420 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 265. 



piece of wood out of the ground. The verb is 

 applied for the most part to the digging up the 

 short stems and stalks of furze, after the top has 

 been cut down, or burnt on the ground. It is 

 probable that the word stubble has the same origin, 

 although the meaning is diiferent. 



Style, the pronunciation of steel ; and the word 

 steel is used for iron. By some old persons it is 

 used as a verb, to signify the ironing or smoothing 

 of clothes as a launcress does ; and this is called 

 "styling" the linen. This is probably the origin 

 of the word style, for fashion : as signifying being 

 dressed with garments, set in order as if they had 

 been ironed. 



Suart, perfectly uniform and smooth in all its 

 parts. A fisherman's line is said to run through 

 his hand suart, when he feels no inequality or 

 roughness, but it is equally soft and flexible 

 throughout. 



Sulky. Invariably used intead of sullen. 



Sych, the edge or foaming border of a wave, as 

 it runs up a harbour or on the land. Video. 



MACAUIiAY ON THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 



There is a passage in Macaulay's History of 

 England, on which it seems to me worth while to 

 make a Note. 



Speaking of Charles, Earl of Shrewsbury, the 

 historian writes (vol. ii. p. 318.), that "He spoke 

 French like a gentleman of Lewis's bed-chamber, 

 and Italian like a citizen of Florence." It is to 

 be presumed that the writer intends to say, that 

 he spoke either language in perfect purity. But, 

 in truth, to say of a man that he speaks Italian 

 like a citizen of Florence, is like saying of an 

 Englishman that he speaks his language like a 

 thoroughbred cockney. And in making this ob- 

 servation, it is not intended to understand the word 

 citizen in any more restricted sense than the author 

 evidently meant it — as any educated denizen of the 

 city. All Florentines, with rare exceptions, speak 

 a harsh and guttural dialect, marked also — per- 

 haps it may be said enriched — by many pecu- 

 liarities and provincialisms. The historian has 

 been led into error by the fame of the " Lingua 

 Toscana," not Fiorentina. The inhabitants of the 

 mountains of Pistoia, and those of the city of 

 Siena and its environs, have the reputation of 

 speaking a peculiarly pure Italian. But, in truth, 

 the reputation of the " Lingua Toscana," was 

 based on the written style of Tuscan authors, and 

 not on the spoken language ; as may be in part 

 gathered from the well-known proverb, which 

 describes the beau-ideal of the spoken Italian as 

 " Lingua Toscana in bocca Romana." The Flo- 

 rentine dialect was at all times characterised by 

 the same peculiarities, which still mark an in- 

 habitant of the " City of Flowers, and Flower of 



Cities." And it is curious to find, that in writings 

 of the sixteenth century, by some of the most 

 cultivated men of their day, the words are so 

 spelled as to represent as nearly as may be the 

 peculiar pronunciation still heard in the streets 

 and drawing-rooms, though perhaps to a less 

 degree, of Florence. Thus we find chonto, ac- 

 chordo, chasa, &c., for conto, accordo, casa. The 

 Florentines also, though this is more confined to 

 the lower classes, pronounce I and r indiscrimi- 

 nately for each other ; as morto for molto, pubbrico 

 {or pubblico, &c. So much so that, in the popnlar 

 songs, molto and corto, e. g., would be made to 

 rhyme. T. A. T. 



Florence. 



BIVINATION BY, OR TOSSING OF, COFFEE GBOUNDS. 



I met with the following curious advertisement 

 in the Dublin Weekly Journal, June 11, 1726. 

 This species of divination is mentioned in a note 

 to Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, 

 vol. ii. p. 620., and reference made t6 the first vo- 

 lume of the Gentleman s Magazine (1731), p. 108., 

 where an extract is made from the Weekly Re- 

 gister, March 20, No. 90., relating some occur- 

 rences the author met with in a visit he lately 

 paid to a lady, — 



" Whom he surprised and her company in close cabal 

 over their coffee, the rest very intent upon one whom, by 

 her address and intelligence, he guessed was a tire- woman 

 [Mrs. Cherry?], to which she added the secret of c/iuinin^ 

 by coffee grounds. She was then in full inspiration, and 

 with much solemnity observing the atoms round the cup ; 

 on the one hand sat a widow, on the other a maiden lady. 

 . . . They assured him that every cast of the cup is a 

 picture of all one's life to come, and every transaction and 

 circumstance is delineated with the exactest certaintv," 

 &c. 



The same practice is noticed in The Connois- 

 seur, No. 56., where a girl is represented divining, 

 to find out of what rank her husband should be : 



" I have seen him several times in coffee grounds with a 

 sword by his side ; and he was once at the bottom of a 

 tea- cup in a coach and six, with two footmen behind it." 



In the following advertisement one cannot but be 

 struck with the piety (?) of Mrs. Cherry, who de- 

 clined business till prayers were over at St. Peter's 

 Church (a proof of daily prayers, by the way, in 

 1726), as well as with the economy with which she 

 exercised her profession. 



" Advice is hereby given, that there is lately arrived in 

 this city the famous Mrs. Cherry, the only gentlewoman 

 truly learned in that occult science of tossing of coffee 

 grounds; who has with uninterrupted success for some 

 time past practised to the general satisfaction of her female 

 visitants. She is to be heard of at Mrs. C — ks, or at Mrs. 

 Q — ts, in Angler Street, Dublin. Her hours are after 

 prayers are done at St. Peter's Church, till dinner. 

 N.B. — She never requires more than one ounce of coffee 

 from a single gentlewoman, and so proportionable for a 



