Sarum and Barum (Vol. ii., p. 21.).—As a conjecture, I would suggest the derivation of Sarum may have been this. Salisbury was as frequently written Sarisbury. The contracted form of this was Sap., the ordinary import of which is the termination of the Latin genitive plural rum. Thus an imperfectly educated clerk would be apt to read Sarum instead of Sarisburia; and the error would pass current, until one reading was accepted for right as much as the other. In other instances we adopt the Law Latin or Law French of mediæval times; as the county of Oxon for Oxfordshire, Salop for Shropshire, &c., and Durham is generally supposed to be French (Duresmm), substituted for the Anglo-Saxon Dunholm, in Latin Dunelmum. I shall perhaps be adding a circumstance of which few readers will be aware, in remarking that the Bishops of Durham, down to the present day, take alternately the Latin and French signatures, Duresm and Dunelm.
J.G.N.
"Epigrams on the Universities" (Vol. ii., p. 88.).—The following extract frown Hartshorne's Book-rarities in the University of Cambridge will fully answer the Query of your Norwich correspondent.
After mentioning, the donation to that University, by George I., of the valuable library of Dr. Moore, Bishop of Ely, which his Majesty had purchased for 6,000 guineas, the author adds,—
"When George I. sent these books to the University, he sent at the time a troop of horse to Oxford, which gave occasion to the following well-known epigram from Dr. Trapp, smart in its way, but not so clever as the answer from Sir William Browne:—
"The King, observing, with judicious eyes,
The state of both his Universities,
To one he sent a regiment; for why?
That learned body wanted loyalty:
To th' other he sent books, as well discerning