May 29. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



507 



WAY OF INDICATING TIME IN MUSIC. 



The following rough mixture of Notes and 

 Queries may serve to excite attention to the sub- 

 ject. The merest beginner is aware that the letter 

 •C, with a vertical line drawn through it, denotes 

 common time ; in which he will take the C for the 

 first letter oi common. The symbols of old music are 

 four : the circle, the semicircle, and the two with 

 Tertical lines drawn through them. After these 

 were written 2 or 3, according as the time was 

 double or triple. And instead of a bar drawn 

 through the circle or semicircle, a central point 

 was sometimes inserted. All these are true facts, 

 whether coimected or unconnected, and whether 

 any implication conveyed in my way of stating 

 them be true or false. The C, with a line through 

 it, certainly did not distinguish common time from 

 triple. Alsted, in his Encyclopcedia (1649), says 

 that it means the beginning of the music ; without 

 any reference to time. Solomon de Caus, known 

 as having had the steam-engine claimed for him, 

 but who certainly wrote on music in 1615, found 

 the circles, &c. so variously used by different 

 writers, that he abandons all attempt at descrip- 

 tion or reconciliation. 



May I suggest an origin for the crossed C ? In 

 the oldest church music, it often happens that the 

 lines are made to begin with a vertical line im- 

 paling two lozenges, with a third lozenge between 

 them, but on one side. It is as if in the three of 

 -diamonds the middle lozenge were removed a 

 little to the left, the upper and lower ones sliding 

 on a vertical line until they nearly touch the re- 

 moved middle one. Now if this figure were imi- 

 tated currents calamo, as in rapid writing, it would 

 certainly become an angle crossed by a vertical 

 line ; which angle would perhaps be rounded, 

 thus giving the crossed semicircle. Has this deri- 

 vation been suggested ? Or can any one suggest 

 a, better ? 



But, it will be said, whence comes the full circle ? 

 It is possible that there may have happened in this 

 -case what has happened in others : namely, that a 

 symbol invented, and firmly established, before 

 the partial disuse of Latin, may have been ex- 

 tended in different ways by the vernacular writers 

 of different countries. This has happened in the 

 ■case of the words million, billion, trillion, &c. The 

 first, and the root of all, was established early, and 

 while no vernacular works existed, and it has only 

 one meaning. The others, certainly introduced at 

 a later time, mean different things in different 

 •countries. May it not have been that the variety 

 of usage which De Caus notes, may have arisen 

 from different writers, ignorant of each other, 

 choosing each his own mode of deriving other 

 symbols from the crossed semicircle, obtained as 

 suggested by me ? I am fully aware of the risk of 

 such suggestions — but they have often led to 

 something better. M. 



:^tnor iUntCiS. 



A smart Saying of Baxter, — In his Aggravations 

 of Vain Babbling, speaking of gossips, Baxter 



says : 



" If I had one to send to school'that were sick of the 

 talking evil — the morbus loquendi — I would give (as 

 Isocrates required) a double pay to the schoolmaster 

 willingly; one part for teaching him to hold his tongue, 

 and the other half for teaching him to speak. I should 

 think many such men and women half cured if they 

 were half as weary of speaking as I am of hearing 

 them. He that lets such twattling swallows build in his 

 chimney may look to have his pottage savour of their dung." 



B. B. 



Latin Hexameters on the Bible. — The verses 

 given under this title by Lord Braybrooke, in 

 Vol. v., p. 414., remind me of a similar method 

 which I adopted, when at school, in order to im- 

 press upon my memory the names of the Jewish 

 months. The lines run thus : — 

 " Nisan Abib, lyar Zif, Sivan, Thammuz, Ab, Elul ; 

 Tisri, Marchesvan, Chisleu, Thebeth, Sebat, Adar." 

 The first verse commences with the first month of 

 the ecclesiastical year, the second with the first 

 month of the civil year. A. W. 



Ancient Connexion of Cornwall and Phoenicia. — 

 The effort to trace the ancient connexion of 

 countries by the relics of their different customs, 

 would be amusing if not useful. The fragment of 

 the voyage of Hamilcar the Carthaginian confirms 

 the trade of the Phoenicians with Cornwall for tin. 

 The Roman writers still extant confirm it. The 

 traffic was carried on by way of Gades or Cadiz, 

 the Carthaginians being the carriers for the Phoe- 

 nicians. In Andalusia to this day, middle-aged 

 and old men are addressed Tio, or uncle ; as Tio 

 Gorge, "Uncle George." This custom prevails 

 in Cornwall also, and only there besides. Is not 

 that a trace of the old intercourse ? Again, clouted 

 cream, known only in the duchy of Cornwall, 

 which once extended as far as the river Exe in 

 Devon, is only found besides in Syria and near 

 modern Tyre, whence the same tin trade was car- 

 ried on. These are curious coincidences. Many 

 of the old Cornish words are evidently of Spanish 

 origin : as cariad, caridad, charity or benevolence ; 

 Egloz or Eglez, a church ; Iglesia or Yglezia, and 

 many others, which seem to bear a relation to the 

 same intercourse. 



The notice respecting the word cot or cote, — 

 termination of proper names in a particular dis- 

 trict in Cornwall, — already mentioned in these 

 pages, supposed to be Saxon from the idea that its 

 use was confined to one district, which I have 

 shown to be a mistake, may be from the Cornish 

 word icot, " below," in place of the Saxon cote 

 or cot, "a cottage." Thus, goracot Is probably 

 from gora or gorra, and icot, i. e. " down below." 



