494 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 268. 



They may be spent in what our word pastime is 

 usually employed to denote : in diversion, or 

 amusement ; so " to pass away the time, as to 

 prevent it from hanging an intolerable burden on 

 our hands." (See Trench, On the Study of Words, 

 p. 9.) 



Farther, the Dutch wyl is our while ; and the 

 D . verwylen is our " to ichile." " To while off 

 a business," is " Een zaak verwylen." 



In Moeso- Gothic, and modern northern lan- 

 guages, "to while" is otiari, quiescere, to pass the 

 time leisurely or quietly ; and Ihre adds, " Pro- 

 prie idem significare videtur, ac cessare, vel in- 

 terstitium laboris facere, a hweila, intervallum 

 temporis." 



I hope I have said enough to satisfy your in- 

 genious correspondent, at the end of the alphabet, 

 that we cannot allow him to wile or beguile us 

 from our old persuasions. Q- 



Bloomsbury. 



Stars and Flowers (Vol. vii. passim ; Vol. x., 

 p. 253.). — Darwin, in his Botanic Garden, has 

 an example which you may deem worth quoting. 

 It is as follows : 



" Roll on, ye stars ! exult in youthful prime, 

 Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time ! 

 Near and more near your beaming cars approach, 

 And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach. 

 Flowers of the sky ! ye, too, to fate must yield, 

 Frail as your silken sisters of the field." 



Henrt H. Breen. 

 St. Lucia. 



" Harlot" (Vol. x., p. 207.). — Can there be any 

 doubt that this word, as Skinner's friend Henshaw 

 thought, and Tooke confirmed, is " quasi whorelet 

 or horelet, meretricpla" (Meretrix, a merendo). 

 Harlot was applied, not to females only, but to 

 males (see in Junius, Tooke, or Richardson), merely 

 as to persons receiving wages or hire. Varlet, 

 Tooke contends, is the same word. Q. 



Bloomsbury. 



The dying Words of Bede (Vol. x., p. 329.).— 

 Any Italian dictionary gives the phrase, " To mend 

 a pen," "Temperare una penna." The collo- 

 quial Latin of a monk was more likely to resemble 

 modern Italian than Cicero's Latinity. J. H. L. 



Family of the Palceologi (Vol. x., p. 351,). — 

 I noticed in The Times a few weeks ago, among a 

 list of medical men who, I think, were about to 

 proceed to the seat of war in the East, the name 

 of W. J. Paleologus, M.D. Perhaps this gentle- 

 man or his friends may be able to state whether 

 he is descended from the imperial familpr. I 

 forget the date of The Times in which this ap- 

 peared, but believe it to have been some day last 

 month (October). While on this subject I would 

 suggest to your readers the formation of a good 

 Genealogical Society for the publication and 



preservation of correct and authentic pedigrees, 

 and other records of families. Independent of 

 the historical interest of the information which 

 might be thus perpetuated, it is well known that 

 lawyers and others engaged in tracing successions 

 to property are constantly baffled in their en- 

 deavours from the want of accessible information 

 on these subjects. Indeed it may safely be said, 

 that a considerable amount of property is annually 

 lost to the rightful owners from sheer inability to 

 trace them. 



Good pedigrees and histories of the noble fa- 

 milies alone of England, would be extremely 

 valuable and interesting. Mr. Drummond's work 

 on Noble B7'itish Families might have answered 

 this purpose, but I believe it has been discontinued. 

 I fancy I have heard of a Genealogical Society 

 somewhere in London, but I never saw any of its 

 publications, nor do I know that it has contri- 

 buted much to genealogical knowledge. 



E. L. N. 



Praying towards the West (Vol. viii., p. 102. 

 &c.). — The following extract from Maimonides 

 will throw some farther light upon this question : 



" It is well known that the ancient idolaters chose 

 high and lofty places for the sites of their temples and 

 idols, and frequently erected them on mountains. Our 

 father Abraham, therefore, chose Mount Moriah, because 

 it was the highest mountain in that region, and publicly 

 professed the unity of God upon it ; and that towards the 

 west, because the Holy of Holies was to be placed towards 

 the west. From this has arisen the saying, that 'The 

 Divine Majesty is in the west ; ' and the express declar- 

 ation of our rabbins in the Semara, that ' Abraham our 

 father pointed out the west for the Holy of Holies.' But, 

 in my judgment, the reason was, that since it was the 

 common superstition to adore the sun, and regard it as a 

 god, men would doubtlessly turn themselves toward the 

 east ; and therefore our father Abraham turned himself 

 toward the west on Mount Moriah, that his back might be 

 upon the sun : for we are not ignorant of what the Israelites 

 did when they apostatised and returned to their former 

 errors. ' They turned their backs,' saith the prophet, ' to- 

 ward the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the 

 east; and they worshipped the sun towards the east' 

 (Ezekiel viii. 16.) Observe this with astonishment and 

 suitable regard!" — Maimonides, More Newchim, Of 

 Precepts of the Tenth Class. 



WiixiAM Fkaser, B.C.L. 



Alton, Staffordshire. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, BTC. 



The sale of the very choice library of an eminent col- 

 lector under the hammer of Messrs. Sotheby & Wilkinson, 

 at their rooms in Wellington Street, on Thursday week, 

 and two following days, has clearly demonstrated that 

 the rage for collecting books of undoubted rarity, in spite 

 of the critical times, is undiminished. The following are 

 the prices brought by some of the more uncommon 

 articles: — Lot 62. Candonero General, Anvers, loal, 



