The MS. "Minutes" also contain a notice of William Roman, the thirteenth Geometry Professor, "who was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, and from thence elected to St. John's College, Oxford, in 1740, being matriculated as the son of Richard Roman, of London, Gent., ætat. 17. He commenced B.C.L., May 5th, 1747; Deacon at Christ Church, 21st Sept., 1746; Priest at Christ Church, 20th Sept., 1747." No date of his appointment, but he was Professor in 1755, when Maitland wrote his account of the college. Dr. Samuel Kettilby succeeded the Rev. Samuel Birch as Geometry Lecturer, and died June 25, 1808.—See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxviii. p. 657.]
"Haulf Naked."—In poring over an old deed the other night, I stumbled upon the above name, which I take to be that of a manor in the county of Sussex. Is it so? and, if so, by what name is the property now known?
Charles Reed.
[In Dallaway's Western Sussex, art. Washington, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 133., is the following entry:—"In 1310, Henry Balduyne sold to Walter de Halfenaked one messuage, two acres of arable, and two acres of meadow, in Washington and Sullington. Ped. fin. 3 Edw. II.">[
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THE LEGEND OF LAMECH—HEBREW ETYMOLOGY.
(Vol. vii., p. 363.)
Etymologists are a race who frequently need to be drawn up with a somewhat tight rein. Our Celtic fellow-subjects will not, perhaps, be much gratified by Mr. Crossley's tracing the first indications of their paternal tongue to the family of Cain; and as every branch of that family was destroyed by the deluge, they may marvel what account he can give of its reconstruction amongst their forefathers. But as his manner of expressing himself may lead some of your readers to imagine that he is explaining Cain, Lamech, Adah, Zillah, from acknowledged Hebrew meanings of any parts of those words, it may be as well to warn them that the Hebrew gives no support to any one of his interpretations. If fancy be ductile enough to agree with him in seeing a representation of a human arm holding a sling with a stone in it in the Hebrew letter called lamed, there would still be a broad hiatus between such a concession, and the conclusion he seems to wish the reader to draw from it, viz. that the word lamed must have something to do with slinging, and that consequently lamed must be a slinger. The Hebrew scholar knows that lamed indisputably signifies to teach; and though perhaps he may not feel sure that the Hebrew consonant l obtained its name from any connexion with that primary meaning of the root lamed, he will not think it improbable that as the letter l, when prefixed to a noun or verb, teaches the reader the construction of the sentence, that may have been the reason for its being so named.
As to a legend not traceable to within some thousand years of the facts with which it claims to be connected, those may take an interest in it who like so to do. But as far as we may regard Lamech's address to his wives in the light of a philological curiosity, it is interesting to observe how naturally the language of passion runs into poetry; and that this, the most ancient poetry in existence, is in strict unison with the peculiar character of subsequent Hebrew poetry; that peculiarity consisting of the repetition of clauses, containing either the same proposition in a slightly different form, or its antithesis; a rhyme of thoughts, if we may so say, instead of a rhyme of sounds, and consequently capable of being preserved by a literal translation.