234 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»dS. VII. Mar. 19.':0. 



was so thoroughly welcomed by the "moderate 

 thinkers" of his day, as to pass through two editions 

 very rapidly. How Creech and Roscomon be- 

 haved to Dryden when he published The Hind 

 and the Panther, in April, 1687, I have no data to 

 judge. But even this later work must have had 

 an extensive circulation, for a " third edition " 

 was printed by Jacob Tonson in the same year 

 in which it was first issued (1687). 



Is it generally known that an edition of the 

 Astrce Redux appeared in 1688 (first printed in 

 1660), " By John Driden" and not " Dryden ? " 

 A copy of that edition is before me bearing that 

 name on the title-page. Geo. Rob. Vine. 



Athlone, Ireland. 



CHANGES IN LANGUAGE AND ORTHOGEAPinfT 



As I was reading Bentlcy on Freethinlnng, I 

 made the accompanying notes on the changes and 

 peculiarities of language and orthography observ- 

 able in it: — 



1. Uses, meanings, &c., now obsolete, of words 

 now in use. 



"It IS fatal to our author ever to blunder, when 

 he talks of Egypt " (fatal= destined), 



" A reading quite insensible in any modern ver- 

 sion " (insensible=imperceivable). 



" The whole tour of the passage is this" (tour= 

 drift, meaning). 



"By tract of time and instability of common 

 use " (tract=lapse). 



"Upon the very sQ.mefoot" (foot=footing). 



" He cannot bear it even in the stile of a Pagan " 

 (stile=: writings). 



Of the word notion the following distinct mean- 

 ings are found : — 



"Towards having a just notion of that book" 

 (notion=knowledge). 



" He may coin new notions of his own " (notion 

 =scheme). 



"For pray what is the notion of the word 

 canon " (notion=meaning). 



" For they do us no evil now by their notion " 

 (notion=intention). 



" Are not time and popular notion rarely ob- 

 served here " (notion=opinion). 



2. Differences of idiom, as — 



" I had like to have forgot to ask," &c. 

 " Let any man try to extricate this." 



3. Present phrases then in use, as — 

 " This mushroom scribbler." 



" Blind as a mole" 



" He maintained every nostrum" 



" In the name of Priscian." 



" The epithet comes pat and reasonable." 



4. List of words now obsolete: — To fore- 

 answer ; disparate (opposite) ; to refell (refute) ; 

 cliaracterism; pulchritude; trajick (tragedian). 



5. List of words whose orthography is changed : — 

 Sawcy (saucy); uncapable (incapable) ; scribler 

 (scribbler) ; aukward (awkward) ; desart (de- 

 sert) ; intire (entire) ; tenour (tenor) ; compleat 

 (complete) ; wave (waive) ; stile (style) ; villainy 

 (villany); Alarick (Alaric) ; strein (strain) ; spight 

 (spite) ; guild (gild) ; prophane (profane) ; slight 

 (sleight) ; antient (ancient) ; vitious (vicious) ; 

 satir (satire) ; mirrour (mirror) ; chuse (choose) ; 

 cloath (clothe) ; Africk (Africa) ; skreen (screen); 

 rhlme (rhyme); tryal (trial); oeconomy (economy); 

 solsecism (solecism). 



The book first came out in the year a.d. 1713. 



Chables M. C. 



Minor ^attS, 



City Heraldry. — I send you a special jury war- 

 rant, from which you will see that the sheriff's 

 legendary impales the imperial and city arms 

 within the garter, and under the imperial crown, 

 with a mace underneath. The arms are those 

 before the union with Ireland : having France in 

 the 3rd, and Hanover in the 2nd. Why this 

 should be, unless it be the repetition of an old 

 stamp, is a puzzle. Hyde Clarke. 



To fix Tracings on Oiled Paper. — I have been 

 recommended to wash the surface with skimmed 

 milk. Is there any better method ? The usual 

 one, I am aware, is to ink over the lines of the 

 ground plan. This, however, would not suit my 

 object, which is to preserve uninjured a finely- 

 executed tracing of one of the birds'-eye views 

 of old towns on a very large scale, such as fre- 

 quently occur in foreign works of the seventeenth 

 century. As the tracing is necessarily kept on a 

 roller, I have the mortification of finding that 

 the pencilling is in course of being rubbed out. 



Eliminate ; Elimination ; Layman. — The fol- 

 lowing instances of a peculiar use of these terms 

 by eminent persons seem worthy of notice. Lord 

 Wrottesley, in his address fo the Royal Society 

 (Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. ix. pp. 501. 

 505.) says, " Ohm eliminated the laws of the vol- 

 laic current ; " and again, "the elimination and 

 elucidation of the magnetical laws." " Eliminate " 

 and " elimination " are here used in a sense nearly 

 corresponding to that of "develope" and " de- 

 velopement." In scientific works they are gener- 

 ally, I believe, indeed always, employed, according 

 to their derivation, to indicate tlie rejection — 

 th?-usting out of doors — of the adjuncts or extra- 

 neous matter which hinder the understanding of 

 the real conditions of the problem. The late 

 President of the Royal Society is of course a com- 

 petent authority for a change of meaning, but it 

 will be unfortunate if these scientific terms should 

 hereafter be used in different senses. 



