182 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»4 S. VII. Feb. 26. 'Sg. 



of deputy for the Seine-et-Marne to the Legisla- 

 tive body, he was put en disponibilite after Wa- 

 terloo. This is, I think, the latest instance that 

 has been adduced of a female name being given 

 to a male. Can any of your readers supply us 

 with the names of living men who have had fe- 

 male names given them at their baptism. 



Alfred T. Lee. 



Rev. Henry Francis Lyte (2"'^ S. vii. 10.)— Lyte 

 was educated at the Royal School of Enniskillen, 

 which at the time had attained to great eminence 

 under the direction of the Rev. Robert Burrowes, 

 D.D., who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and was subsequently Dean of Cork. In 

 the year 1804, a postchaise arrived and deposited 

 two boys, dressed in very old tartan jackets, who 

 were reported to the school to be sons of an officer 

 quartered in the town of Sligo ; and more than this 

 was never ascertained about their parentage, by 

 their schoolfellows, and of the parent who had sent 

 them, on the eve of departure on foreign service, 

 to the care of Dr. Burrowes. Nothing farther was 

 heard until (between two and three years after) 

 his station abroad was ascertained. 



Thomas, the elder of the boys, came to be tra- 

 ditionally recorded in the school as being almost a 

 simpleton ; but Henry soon proved himself en- 

 dowed with abilities, really amounting to genius, 

 so brilliant and various that he eclipsed all com- 

 petitors. An opportunity casually presenting it- 

 self, Dr. Burrowes transmitted the helpless elder 

 brother to his father ; but the younger he retained 

 under his kind-hearted guardianship (wholly unre- 

 quited), until his pupil had attained to a position 

 in the University, which led to independence. 



Henry Lyte's enviable preeminence and ascen- 

 dancy above his companions must have been asso- 

 ciated with great amiability ; for, though some- 

 what singular in habit, he was popular with his 

 schoolfellows, and left behind him the reputation 

 of a boy of extraordinary talent, desultory and 

 flighty, eccentric, but very amiable. He entered 

 College in 1809 ; obtaining one of the sizarships 

 of the year, and afterwards a scholarship — 

 both on distinguished answering. To his farther 

 progress, I regiet I have not the means of afford- 

 ing information ; but the few facts which I have 

 the pleasure of communicating are offered in aid 

 of Mb. Inglis's inquiry by Lyte's schoolfellow 

 and fellow-student at T. C. D. 



Geobge Abne Griebson. 



Dublin. 



Fleres si scires{2^^ S. vii. 132.) — I have seen 

 in a church at Vienna (I believe St. Stephen's) 

 the verses in an epitaph : — 



" Fleres si scires unum tua tempora mensem, 

 Rides cum non sint forsitan una dies, 

 Heu, cum nulla fides sit, vel constantia rebus, 

 Ndsse Deum vita est, csetera cuncta nihil." 



J. H. L. 



A Lincolnshire Exclamation (2°"* S. vii. 103.) — 

 When a Lincolnshire peasant hears bad news, he 

 exclaims " worst art ! " What is " worst art ?" 



Under the same circumstances, the more com- 

 mon exclamation is " worse luck ! " May not the 

 corresponding exclamation of the Lincolnshire 

 man mean worse-star' d ? " Worse-star'd ! " and 

 " worse luck ! " would both in that case signify 

 the same thing, namely, " the more unfortunate ! " 

 We have the common expression, " ill-starred," of 

 which " worse-starred" would be a kind of com- 

 parative. Be it observed, also, " worse-star'd" 

 would become prpvincially " worre-star'd" (worre 

 for worse, Halliwell) ; and the t, in old English, 

 often occupying the final place of the now 

 more generally adopted participial d, " worre- 

 star'd" would naturally pass into the form of 

 " worst art." " Worre-star'd"=" wor-st ar'd "^ 

 " worst art." 



In Pericles we find the expression " better stars." 

 If fortune be "better-starred," why not disaster 

 " worse-starred," " worre-star'd," or " worst art" 



Thomas Boys. 



The exclamation used in Lincolnshire is "worst- 

 heart" — it is used when receiving news which is 

 worse than was expected, and is equivalent to 

 " Well, that is bad ! " The phrase is one of a 

 rather large class of similar ones used in Lincoln- 

 shire ; such as " bad-heart," meaning despon- 

 dency, "he has quite a bad heart about it;" 

 " full-heart," charged with grief or emotion ; 

 " good-heart," full of hope and confidence ; " dear- 

 heart," affectionately used in consolation ; "great- 

 heart," courageous, &c. The very common words, 

 "sweet-heart," "kind-heart," "warm-heart," &c., 

 are part of the same class. " Bless me," " deary 

 me," &c., are another general form of Lincolnshire 

 phraseology. Pishey Thompson. 



Stoke Newington. 



Mb. Phillips says that in Lincolnshire the 

 peasantry exclaim, on hearing any bad news, 

 " worst art ! " In Cambridgeshire, when any start- 

 ling information, whether good or bad, is com- 

 municated, a common exclamation is, "what a 

 st.art!" Is not Mb Phillips's the same phrase 

 with the Lincolnshire burr ? E. V. 



Is not the exclamation, " worst art," alluded to 

 by Mr. Phillips, a mere corruption or slurring of 

 the vulgarism — " What a start !" — very general 

 some years ago ? Nepos Atlantis. 



Nordstrand (2"'^ S. vii. 31.) — H. P. will please 

 accept my thanks for his interesting communica- 

 tion respecting tlifs island ; but Gachard's account 

 of a colony of Belgians having been located there 

 in 1634, and of whom his latest notice dates back 

 nearly a century and a half, does not appear to 

 invalidate conclusively the information furnished 

 me at Kiel by the Polish merchant, professedly 



