2°a S. No 89., Sept. 12. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



205 



farm is upon a hill-side, yet that hill bears no 

 resemblance to a sugar-loaf. Whence then the 

 name ? The present farm-house is a modern one. 

 Its predecessor was a large house, with a world of 

 wood in its construction ; a large porch, abun- 

 dance of carved onk, and various other pic- 

 turesque details that made it a frequent study 

 for the painter's pencil. The house was divided 

 into two parts. A clergyman, named Shuker, 

 lived in the one portion ; a farmer, named Stokes, 

 in the other : and the house that formed their 

 joint abode was called " The Shuker-Stokes." 

 The clerical " Shuker" was sweetened by the 

 vernacular into "sugar;" so that the particular 

 family of Stokes here mentioned were called " the 

 Sugar-Stokes," to distinguish them from other 

 families of the same name in the Bobbington 

 parish. And "The Sugar-Stokes Farm" quickly 

 passed into "The Sugar-loaf Farm," even in the 

 lifetime of the Shukerses and Stokeses. In what 

 way "Stokes" became converted to "loaf," I 

 cannot say ; but so it was. 



CUTHBERT BeDE, B.A. 



Threat of Invasion^ 1805-6. — The following spe- 

 cimen of theyewa; d'esprit current about 1805 may 

 be worth preservation ; 



" Says Boney to Johnny, ' We're crossing to Dover.' 

 Says Johnny to Boney, 'We can't let you come.' 

 Says Boney to Johnny, ' What, if I come over? ' 

 Says Johnny to Boney, * You'll be overcome.' " 



Y. B. N. J. 



Tandem. — It is never very long after his extri- 

 cation from the labyrinth of Hie, Hoec, Hoc, ere 

 the tyro in Latinity ascertains, by help of his 

 Ainsworth, that tandem means at I-engtB, i. e. in 

 point of time. I cannot help thinking that some 

 incipient Jehu, harnessing his pair of horses one 

 before the other (i. e. at length in point of posi- 

 tion) instead of abreast of each other, must have 

 adopted the term furnished by Ainsworth to his 

 new aurigal arrangement. If so, this practice 

 (denounced by proctors, whether of Oxford or 

 Cambridge, with equal severity) of " driving tan- 

 dem" may owe its designation to some school-boy 

 recollections of a Latin adverb. Y. B. N. J. 



Inscriptions in Shiffnal Church, co. Salop. — 



"William Wakley was baptized at Idsal, otherwise 

 ShifFnal, May the first, 1590, and was buried at Adbaston, 

 Nov. 28, 1714. His age was 124 years and upwards; he 

 lived in the reigns of eight Kings and Queens. D.P." 



"August 7th, 1776, Marj', the wife of Joseph Yates, of 

 Lizard Common, within this Parish, was buried. Aged 

 127 years. She walked to London just after the ffire in 

 1666, was hearty and strong 120 years, and married^ 

 third Husband at ninety-two." 



S. 



Death of the largest Man in the World. — 



_" The funeral sermon of Mr. Miles Dafden, who died at 



his residence in Henderson county, will be preached on 



the fourth Sunday in this month, five miles southwest 



from Lexington, Tenn. The Masonic fraternity will be 

 in attendance in full regalia on the occasion. 



" The deceased was beyond all question the largest 

 man in the world. His height was seven feet six inches 

 — two inches higher than Porter, the celebrated Ken- 

 tucky giant. His weight was a fraction over one thou- 

 sand pounds ! It required seventeen men to put him in 

 his coffin. Took over 100 feet of plank to make his coffin. 

 He measured around the waist six feet four inches. 



"After the funeral services, a friend in Henderson 

 county who has long known Mr. Darden, has promised to 

 give us a brief sketch of his life, embodying some inter- 

 esting facts." — West Tennessee Whig. 



w.w. 



Malta. 



To drive away Flies. — This, may be done by 

 hanging up in the room a branch from a walnut- 

 tree, to which the flies have a great antipathy. So 

 said my farmer informant, at whose house I saw 

 the charm in operation, and to all appearance suc- 

 cessful. CuTHBERT BeDE, B.A. 



OWE : OUGHT. 



Very ugly words these, as now used, especially 

 the former. Originally, however, the verb to owe 

 conveyed all the sweet sensations of assured pos- 

 session. It signified — what to own Is now em- 

 ployed to signify, — " to have a property in." 

 'I'hus in old Chapman's translation of the Hymn 

 to Pan : 



" Who yet is lean and loveless, and doth owe 

 By lot, all loftiest mountains crown'd with snow." 

 Hymns of Homer, Singer's edit., p. 117. 



And again in Lowland Scotch, as used by Sir 

 W. Scott, the praeterite is taken in this sense ; 

 thus, " they'll ne'er come hame that aught it right- 

 fully," i. e. the rightful owners will never come 

 home. (" Old Mortality," Waverley Novels, ii. 69.) 



To this day, in the county of Durham, it is 

 understood that a person who has picked up a lost 

 article may appropriate it if, after holding it up 

 and demanding " who's o' that?" i. e. "who owes 

 [owns] that," no one claims it. 



It would seem superfluous to add to the autho- 

 rities which Dr. Richardson has accumulated, to 

 illustrate either sense of the word, whether as 

 having a property in, or a claim to something, or 

 being indebted. But I could never satisfy myself 

 how the word acquired that sense of debt, which it 

 bore concurrently with the other in ancient times, 

 and to which it is exclusively limited in modern. 

 That it was so used in the earliest periods of our 

 language is clear from a passage in A Remon- 

 strance against Romish Corruptions (temp. 1395}, 

 edited by Forshall, p. 26. : 



" The office of the King and of the secular lordis which 

 is founden sufficientlie in holi scripture of the olde and 

 the newe Testament owith [ought] to be magnified excel- 

 lentlj," &c. , j 



