2"* S. X- Sept. 22. '60.] 



NOTES AKD QUERIES. 



227 



analogy of pro for pro, where the accent falls 

 upon the remote syllable so as to render the mean- 

 ing of the preposition itself obscure to the speaker's 

 consciousness. Elementa (elegementa) are the 

 component, individual parts — the parts that have 

 been sought out from the whole — from the verb 

 eligere, and is opposed in this case to legere, which, 

 means to seek for the purpose of bringing toge- 

 ther, to put together, to unite the component 

 parts, to put together the letters of the alphabet 

 so as to form words, and words to form speech ; 

 i. e. to read. It is connected with Ger. lesen, Eng. 

 lease. The etymology of this word is not clearly 

 given in any dictionary I have examined; that 

 which associates it with alimentiim, e\\w= rfAw, and 

 Sansc. U (liquefacere. Pott), is not satisfactory. 



Wich, Wick. — Wieh, wick (in Dutch wyk, mean- 

 ing a quarter of a town), common as a local name 

 in all Teutonic countries, as wik, wig, vik, vig, is 

 the same as Lat. victis, Gr. oJkos (original pronun- 

 ciation probably wikos, with i like Eng. e), meant 

 originally a dwelling or home = a village. In Po- 

 lish local names it appears as loice or wicz, and in 

 Sclavonic as wilz. The diminutive of this word 

 vicvla — y«ceZfo,contracted into villa, has passed into 

 the Romance languages as villa, ville, and into the 

 Teutonic as wyl, weiler. 



Wick or wig, so common in northern countries, 

 is from a different root. It means a bay or bend 

 of the sea, from Icelandic vik, a bay, vikja, to 

 turn or bend; Swed. viga, Ger. hiegen (from which 

 the Ger. &ttc/<^=bay is derived), Eng. bow, bay. 



The name of the country (Sleswig) was formerly 

 given only to the bay that washes its shores, the 

 country itself being called Hedehy. The bay was 

 called vigen Sli = the bay of Sli, afterwards Slis- 

 vig, or Sli's Bay. W. B. 



Edinburgh. 



S^inat Hatti. 



" Harmonious Blacksmith," etc. — It is 

 doubted, I think, whether Handel heard his 

 fiimous melody sung by a blacksmith, or made his 

 own music of the sound of anvil and forge. How- 

 ever this may be, Chaucer, in his Dream, tells us 

 that the latter was the origin of all music : — 

 " Lamech's son Tubal 



That first found out the Art of Song : 



For as his Brother's Hammers rong 



Upon his Anvil up and down, 



Thereof he took the firste Rown." 

 While on Chaucer, can you tell me why his 

 Canteriury Tales couplet was called " Riding- 

 rhyme ? " "I had forgotten," says Gascoigne, " a 

 notable kind of rhyme called 'Riding-rhyme:' and 

 that is such as our Master, Father Chaucer, useth 

 in his Canterbury Tales, and in divers other light 

 and delectable enterprises." So little heroic (as 

 we now call it) that he elsewhere says it " serveth 



most aptly to write a merie tale." Why? As 

 being less complicated than such measure as 

 used in Troilus and Cressida, &c. ? Surely not 

 " Riding-rhyme " from the manner of pilgrimage. 

 Lastly, what bird is Chaucer's Woodwale which 

 he puts among the songsters ? Urry says " Wit- 

 wall, a golden ouzell." An ancient Gloss, in Rel. 

 Ant. ii. p. 83. gives " Wodewale, I'oriol." Halliwell 

 in his own Gloss, says Woodpecker. Parathina. 



Spontoons, Halberts, Bayonets. — The fol- 

 lowing note may be useful on these subjects : it 

 is from Puysegur, Art de la Guerre, p. lis. : — 



"During this war (1703—1704) the officers were armed 

 with spontoons (espontons) eight feet in length, the ser- 

 geants with halberts six feet and a half in length, and all 

 the soldiers with bayonets with sockets (k douilles), so 

 that they could fire with bayonets fixed to the muzzles 

 of the fusils." 



A. A. 



Poets' Corner. 



Tavcs. — I was talking with a poor woman in 

 Huntingdonshire (in a parish adjoining to North- 

 amptonshire), and saying that so-and-so was much 

 older than he appeared to be : " Yes, Sir," replied 

 the woman, " but he's very tavus." Then she told 

 me that when the dog barked he was tavus, and 

 when the children screamed, he was dreadful 

 tavus. She used the word many times, and ex- 

 plained it to mean " fluster'd and put about by a 

 very little." I make a note of this provincialism, 

 never having met with it before ; nor does it oc- 

 cur in Sternberg's Noi'thamptonshire Glossary. 

 Bailey gives the word from which it would appear 

 to be derived : " To Tave [tcuen, Teut.], to rave 

 as people delirious in a fever." Cuthbert Bede. 



Hoppesteres. — Chaucer, in his description of 

 the Temple of Mars, over the western gate of the 

 lists where Palamon and Arcite contended for the 

 love of Emelye, among the stern and horrid sights 

 depicted on the walls, says: — 



•' Yet sawgh I brente the schippes hoppesteres." 



On a word of which commentators give con- 

 tradictory and very unsatisfactory explanations, 

 perhaps a plain reader may be allowed to offer a 

 suggestion. 



May not the word be hoppesterres, and refer to 

 those meteors called Castor and Pollux, or compo- 

 sants, which hopping from spar to spar betoken 

 " gusts and foul flaws " to the mariner ? 



If this explanation is neither new nor plausible, 

 no great harm will be done by its insertion. 



T. Q. C. 



cattwtes. 



Bishops. — The episcopal bench is said to be 

 summoned to Parliament by virtue of the tenure 

 of their temporalities, the possession of which is 

 essential to having a writ of summons. Was it 



