labour; commonly an old horse; as in Burns—
"'Yet aft a ragged cowte's been kenn'd To mak a noble aiver.'
"'This man wyl not obey.... Nochtheles I sall gar hym draw lik an avir in ane cart'—Bellend. Chron.
"'Aiver, a he-goat after he has been gelded: till then he is denominated a buck.
"Haiver, haivrel, haverel, a gelded goat (East Lothian, Lanarkshire, Sotherland).
"Hebrun, heburn, are also synonymes.
"Averie, live-stock, as including horses, cattle, &c.
"'Calculation of what money, &c. will sustain their Majesties' house and averie'—Keith's Hist.
"'Averia, averii, 'equi, boves, jumenta, oves, ceteraque animalia quæ agriculturæ inserviunt.'"—Ducange.
Skene traces this word to the low Latin, averia, "quhilk signifies ane beast." According to Spelman, the Northumbrians call a horse aver or afer.
See much more learned disquisition on the origin of these evidently congenerous words under the term Arage, in Jamieson.
EMDEE.
Mowbray Coheirs (No. 14. p. 213.).—Your correspondent "G." may obtain a clue to his researches on reference to the private act of parliament of the 19th Henry VII., No. 7., intituled, "An Act for Confirmation of a Partition of Lands made between William Marquis Barkley and Thomas Earl of Surrey."—Vide Statutes at Large.
W.H. LAMMIN.
Spurious Letter of Sir R. Walpole (No. 19. p. 304.)—"P.C.S.S." (No. 20. p. 321.) and "LORD BRAYBROOKE" (No. 21. p. 336.) will find their opinion of the letter being spurious confirmed by the appendix to Lord Hervey's Memoirs, (vol. ii. p. 582.), and the editor's note, which proves the inaccuracy of the circumstances on which the inventor of the letter founded his fabrication. In addition to Lord Braybrooke's proofs that Sir Robert was not disabled by the stone, for some days previous to the 24th, from waiting on the king, let me add also, from Horace Walpole's authority, two conclusive facts; the first is, that it was not till Sunday night, the 31st January (a week after the date of the letter) that Sir Robert made up his mind to resign; and, secondly, that he had at least two personal interviews with the king on that subject.
C.
Line quoted by De Quincey.—"S.P.S." (No. 22. p. 351.) is informed that
"With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars"...
is a passage taken from a gorgeous description of "Cloudland" by Wordsworth, which occurs near the end of the second book of the Excursion. The opium-eater gives a long extract, as "S.P.S." probably remembers.
A.G.
Ecclesfield, March 31. 1850.
Quem Jupiter vult perdere priùs dementat.—Malone, in a note in Boswell's Johnson (p. 718., Croker's last edition), says, that a gentleman of Cambridge found this apophthegm in an edition of Euripides (not named) as a translation of an iambic.
"Ον Θεος Δελει 'απολεσαι, πρωτ' 'αποφρενοι."
The Latin translation the Cambridge gentleman might have found in Barnes; but where is the Greek, so different from that of Barnes, to be found? It is much nearer to the Latin.
C.
Bernicia.—In answer to the inquiry of "GOMER" (No. 21. p. 335.), "P.C.S.S." begs leave to refer him to Camden's Britannia (Philemon Holland's translation, Lond. fol. 1637), where he will find, at p. 797., the following passage:—
"But these ancient names were quite worn out of use in the English Saxon War; and all the countries lying north or the other side of the arme of the sea called Humber, began, by a Saxon name, to be called [Old English: Northan-Humbra-ric] that is, the Kingdome of Northumberland; which name, notwithstanding being now cleane gone in the rest of the shires, remayneth still, as it were, surviving in Northumberland onely; which, when that state of kingdome stood, was known to be a part of the Kingdome of Bernicia, which had peculiar petty kings, and reached from the River Tees to Edenborough Frith."
At p. 817. Camden traces the etymology of Berwick from Bernicia.
P.C.S.S.
Cæsar's Wife.—If the object of "NASO'S" Query (No. 18. p. 277.) be merely to ascertain the origin of the proverb, "Cæsar's wife must be above suspicion," he will find in Suetonius (Jul. Cæs. 74.) to the following effect:—
"The name of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar,
having been mixed up with an accusation against
P. Clodius, her husband divorced her; not, as he said,
because he believed the charge against her, but because
he would have those belonging to him as free from
suspicion as from crime."
J.E.
[We have received a similar replay, with the addition of a reference to Plutarch (Julius Cæsar, cap. 10.), from several other kind correspondents.]
Nomade (No. 21. p. 342.).—There can be no doubt at all that the word "nomades" is Greek, and means pastoral nations. It is so used in Herodotus more than once, derived from νομος, pasture: νεμω, to graze, is generally supposed to be the derivation of the name of Numidians.
C.B.
Gray's Elegy.—In reply to the Query of your correspondent "J.F.M." (No. 7. p. 101.), as well as in allusion to remarks made by others among your readers in the following numbers on the subject of Gray's Elegy, I beg to state that, in addition to the versions in foreign languages of this fine composition therein enumerated, there is one printed among the poem, original and translated, by C.A. Wheelwright, B.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, published by Longman & Co. 1811. (2d. edition, 1812.) If I mistake not, the three beautiful stanzas, given by Mason in his notes to Gray, viz. those beginning,—
"The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,"
"Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around,"
"Him have we seen," &c.
(the last of which is so remarkable for its Doric simplicity, as well as being essential to mark the concluding period of the contemplative man's day) have not been admitted into any edition of the Elegy.
With the regard to the last stanza of the epitaph, its meaning is certainly involved in some degree of obscurity, though it is, I think, hardly to be charged with irreverence, according to the opinion of your correspondent "S.W." (No. 10. p. 150.). By the words trembling hope, there can be no doubt, that Petrarch's similar expression, paventosa speme, quoted in Mason's note, was embodied by the English poet. In the omitted version, mentioned in the beginning of this notice, the epitaph is rendered into Alcaics. The concluding stanza is as follows:—
"Utra sepulti ne meritis fane,
Et parce culpas, invide, proloqui,
Spe nunc et incerto timore
Numinis in gremio quiescunt."
ARCHÆUS.
Wiesbaden, Feb. 16. 1850.
Cromwell's Estates (No. 18. p. 277., and No. 21. p. 339.).—I am much obliged to "SELEUCUS" for his answer to this inquiry, as far as regards the seignory of Gower. It also throws a strong light on the remaining names; by the aid of which, looking in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, I have identified Margore with the parish of Magor (St. Mary's), hundred of Caldecott, co. Monmouth: and guess, that for Chepstall we must read Chepstow, which is in the same hundred, and the population of which we know was stout in the royal cause, as tenants of the Marquis of Worcester would be.
Then I guess Woolaston may be Woolston (hundred of Dewhurst), co. Gloucester; and Chaulton, one of the Charltons in the same county, perhaps Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham; where again we read, that many of the residents were slain in the civil war, fighting on the king's side.
This leaves only Sydenham without something like a probable conjecture, at least: unless here, too, we may guess it was miswritten for Siddington, near Cirencester. The names, it is to be observed, are only recorded by Noble; whose inaccuracy as a transcriber has been shown abundantly by Carlyle. The record to which he refers as extant in the House of Commons papers, is not to be found, I am told.
Now, if it could be ascertained, either that the name in question had been Cromwell's, or even that they were a part of the Worcester estates, before the civil war, we should have the whole list cleared,—thanks to the aid so effectually given by "SELEUCUS'S" apposite explanations of one of its items.
Will your correspondents complete the illustrations thus well begun?
V.
Belgravia, March 26.