By the way, was there not sometime since a proposal for erecting by subscription a worthy monument to a poet whose memory every Christian must revere? In whose hands was this project, and with whom does its execution rest?
THOS. MCCALMONT.
Highfield, near Southampton, July 22. 1851.
In my humble opinion, Coke is the old English form of writing cook, from A.-Sax. "cóc." See Chaucer's Coke's Tale, and Cock Lorrell's Bote, where we read "Drouers, Cokes, and pulters;" and in this same poem occurs the line, "Carpenters, coupers, and ioyners." See also under Cooper in Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language; the names, as thus pronounced, are rendered significant.
Should it be asked how we ought to pronounce the name of another poet, viz. Cowley, if Cowper be called Cooper, I answer that they are from different roots: that Cowley is from cow, and ley, signifying cow pasture, or place for cows; and that Cowper is only another form of Cooper: not but that in the north they pronounce cow as coo, and, therefore, they would call him Cooley.
THOS. LAWRENCE.
Ashby de la Zouch.
Dunmore Castle (Vol. iii., p. 495.).
—JAMES C. will find the subject of Vitrified Forts treated at considerable length in the fourth volume of the Archæologia Scotica, by S. Hibbert, Esq, M.D., Sir George Mackenzie, Bart., of Coul, and George Anderson, Esq., F.R.S., pp. 160-195.
T. B. J.