464 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°d S. VII. June 4. '59. 



Watting Street (2"^ S. vii. 272. 347. 385) — 

 These twx) words are compounded of three Eng- 

 lish roots wliich are identical with the Anglo- 

 Saxon roots, waeil-wg-straet. 



No etymology hitherto advanced approximates 

 so near, or is so significant and appropriate as this. 

 We have to bear in mind, that long before em- 

 bankments and drainage were attended to in this 

 country, the meadows {ings) were flooded after 

 rain ; and the mode of passing along the streets 

 (the straight or direct ways), where such impedi- 

 ment occurred, was by wattles or hurdles, called 

 by the French fascines, and which are now used 

 for the same purpose in military operations. With 

 so clear an etymological deduction, we can dis- 

 pense with Hoveden's strata quam jilii regis 

 Wethlae straverunt (^Annates, p. 432.), with Cam- 

 den's Vitellianus, in British Guetalin (the latter 

 condemned by the Penny Cyclopcedia, vol. xxvii. 

 p. 154.), and even with Thierry's Gwydd-elin-sarn, 

 "Road of the Gaels or Irish" (^Norman Conquest, 

 i. 115.), approved by Mr. West (" N. & Q.," 2'"> 

 S. vii. 272.), which are the only other etymologies 

 deserving attention. It is to be noted that Anglo- 

 Saxon names were given to works already ancient 

 when such names were imposed : for example, 

 Stan-Hengist, or Stonehenge, is an Anglo-Saxon 

 name, although this work existed long prior to 

 the imposition of that name. It will be found 

 that the Irish dialect of the Celtic is a better key 

 to the names of mountains, rivers, and peculiar 

 natural localities in England, than the Welsh 

 (called by Thierry British), There is a Watling 

 Street in the city of Dublin, but probably no 

 Irishman would admit that its name was derived 

 from Thierry's Gwydd-elin-sarn. 



T. J. BUCKTON. 

 Lichfield. 



Watling Street: The Milky Way (2"'^ S. iii. 

 190.)— -The reason for "which men callen the 

 milky way Watling streete," as Chaucer expresses 

 it, may be that the general direction of "the 

 galaxie" runs nearly in a line with Watling Street. 

 The galaxy'forms an angle of about sixty degrees 

 with the ecliptic, nearly in the direction of the 

 -British way, Watling Street, betwixt Dover and 

 Chester. (S. E. by S. and N. W. by N.) Before 

 the names Milky Way, or Galaxy, became known to 

 Britons, and before the British Way of that name 

 was made, the Watling Street in the sky — not then 

 however so called — furnished them with the 

 means of directing their course by night, as the 

 sun by day, along this great Celtic track which 

 connected Gaul with Ireland. There was, at least, 

 as much reason in naming this splendid collection 

 of nebulas Watling Street, as in applying the terms 

 Charles's Wain or Berenice's Hair to the con- 

 stellations known by those names. 



T. J. BuCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



Bugs (2"^ S. vii. 394.) —I do not know what 

 notice the Royal Society took of the memoir, but 

 it was printed with the title, 



" A Treatise of Buggs, shewing When and How they 

 were first brought into England. How they are brought 

 into and infect Houses. Their Nature, several Foods, 

 Times and Manner of Spawning, and Propagating in this 

 Climate. Their great Increase accounted for by Proof of 

 the Numbers each Pair produce in a season. Reasons 

 given why all attempts hitherto made for their destruc- 

 tion have proved ineftectual. Vulgar Errors concerning 

 them refuted. That from September to March is the 

 best Season for their total Destruction, demonstrated by 

 reason and proved by facts. Concluding with Directions 

 for such as have them not already, how to avoid them ; 

 and for those that have them, how to destroy them. By 

 John Southall, Maker of the Nonpareil Liquor for de- 

 stroying Buggs and Nits, living at the Green Posts in the 

 Green Walk near Fountain Stairs, Southwark, London, 

 1730, 8vo. pp. 44." 



The book is dedicated to Sir Hans Sloane, 

 President of the Royal Society, who " not only 

 forwarded the impression, but ordered the cop- 

 per-plate." The reading to the Society, and its 

 approbation, are duly recorded. Bugs are said to 

 have been known in England about sixty years. 

 The frontispiece, engraved by Vandergucht, re- 

 presents them in seven periods of their lives, from 

 birth to five weeks old. Mr. Southall learned 

 the composition of his liquor from an old negro, 

 who lived near Kingstown in Jamaica, and having 

 been made free because he was past work, had re- 

 stored his strength, and prolonged his life to the 

 age of about ninety by his skill in herb-medicine. 

 This part of the work is of doubtful veracity, like 

 the present advertisements of what we know to be 

 pea and lentil flour, but which negroes are de- 

 picted as cultivating. The virtues of the liquor 

 are set forth in the usual style, and at the end are 

 the prices at which Mr. Southall cures the various 

 sorts of bedsteads, Fizthopkins. 



Garrick Club. 



I cannot inform R. S. S. whether the Royal 

 Society published an account of this treatise ; but 

 it was published in the same year (1730) by the 

 author, who spells his name " Southall." If R. 

 S. S. wishes to see it, and will send me his name 

 and address, I shall be happy to lend it to him. 



J. Vs. Atkinso.v. 



Leeds. 



What is a Spontoon f (2"" S. vi. 329. 421.) — 

 As a pendant to the above Query, the following 

 paragraph froin the Morning Chronicle of April 

 15, 1786, may not be uninteresting : — 



" T!ie Spontoon laid Aside. — Yesterday the officers 

 who mounted guard for S. James's, the Queen's House 

 and Tilt Yard, were paraded with their swords drawn 

 instead of tlie spontoon, for the first time since the alter- 

 ation took place, and we hear this amendment (if it may 

 be so called) is to take place among all the regiments 

 belonging to his Majesty." 



Tbe Bee. 



