Mar. 13. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



245 



Old Books and New Titles (Vol. v., p. 125.).— 

 Your correspondent J. H. is quite corx'ect in his 

 remarks on the above subject. A friend of mine 

 lately saw advertised in a catalogue the following 

 title of a work, Fulfilment of Scripture Prophecies 

 on Nations and Kingdoms^ hy John Iloyland. He 

 sent for the book and found it was exactly the 

 same as what he already had, viz.. Epitome of the 

 History of the World, by John Hoyland, but with 

 another title. Such practices are neither fair nor 

 honorable. John Algob. 



, Sheffield. 



Bowdler's Family ShaJispeare. — It has occurred 

 to me that a cheap edition of Bowdler's Family 

 Shakspeare would be in much request, and might 

 conveniently be published in numbers consisting 

 of single plays at 3rf. each. This would bring the 

 whole to about 9s., bound in three handy volumes. 

 A new edition might contain the more recent ty- 

 pographical corrections and the names printed at 

 length, a very desirable amendment. Will Messrs. 

 Longman, the publishers of Bowdler's Shakspeare, 

 look favourably on this suggestion when they see 

 it in " N. & Q." ? It would be an invaluable ad- 

 dition to their Travellers Library. A Lady. 



Torquay. 



[We have reason to believe that Messrs. Longman 

 have it in contemplation to produce such a cheap 

 edition as our correspondent suggests, but not, perhaps, 

 as a portion of their Traveller's Library.^ 



The French Language. — It has continually 

 appeared to me as a great absurdity, that the 

 terms masculine and feminine should be applied 

 to inanimate things in the French language, when 

 common sense is opposed to such a distinction. 

 I think the reason for using feminine and mascu- 

 line articles in conjunction with nouns said to be 

 of those genders, is to be found in the rule which 

 obtains in the Irish or Celtic language, namely,that 

 of " caol re caol," i. e. fine with fine, and " leatair 

 re leatair," i.e. broad with broad vowels or sounds. 

 I throw out this hint to those who are better 

 qualified to investigate the matter ; as I feel sure 

 it would be a great benefit to learners of the 

 French language to have a clear rule to guide 

 them, instead of the present system, which is very 

 complicated. Fba.s. Ckosslet. 



Curious Epitaph. — The following portion of an 

 epitaph from the tomb of Thomas Carter, 1706, in 

 the church of St. Gregory, Sudbury, will doubt- 

 less interest some of your readers ; it is as well to 

 premise that he was a very charitable man, as 

 the whole inscription (which would occupy about 

 forty lines) fully records : 



" Viator mirum referam 



0,110 die efflavit animam Thos. Carter, prredictus, 



Acus foramen transivit Camelus Sudburiensis. 



Vade, et si dives sis, tu fac similiter. 



Vale." 



Permit me to translate it for the benefit of your 

 lady readers : 



" Traveller, I will relate a prodigy. On the day 

 whereon the aforesaid Thomas Carter breathed out his 

 soul, a Sudbury camel passed through the eye of a 

 needle. Go, and if thou art wealthy, do thou like- 

 wise. Farewell." 



The allusion is of course to St. Matthew xix. 24. 

 V7. Sparrow Simpson, B.A. 



^wtxiti. 



"hogs NORTON, "WHERE PIGS PLAT UPON THE 



ORGANS." 



I should be much obliged by any of your cor- 

 respondents favouring me with their opinions as to 

 the origin of the above saying. Evans, in his 

 Leicestershire Words, says : 



" The true name of the town, according to Peck, is 

 Hocks Norton, but vulgarly pronounced Hogs Norton. 

 The organist to this parish church was named Piggs." 



But in Witt's Recreations, of which I have a 

 copy of 1640, the eighty-third epigram is "upon 

 pigs devouring a bed of penny-royal, commonly 

 called organs : " 



" A good wife once, a bed of organs set. 

 The pigs came in, and eat up every whit ; 

 The goodman said, Wife, you your garden may 

 Hogs Norton call, here pigs on organs play." 



Organs from " organy ;" French, origan ; Latin, 

 origanum. 



Now it is evident that in 1640 the proverb was 

 in vogue, and well understood ; but organs were 

 not at that time common in churches, especially 

 parish churches, and as I do not know which of 

 the many Nortons in England is Mr. Peck's Hocks 

 Norton, I cannot help considering his derivation 

 somewhat in the light of an anachronism. 



I do not know the date of Howell's English 

 Proverbs quoted by Mr. Halliwell In his Archaic 

 Dictionary. Should there be such a place as 

 Hog's Norton, or Hock's Norton, is the Hock^ 

 Hok = oak tree ? Acorns and pigs were common 

 associates. 



The only instance that I recollect of pigs being 

 connected with an organ, is in that curious freak 

 recorded of the Abbe Debaigne, maitre de musique 

 to Louis XL, when he made a hog-organ by en- 

 closing pigs of various ages and pitches of voice in 

 a kind of chest ; the older ones on the left hand 

 for the bass, and the younger on the right for the 

 treble : over all these was suspended a key-board, 

 which, when played on, pressed long needles into 

 the pigs' backs, — the result is left to the imagin- 

 ation. Thos. Lawrence. 



Ashby-de-la-Zouch. 



