T. J.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
See Parkhurst.
Dickinson's Delphi Phœnic., p. 10.
Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacræ, book iii. c. iii. s. 18.
Meaning of Peep (Vol. ii., p. 118.).—You have already told us the meaning of the word peep in the phrase "Wizards that peep and that mutter;" in confirmation I may add that the noise made by the queen bee in the hive previous to swarming is in Devonshire called peeping.
J. M. (4.)
Venwell or Venville (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—Venwell or Venville appears to me to be a corruption of the word fengfield; and the meaning of it seems to be, that custom of delivering possession of land to a purchaser by cutting a piece of turf from the field bought, and delivering it into his hands.
I well remember, when a boy, accompanying my father to receive possession of an outlying field, distant from the main estate which he had bought; the seller's agent, I think, came with us and cut a small piece of turf from the ground, and delivered it into my father's hands, saying (if I recollect right), "By this turf I deliver this field into your possession." By this means my father "fenged" (took) the "field" into his own hands, and became the legal proprietor of it.
P.