a"* S. X. Aug. 18. '60. J 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



123 



haved, Goth, haubith, Franc, Alanse. haubit). Some 

 old German names are doubtless derived from 

 ber, bero, per, pero, a "bear;" but in compo- 

 sition this vocable may sometimes be from bar or 

 wer, a man. I can still afford to giVe Me. Fer- 

 guson a castle, and will proceed to take it. I 

 refer to Mr. ShakestafF, with which cf. Eavestaff, 

 Hackstaff, Halstaff,Langstaff, Longstaff, and Wag- 

 staff". In these names the last syllable is evi- 

 dently a corruption of the Saxon sted, a place, for 

 we have the surname Halstead and the local and 

 personal name Halsted, "healthy place," and the 

 surnames Bickerstaff'and Bickersteth are the same, 

 both being derived from the local name, which is 

 found written Bykers^ft^, Bickers^A, Bykyrsiaih, 

 Bekerstath, and B'lckersiat. If Sibert, Schubert, 

 and Shoobert are corrupted from Sigibert, and 

 Ruadpert, Ruopreht, Rupert, Ruprecht, Robert, 

 Ridpath, Redpath, Ratpert, and Radperth are 

 merely different orthographies of the same name, 

 which I take them to be, I do not see the force of 

 the suggestion " that the changt of Sicisper (or 

 even Sigisbert) into Shakspere can scarcely be 

 justified on etymological principles." 



R. S. Charnock. 

 Graj''s Inn. 



ANECDOTE BIOGRAPHY. 



At p. 238. of Mr. Timbs's very agreeable Anec- 

 dote Biography, I read : — 



" The author of a volume of Fen and Ink Sketches, 

 published in 1847, relates that he was introduced to 

 Crabbe at a Conversazione at the Beccles Philosophical 

 Institution. The poet was seated in Cowper's arm- 

 chair, the same which the Bard of OIney occupied at 

 Mrs. Unwin's. ' Pleased to see j'ou, my young friend ; 

 very pleased to see you,' said Crabbe to the author of the 

 Sketches : and after a little while he pointed to the line 

 portrait of Burke by Sir .Joshua Reynolds which hung 

 near him, and said, ' Very like, very like indeed. I was 

 in Sir Joshua's study when Burke sat for it. Ah ! there 

 was a man ! If ever you come to Trowbridge,' he added, 

 • you must call at the vicarage, and I'll show you a 

 sketch of Burke, taken at Westminster Hall when he 

 made his great speech in the Warren Hastings' case. 

 Edmund left it to me ; it is only a rude pencil drawing, 

 but it gives more of the orator than that picture does.' " 



Having had the pleasure of knowing Beccles 

 and the poet Crabbe's family rather intimately, I 

 was startled with this new anecdote ; and inquiring 

 in both those quarters I find, first, that there never 

 was a Philosophical Institute at Beccles ; nor 

 ever a " Conversazione " except one, in connection 

 with the Public Library, long after the poet's 

 death ; nor Burke's portrait, nor Cowper's arm- 

 chair ever remembered in the town at all. 



" Beccles," however, may be a slip of the au- 

 thor's or transcriber's pen for Norwich, Avhere 

 Crabbe usually spent a day or two with Mrs. 

 Opie when he came this way, and where Cowper's 

 armchair, at least, may very likely have been pro- 



duced at some such Conversazione ; but whence 

 the portrait of Burke, at the painting of which 

 "I was in Sir Joshua's study," &c.? As to the 

 " pencil drawing " of Burke making " his great 

 speech," and left " by Edmund to me ! " nothing 

 is remembered of it by any one of the poet's sur- 

 viving family ; one of whom, most competent to 

 speak, is quite certain that " it did not exist when 

 the property was divided" between the poet's 

 two sons at his death ; and such a relic was not 

 likely to be overlooked. The same person ob- 

 serves on the utter improbability of the language 

 put into the poet's mouth : " how difficult it was 

 ever to get him to speak in the country of the 

 great people he fell in with in town ; " how very 

 little given he was to invite strangers to his house ; 

 " not always civil to such as broke in upon him," 

 as a cfilebrity : that whether " Edmund left, it to 

 me " were a fact, such were " certainly not his 

 words " in telling of it ; " he would have said 

 ' Mr. Burke,' " being, as every one who knew him 

 knows, somewhat orer-formal in such punctilio. 



Parathina. 



SHinar ^atti. 



Cities turned into Stone. — It would be in- 

 teresting to trace the various forms of this mythos, 

 which probably derives its origin from the sand- 

 storms of Saharan countries. The latest instance 

 of its -appearance in the historic form occurs in a 

 letter from Sir Kenelm Digby preserved in an 

 old number of the European Magazine (1787). 

 Sir Kenelm quotes the letter of a correspondent 

 residing at Florence, describing 



" A strange metamorphosis hapned in Barbary not long 

 since, which is, the turning of a whole city into stone, 

 that is, men, beasts, trees, houses, utensils, &c., every- 

 thing remaining in the same posture (as children at their 



mothers' breasts), &c One Whiting, the captain 



of an English ship (who had bin a slave), coming to 

 Florence, told the great Duke of this incident, and he 

 himself had seen the city." 



This story was too strong for Ferdinand, and 

 he wrote to the Bassa about it ; but the JBassa 

 not only confirmed the captain, but sent " divers 

 of the things petrified, and among the rest Vene- 

 tian zechens turned into stone." 



The remarks which Digby subjoins are amus- 

 ingly characteristic of the turn of his mind, and 

 conclusively establish the genuineness of the letter, 

 otherwise rather suspicious. 



This most philosophic of gobe-mouches swallows 

 " men, beasts, trees, and houses," but boggles at 

 the sequins. 



" It seems strangest to me that an inactive body (as 

 all cold, dry, and earthj-^ ones ai-e) should thus change 

 gold, the strongest resistant in nature. But it ia true 

 also that little dense atoms force their way most unresist- 

 ably into all bodies when some impellent drives them 

 violently." 



