6U 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 188. 



be touched home, in the same kind themselves thought 

 to have touched others," — Id., vol. iv. p. 71.* 



W. R. Abrowsmith. 



(Zb he continued.) 



DEVONIANISMS. 



Miserahle. — Miserable is very commonly used 

 in Devonshire in the signification of miserly, with 

 strange effect until one becomes used to it. 

 Hooker the Judicious, a Devonshire man, uses 

 the word in this sense in the Eccl. Polity, book v. 

 ch. Ixv. p. 21.: 



" By means whereof it cometh also to pass that the 

 mean which is virtue seemeth in tlie eyes of each ex- 

 treme an extremity ; the liberal-hearted man is by the 

 opinion of the prodigal miserable, and by the judgment 

 of the miserahle lavish." 



Few. — Speaking of broth, people in Devon say 

 a few broth in place of a little, or some broth. I 

 find a similar use of the word in a sermon preached 

 in 1550, by Thomas Lever, Fellow of St. John's 

 College, preserved by Strype (in his Eccles. Mem., 

 ii. 422.). Speaking of the poor students of Cam- 

 bridge, he says : 



" At ten of the clock they go to dinner, whereas 

 they be content with a penny piece of beef among four, 

 having a few pottage made of the broth of the same 

 beef, with salt and oatmeal, and nothing else." 



Figs, Figgy. — Most commonly raisins are 

 called ^^s, and plum-pudding_/?g-g7/ pudding. So 

 with plum-cake, as in the following rhymes : — 



" Rain, rain, go to Spain, 

 Never come again : 

 When I brew and when I bake, 

 I'll give you a figgy cake." 



Against is used like the classical adversiim, in 

 tbe sense of towards or meeting. I have heard, 

 both in Devonshire and in Ireland, the expression 

 to send against, that is, to send to meet, a person, 

 &c. 



The foregoing words and expressions are pro- 

 bably provincialisms rather than Devonianisms, 

 good old English forms of expression ; as are, in- 

 deed, many of the so-called Hibernicisms. 



Film, Farroll. — What is the derivation of 

 ^i7m=dust, so frequently heard in Devon, and its 

 derivatives, pilmy, dusty : it pilmetli ? The cover 



* Kindly is quite a pet 'word with Andrewes, as, 

 besides the passages quoted, he employs it in nearly 

 the same sense in vol. iii., at pp. 18. 34. 102. 161. 189. 

 262. 308. 372. 393. 397. ; in vol. i., at pp. 100. 125. 

 151. 194. 214.; in vol. ii. at pp. 53. 157. 307. 313. 

 338. The same immortal quibbler is also very fond of 

 the word item, using it, as our cousins across the At- 

 lantic and we in Herefordshire do at the present day, 

 for " a hint." 



of a book is there called the farroll; what is the 

 derivation of this word ? J. M. B. 



Tunbridge Wells. 



THE POEMS OF ROWLEY. 



The tests propounded by Mr. Keightlex 

 (Vol. vii., p. 160.) with reference to the authen- 

 ticity of the poems of Rowley, namely the use of 

 " its," and the absence of the feminine rhyme in e» 

 furnish additional proof, if any were wanting, that 

 Chatterton was the author of those extraordinary 

 productions. Another test often insisted upon 

 is the occurrence, in those poems, of borrowed 

 thoughts — borrowed from poets of a date pos- 

 terior to that of their pretended origin. Of thia 

 there is one instance which seems to have escaped 

 the notice of Chatterton's numerous annotators.. 

 It occurs at the commencement of The Tourna- 

 ment, in the line, — 



" The worlde bie diffraunce ys ynn orderr founde." 



It will be seen that this line, a very remarkable 

 one, has been cleverly condensed from the follow- 

 ing passage in Pope's Windsor Forest : — 



" But as the world, harmoniously confused. 

 Where order in variety we see ; 

 And where, tho' all things differ, all agree." 



This sentiment has been repeated by other mo- 

 dern writers. Pope himself has it in the Essay on 

 Man, in this form, — 



" The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife 

 Gives all the strength and colour of our life." 



It occurs in one of Pascal's Pensees : 



" J'ecrirai ici mes pensees sans ordre, et non pa» 

 peut-etre dans une confusion sans dessein : Cest le 

 , veritable ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par 

 le desordre memc." 



Butler has it in the line, — 



" For discords make the sweetest airs." 



Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his Etudes de la: 

 Nature : 



" Cest des contraires que resulte I'harmonie du: 

 monde." 



And Burke, in nearly the same words, in his Ite- 

 flections on the French Revolution : 



" You had that action and counteraction, which, in 

 the natural and in the political world, from the reci- 

 procal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the 

 harmony of the universe." 



Nor does the sentiment belong exclusively to> 

 the moderns. I find it in Horace's twelfth Epis- 

 tle : 



" Nil parvum sapias, et adhuc sublimia cures. 



Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors.* 



