Nov. 25. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES- 



421 



second or third person, but not to exceed that number at 

 any one time." 



E, Ph. Shiblet. 

 Houndshill. 



That V. Who or Which. — ''1^. & Q." have 

 occasionally contained strictures upon the mis- 

 application of words and terms. Pray admit my 

 protest against the growing use, or rather misuse, 

 of "that" for "who," or " which." I lately met in a 

 published sermon with the following " barbarism :" 

 — "It was that (ista) poor, friendless, forlorn 

 widow, that (quce) enlisted his sympathies and 

 won his high encomium ; and that (id) because of 

 the warm and genuine generosity of her heart." 

 The Latin substitutes are inserted just to point 

 out how much we lose, not only in perspicuity, 

 but also in that beauty which arises from A^ariety 

 of phrase. Wm. Hazel. 



Salutation after Sneezing. — The Athenceum, in 

 a review of M. Nisard's curious though ill-exe- 

 cuted work on the popular literature of France, 

 remarks that the following passage contains evi- 

 dence of the almost universal practice of salutation 

 after sneezing : 



" If you sneeze in the presence of another person, you 

 should take off your hat, turn aside ; put your hat, your 

 handkerchief, hand, or napkin before you ; and as soon as 

 the paroxysm is past, you ought to sahite those who have 

 saluted, or ought to have saluted you, although they may 

 not have said anything." 



At different stages of social progress, such in- 

 structions may be found occupying positions in 

 the social scale correspondingly various, and help- 

 ing accordingly to mark the point reached by 

 different nations. In France the above extract, 

 at the middle of the nineteenth century, occupies 

 a page in a chap-book destined for the classes at 

 the bottom of the social pyramid. In Italy I find 

 the following in a child's primer, issued authori- 

 tatively in 1553, and stated in the title-page to be 

 " enriched with new and moral maxims adapted 

 to form the hearts of children." Among " the 

 duties of man to society" are enumerated those 

 of— 



" Abstaining from scratching your head, putting your 

 fingers in your mouth, crossing one knee over the other in 

 sitting . . . and being prompt in saluting any one who 

 may sneeze, and returning thanks to any who, on such 

 an occasion, may have wished you well." 



There is no reason to doubt, I fancy, the accu- 

 racy of the commonly current statement, that the 

 practice in question had its origin at the time of a 

 wide-spread epidemic, of which sneezing was sup- 

 posed to be a premonitory symptom. 



Before concluding, I will cite from the little 

 book above mentioned another of the maxims, 

 supposed by its author to be " adapted for the 



formation of the juvenile heart," as being charac- 

 teristic and noteworthy. " One ought never," it 

 is taught, " to introduce any conversation Si 

 topics unseasonable or contrary to current opinions." 



A less morally questionable, though more in- 

 convenient precept, is, that you are never to blow 

 your nose in the presence of any one ! T. A. T. 



Florence. 



" Alma " and " Balbec." — I have been struck 

 with the apparent Scandinavian character of some 

 of the names, now become immortal, in the Crimea. 

 In the river Alma we have the ordinary Scan- 

 dinavian termination a, " water, a river," and the 

 exact name is that of one of the rivers of Norway, 

 the Alma. In Belbec we have the Scandinavian 

 hec or beck, " a brook," universal in this district, 

 and found wherever the Northmen have lost their 

 traces ; while Bel is the name of a god common, 

 as Sir E. B. Lytton has observed, among other 

 nations, both to the Anglo-Saxons and the North- 

 men. Did any wandering Varangians ever settle 

 upon the Crimea, or is this merely a coincidence ? 

 If the latter, have we not at any rate a trace 

 of the great deity Baal or Bel, and may not the 

 Belbec be identified with Balbec, his beautiful 

 temple in Syria? That temple stands beside a 

 brook from which it may have derived its nanie, 

 tracing the word beck up to its Eastern origin. 

 You have readers many and wise ; can they throw 

 any light upon It ? R. A. 



Carlisle. 



Epitaph. — The following from an old news- 

 paper (1750) appears too good not to have a place 

 In a permanent periodical : 



" Epitaph on a talkathe Old Maid. 

 Beneath this silent stone is laid 

 A noisy antiquated maid. 

 Who from her cradle talk'd till death, 

 And ne'er before was out of breath." 



TiMON. 



James II. and the University of Dublin. — 

 Please give a corner in " N. & Q." to the follow- 

 ing extract from a very interesting and impartial 

 work, Taylor's History of the Civil Wars of Ire- 

 land, vol. ii. p. 127. : 



« The first step taken by James in his war on the Uni- 

 versity of Dublin, proved that he gave that learned body- 

 more credit for common sense than it deserved. He 

 nominated a Roman Catholic to be professor of the Irish 

 language, and was astounded to hear that no such pro- 

 fessorship existed in that venerable institution. Doctor 

 Leland (the Irish historian) rates James very severely for 

 having committed such a blunder ; but truly the blunder 

 belongs not to him alone. He could scarcely have cre- 

 dited the existence of such a practical jest, as an insti- 

 tution whose professed design was to instract the Irish in 

 the doctrines of the reformed religion, which yet left the 

 teachers whollv ignorant of the language of those whom 

 they had to instruct. Compared with this, the folly of 

 Goldsmith's attempting to teach English in Holland, 



