2°'> S. VIII. Sept. 17. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



239 



at Cambridge the palm of antiquity. The latter 

 is referred to hj the letter A, and the term Alexan- 

 drine." The Alexandrine MS. is the one pre- 

 served in the Brit. Museum, while the one at 

 Cambridge is known as " Codex Bezae, sive D." 



A. 



Harry Sopliister (2"« S. viii. 86.)— There is no 

 difficulty as to the meaning of this expression. A 

 student at Cambridge, who has declared for Law 

 or Physic, may put on a full-sleeved gown, when 

 those of the same year, who go out at the regular 

 time, have taken their degree of Bachelor of Arts. 

 He is then styled a Harry-Soph, i. e. epLcrocpSs. 

 So says the Cambridge Calendar for the current 

 year. Wm. Matthews. 



Cowgill. 



• James Thomson (2"'^ S. viii. 50.) — I remember 

 reading, about thirty years ago, an article on the 

 poet Thomson in the (London) Monthly Magazine, 

 in which it was said that he was married, but 

 privately, to a woman in what he considered an 

 inferior station in life to his own. Uneda. 



riiiladelphia. 



Cambridge Costume (2"^ S. viii. 74. 191.) — It 

 is not customary, I believe, for any but heads of 

 Louses to wear the stole in chapel. 



P. J. F. Gantillon. 



Marriage Customs (2"^ S. viii. 186.) — In addi- 

 tion to the marriage customs alluded to by J. N., 

 there is another yet lingering among the lower 

 classes in the West Riding of Yorkshire, — that 

 of throwing the stocking. After the married 

 couple has retired, or as the common phraseology 

 is, " got bedded," the guests enter the room, and 

 standing with their backs to the foot of the bed, 

 each throw a stocking over the left shoulder at 

 the bride, who during this ceremony must sit up ; 

 the first who can hit her is adjudged to be next 

 married. 



This practice must be anything but pleasant to 

 the more modest damsels ; but so pertinaciously 

 do the peasantry cling to the custom, that long 

 and strong has sometimes been the strife for ad- 

 mission to the bridal chamber when the parties 

 have refused to submit to it, and many have been 

 the schemes resorted to (assisted by the elder 

 dames) to slip ofi' to bed unobserved. 



There is yet another, viz. the hen-drinking. 

 On the evening of the wedding day the young 

 men of the village call upon the bridegroom for a 

 hen — meaning money for refreshments; which 

 having obtained, they have a merrymaking on 

 that or some subsequent evening in honour of the 

 occasion, &c. ; but should the hen be refused, the 

 inmates may expect some ugly trick to the house 

 ere the festivities terminate — perhaps find the 

 chimney-top and the door fastened up at the same 

 time. Hen is by some supposed to be a corrup- 

 tion of " end," to distinguish this from former con- 



tributions levied in the shape of pitcher-money, 

 given by the swain as a fee to secure the freedom 

 of visiting his sweetheart at all times without let 

 or hindrance. 



These, and the other practices mentioned by 

 J. N., are observed here ; but, like him, I never 

 could come at any satisfactory conclusion as to 

 their origin. 



No doubt the love of fun, frolic, and carousal, 

 so inherent to the English peasantry, contributes 

 more than anything to keep up the practices, 

 though they may have originated in far different 

 circumstances. C. F. 



Wakefield. 



Liverpool, SfC. (2"^^. viii. 110. 198.) — The 

 etymology of Liverpool is a vexed question. It is 

 noticeable that there is a relationship among the 

 names in \vh\ch. Liver is a component, — a rela- 

 tionship which extends farther than the first two 

 syllables. Thus I find, Li'ivev-mcre, h'wer-more 

 (probably moor), hher-pool, hiver-sedge, and, 

 which is the same, hiver-sage. This does not sug- 

 gest to me any clue to the derivation or origin of 

 Liver in these cases ; but it is noticeable that it 

 appears always to stand in a certain class of rela- 

 tionships, — mere, moor, pool, and sedge. Perhaps 

 some one can give other examples from the names 

 of persons or places. B. H. C. 



I am much obliged to Rev. Thomas Boys for 

 his communication, which has led me to inspect 

 the Diary again carefully, and I am satisfied that 

 it is Lerpoole, as he has conjectured. It is curi- 

 ous, however, that so good an argument can be, 

 made for Cespoole as an old name for Liverpool. 

 It is said in a petition from Chester of 1602, 

 printed in Baines's Hist, of Lancashire (iv. 73.), 

 that " the town of Liverpoole is but a creek of 

 the port of Chester." W. C. 



" Wirried at a steack " (2"^ S. viii. 58.) — I thank 

 Z. for his explanation of this phrase ; and I frankly 

 confess the ignorance which he, in his courtesy, 

 hesitates to impute to me. But I was misled by 

 Mr. S. Collet, in whose Relics of Litet-ature, p.l58., 

 I had met with the report of the case referred to. 

 To the words above quoted, he has appended the 

 following editorial footnote : — "Worried like a bull 

 or a badger by dogs in human shape." My common 

 sense rejected this figurative interpretation of a 

 solemn judicial sentence ; and I thus fell into an 

 error of another kind. I mention this as a warn- 

 ing to the tyro, how little dependence is to be 

 placed upon the glosses of some editors ; who, 

 indeed, often favour us with " comments harder 

 than the text." Ache. 



Theocritus and Virgil (2"* S. i. 472.) — I can 



now partly reply to my own Query by referring 



to Gebauer, de Poetarum Grcecorum Bncolico7'iim. 



Carminibus a Virgilio adumbratis. ^^ 



P. J. F. Gantillon. 



