150 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Aug. 25. 1855. 



by one of his friends." And he then goes on to 

 state that Johnson had once conceived the design 

 of writing the life of Oliver Cromwell ; and adds 

 the account of his ride to Salisbury to attend a 

 lecture on natural philosophy ; all tending to shovsr 

 that the friend in question was no other than Mr. 

 Bowles, and the time referred to the period of the 

 visit to Heale. No doubt Mr. Bowles drove out 

 his venerable visitor to see Stonehenge also, and 

 other objects of interest in the neighbourhood ; of 

 all which it might be very pleasant to conjecture 

 the history, but for the ever-recurring conviction 

 that rural scenes had but small charm for him ; 

 that he must have yawned at the sight of a tumu- 

 lus, and remarked that a " shepherd of Salisbury 

 Plain" was a less intelligent person than a Smith- 

 field drover ; that in short he carried away with 

 him no brighter reminiscences of his Wiltshire 

 studies than did, shortly after, the Rev. Sydney 

 Smith, who commenced his professional career in 

 the very same spot. 



The late Rev. Edward Duke, a neighbour and 

 friend of Mr. Bowles, has told me that he remem- 

 bers Dr. Johnson's portrait as constituting the 

 principal ornament over an old fireplace at Heale ; 

 but it is now many years since the house was 

 almost entirely remodelled, though traces of the 

 antique are preserved in some carving. Mr. 

 Bowles was the father of the Admirals of that 

 name. J. Waylen. 



Add New Building near Thirsk to the list of 

 houses containing these apartments. Anon. 



ESHE, USHAW, AND FI.ASS. 



(Vol. xii., pp. 74. 112.) 



It is only the initial syllable that can cause 

 any difiiculty in the etymology of this word, 

 Shaw being a terminal of frequent occurrence in 

 the local proper names of the district, as in Pen- 

 shaw, Birkenshaw, Cockshaw, &c., and clearly 

 derivable from the Anglo-Saxon Scua (literally 

 a shade), a thicket or small wood. 



The U or Us (Camden writes it Us-shaw) has 

 been derived, without, in my opinion, sufficient 

 reason, from the y^w, of which one fine old tree, 

 though now much injured, still stands upon the 

 spot. 



In favour of this supposition several analogous 

 names, which exist in the neighbourhood without 

 being peculiar to it, may be instanced, e.g. Oaken- 

 shaw (a thicket of oak), Birkenshaw (a birch 

 wood), Breckenshaw (a fern cover), and others. 

 I have, however, searched in vain for a similar 

 compound for the yew, and it is not to be ex- 

 pected that one at all approximating to the word 



No. 304.] 



as it stands here will be found, when the Anglo- 

 Saxon way of writing it (eow) is so different. 



To me it seems to be clearly from the Celtic 

 root ushe, or tishel, meaning high, lofty, &c., as in 

 Ushenish Head, in S. Uist, Hebrides, the high- 

 path-head ; henise in Anglo-Saxon being a path 

 or trod : we shall thus have Ushe-shaw, a wood 

 or thicket situated on an eminence ; which quite 

 answers to the local position, as the place in ques- 

 tion stood on the north side of the old road Avhich 

 runs along the heights lying between the valleys 

 of Browney and Dearness, and leading from Dur- 

 ham to Eshe, at a distance from the latter of about 

 a mile and a half. 



But two houses now remain of the former ham- 

 let, so that the picturesque old yew-tree hard by, 

 the last of his venerable race, is once more left in 

 undisturbed possession of the soil, so fiir as the 

 village is concerned ; but the name is preserved 

 in the fine Catholic collegiate institution of St. 

 Cuthbert adjoining, and will probably receive 

 from it an historic interest, which the hardy 

 northern woodman to whom it was first known 

 as the Ushe-shaw, little dreamed would ever at- 

 tach to it. 



In support of Cetrep's remarks upon the ety- 

 mology of Flass, I might instance the lake Flasjon 

 in Sweden, and Flexk, a river in co. Kerry, Ire- 

 land, as also the engineering term flashes, to 

 denote a species of sluice erected upon rivers; 

 and flaxse In Bohemian, flaxe in Anglo-Saxon, 

 and J?a,9ca in the language of the Eastern Empire, 

 corresponding with our own word flask. Asc, 

 esc, and use is the varied orthography of the same 

 word, which amongst the old Britons signified 

 water, as it still does in the Highlands and Ire- 

 land. (Vide Baxter's Gloss. Brit, p. 264.) 



For an explanation of the word Peth, in the 

 Anglo-Saxon Padth, and Celtic Pedd, and which 

 Brockett in his Glossai^y defines as a road up a 

 steep hill, I would refer Mb. Chevallier to a 

 full and interesting exposition of the term in the 

 supplementary part of Jamieson's Etymological 

 Dictionary of the Scottish Language, unfortunately 

 too long to be transcribed into your pages. 



WULSTAN. 



" Peth" (Vol. xii,, p. 74.) is probably joaf/z. In 

 the south the word path was used as a synonym 

 with ridge, way, and edge for a Roman road, as in 

 Harepath or llerapath, a military way, Bagpath, 

 Reelpath. Hyde Clarke. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC COBBESPONCENCE. 



x-llteration of Positives (communicated to the Societe Fran- 

 (jaise de Photographie by M. ])avanne). — JI. Davanne 

 announced tliat, in conjunction with M. Girard, he had 

 undertaken a series of experiments directed precisely to 

 the end indicated by M. Balard. These experiments 



