108 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nds, NollO., Feb. 6. '58. 



fleets on the many gallant deeds which, since the 

 summer of 1854, have been performed in the 

 Crimea, in Persia, in Kars, in the Bengal mutiny, 

 or in China. The Victoria Cross expresses to the 

 courajreous men who have won it a wholly differ- 

 ent opinion. , W. W. 

 Malta. 



Statistics of Languages. — I have recently had 

 an opportunity of comparing together fourteen 

 languages, through the medium of a piece of Latin 

 consisting of 1023 words, which had been ably 

 translated into the other thirteen tongues. The 

 . result of a most eareful enumeration of words and 

 letters is recorded in the following table : — 



Langiiage. 



French 



German 



Hungarian 



Dutch 



Greek 



Irish 



Polish 



Italian 



English 



Latin 



Spanish 



Russian 



lUyrian 



Servian 



The French stands gibbeted as the most cir- 

 cumlocutory, as might have been expected ; the 

 Servian has the credit of being the most symboli- 

 cal. The Hungarian, and then the Polish, have 

 the longest words ; the English, as might have 

 been expected, has the shortest of all. 



By counting the vowels and consonants in each 

 version, and dividing the number of the latter by 

 the number of the former in each, we obtain the 

 following table : — 



German ) ,.,r 



Italian J " " " ^ ^^ 



French 1 



Spanish |- - . - 1-24 



Latin J 



Servian - - - - 1-44 



Polish - . . . 1-64: 



Hungarian) i „„ 



Dutch ; - ■ - 1^7 



English - - - - 1-70 



From this it appears that the German and Italian 

 have the greatest proportion of vowels, and the 

 English has the least. C. MANsriELD Ingleby. 



Birmingham. 



Minav €i\xtviti. 



Travels of William Bingjield. — During a con- 

 siderable part of last century various works of 

 fiction issued from the English press, many of 

 which possess great merit, and some of which, 

 Peter Wilkins for instance, still continue to be 



popular. Of course I do not mean the novels of 

 the time, which have very little to recommend 

 them, but the Voyages imaginaires, of which there 

 were several, now only known to book collectors. 

 One of these has this title : 



" The Travels and Adventures of William Bingfield, 

 Esq., containing as surprising a fluctuation of circum- 

 stances both by sea and land as ever befel one Man ; with 

 an accurate Account of the Shape, Nature, and Properties 

 of that most furious and amazing Animal, the Dog-bird. 

 Printed from his own manuscript, with a beautiful Fron- 

 tispiece. London, 1754. Two vols. 12rao." 



Of course William Bingfield, Esq., is a myth, 

 but his travels are most amusing ; so much so, 

 that if they had fallen in the way of Sir Walter 

 Scott, we believe he would have included them in 

 his volume of Popular Romances as a suitable 

 companion to Peter Wilkins, Rbbinson Crusoe, and 

 Gulliver. Can anything be ascertained as to the 

 author ? J. M. 



Tenth Wave. — What is the natural pheno- 

 menon observed with respect to the tenth wave f 

 In Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace he says, 

 " until at length, tumbling from the Gallick 

 coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride like 

 the bore over all the rest." I find, too, in one of 

 Ovid's Epistles from Pontus — 



" . . . . Qui fluctus supereminet omnes 

 Posterior nono est, undecimoque prior." 



I know that each third wave is commonly re- 

 marked to be larger than the others, and the 

 cause is easily assignable; but I have not been 

 able to find among seamen that any peculiarity is 

 observed as to the tenth. O. H. 



Recipe for Tracing-paper. — Can any gentle- 

 man favour me with a good recipe for making 

 tracing-paper ? and if so, would he kindly send it 

 to W. Percy Payne. 



6. Stock-Orchard Villas, 

 Holloway. N. 



Cameronians. — Is the sect of Cameronians now 

 in existence ? Where can I find anything about 

 it ? Of course I know where to get information 

 more than enough of the Cameronians of the 

 seventeenth century ; but I want to know about 

 their successors at the latter end of the last cen- 

 tury and^the beginning of this, and at the present 

 time. Glis p. Templ. 



Domenichino's " Galatea." — Can any art-loving 

 or art-knowing readers of "N. & Q." tell me 

 where Domenichino's " Galatea" ia preserved ? 



E. W. 



Oxford. 



Celebrated Pill. — In the Obituary of the Gen- 

 tleman s Magazine (vol. vi.), February, 1736, I 

 find: — 



« nth iiigt;,^ Vesey Hart, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. About 



