July 3. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



17 



At the risk, then, of offending good taste, out- 

 raging early and fond associations, and perhaps 

 incurring the charge of " affectation," I cannot 

 but think that the variations of Cooper, Couper, 

 and Cowper are cor7'ectly pronounced Cooper, and 

 that Coke and Cooke should be regarded as two 

 ways only of spelling one modernised pronunci- 

 ation ; though, at the same time, I can have no 

 sympathy with the drawing-room "slang" of the 

 present day, — the ridiculous perversions patronised 

 by it (as Broom for Brougham, Darby for Derby) 

 having justly afforded scope for the current wit of 

 the day, and pointed the keenest satires of our 

 humorous friend Punch. H. W. S. T. 



Southampton. 



Use of Slings by the Early Britons (Vol. v., p. 

 537.). — Similar discoveries to that on Weston 

 Hill have been made on the fortified positions in 

 the south-east of Devon. Among the means 

 adopted by the Romans for the defence of their 

 camps and stations, stones were used, the larger 

 being thrown from engines, and the smaller from 

 slings (Caesar, Bell. Gall, 1. ii. s. 11. 19. 24., 

 iv. 23. ; V. 35., &c.) ; and we learn from Vegetius 

 ihat they were in the practice of collecting round 

 stones in their fortified places, to be ready for use 

 in case of an attack : 



" Saxa rotunda de fluviis, quia pro soliditate graviora 

 sunt et aptiora mlttentibus, diligentissime coUiguntur, 

 ex quibus muri replentur." — Lib. iv. c. 8. 



Heaps of stones collected for this purpose were 

 found in the hill fortress, now partially destroyed, 

 called Stockland Castle, and others in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Membury Castle ; for particulars re- 

 specting which, see a little work entitled T'he 

 British and Roman Remains in the Vicinity of 

 Axminster, in the County of Devon, p. 82. For an 

 account of similar stones found in the camp at 

 Camalet, see also Dr. Stukeley's //memr?/, p. 142. 



J. L. 



Burialin Unconsecrated Ground (Vol. v., p. 596.). 

 — The name of Thomas Hollis ought not to be 

 omitted in the list of those persons who have 

 chosen to be buried in unconsecrated ground. 

 He was healthy, rich, learned, and liberal. He 

 was honoured as a patriot, and was anxious to 

 promote the welfare and happiness of his fellow- 

 creatures. It might be expected that, with all 

 these advantages, he was a happy man ; but many 

 of the nine hundred pages in which his Memoirs 

 are enshrined (4to. 1780) demonstrate that he was 

 far from happy. 



He had ordered that — 



" In the middle of one of these fields, not far from his 

 house [Corscombe, Dorsetshire], Lis corpse was to be 



deposited in a grave ten feet deep, and that the field 

 should be immediately ploughed over, that no trace of 

 his burial-place should remain." 



As he was walking in these fields, Jan. I, 1774^ 

 he suddenly fell down and expired, in the fifty- 

 fourth year of his age. His burial took place as 

 he had ordered. T. D. F. 



Etymology of Fetch and Haberdasher (Vol. v., 

 pp. 402. 557.). — A correspondent in a late Number 

 inquires respecting the etymology of the Irish /cfc/i, 

 an apparition supposed to warn a person of ap- 

 proaching death. The superstition is by no means 

 confined to Ireland, and in Pembrokeshire appears 

 in the shape of the fetch-candle, a light seen 

 moving in the air at night, and supposed to be ia 

 attendance on a ghostly funeral, portending the 

 speedy death of the party who sees it. The name 

 might be plausibly explained as if the apparition- 

 were commissioned to fetch the fated seer to the 

 other world, but probably erroneously. The su- 

 perstition is, I believe, of Scandinavian origin, 

 taking its rise in the Vsstt of those regions, a kind 

 of goblin of dwarfish stature, supposed to dwell 

 in mounds, whence vcette-lys, literally the Vaett's 

 candle, a name given in Norway to the Will-o'-the- 

 wisp, affording both a physical and etymological 

 explanation of the fetch-candle, that can hardly be 

 doubted. See Vaet, V-5;tte-i.ts, Molbech's Diar 

 lects-Lexikon. 



Another word that has lately been made the 

 subject of Inquiry is haberdasher, and the specu- 

 lations offered with respect to the origin of this 

 singular word are so wholly unsatisfactory, that it 

 may be worth while to add one that has at least a 

 solid foundation, though it certainly leaves a con- 

 siderable slip to be cleared by cooijecture at the 

 conclusion. 



A word of so complex a structure, not apparently 

 reducible to significant elements, must be strongly 

 suspected of corruption, and the origin would na- 

 turally be looked for In France, from whence we 

 derive the names of so many of our tradesmen, as 

 butchers, tailors, cutlers, chandlers, mercers, &c. 

 Now the Dictionnaire de Languedoc has " Debas- 

 saire, bonnetier, chaussetier, fiibrlcant de bas," from 

 debasses, stockings. With us "The haberdasher 

 heapeth Avealth by hats," but he usually joins with 

 that business the trade of hosier; and possibly, 

 when the meaning of the French term was not 

 generally understood In this country, the name of 

 the article dealt in might have been added to give 

 significance to the word, and thus might have 

 formed hat-debasser, or hat-debasher, haberdasher. 



H. Wedgwood. 



Baxter's '■^ Heavy Shove," Sec. (Vol. v., pp.416. 

 594.). — From all lean learn, and I have carefully 

 searched for evidence, the Rev. Richard Baxter is 

 not the author of the Heavy Shove, referred to by 

 some of your correspondents. Had such a work 



