NOTES AND QUERIES: 



A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION 



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LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. 



** ^XTben found, make a note of." — Captain CurrtK. 



No. 193.] 



Saturday, July 9. 1853. 



{Price Fourpence. 

 Stamped Edition, 5rf. 



CONTENTS. 



Notes : — . Page 



Tlie Eye : its primary Idea - - - - 25 



Gossiping History — De Quincey's Account of Hatfield 26 

 Notes upon tiie Names of some of the Early Inhabitants 



of Hfllas 27 



Shalcspeare Readings, No. IX. - - - - 28 



Gothe's Author-Remuneration - - - - 29 



Minor Notes : — Parallel Passages — Unpublished 

 Epitaphs —The Colour of Ink in Writings —Literary 

 Parallels — Latin Verses prefixed to Parish Registers 

 — Napoleon's Bees - - - - - 30 



QuEniES : — • 



Was Thomas Lord Lvttelton the Author of Junius's 

 Letters ? by Sir F. Jladden - - - - 31 



Minor Queries: — Lord Chatham — Slow-worm Super- 

 stition — Tangiers — Snail Gardens — Naples and the 

 Ciimpagna Felice — " The Land of Green Ginger " — 

 Mugger — Snail-eating — Mysterious Personage — 

 George Wood of Chester — A Scale of Vowel Sounds 

 — Seven Oaks and Nine Elms — Murder of Monal- 

 deschi — Governor Dameram — Ancient Arms of the 

 See of York — Hupfeld — Inscription on a Tomb in 

 Finland — Sir Isaac Newton and Voltaire on Railway 

 Travelling — Tom Thumb's House at Gonerby, Lin- 

 colnshire — Mr. Payne Collier's Monovolume Shak. 

 speare .......33 



Replies: — 



Wild Plants and their Names ' - - - - 35 



Jacob Bobart, by H. T. Bobart - - . - 37 



Heraldic Queries ...... 37 



Door-head Inscriptions - - - - - 38 



Consecrated Roses - - . - . - 38 



Notes on Serpents - - - . • - 39 



Photographic Corresfondencb :— Early Notice of the 

 Camera Obscura — Queries on Dr. Diamond's Collo- 

 dijon Process — Baths for the Collodion Process - 41 



Replies to Minor Queries : — Mitigation of Capital 

 Punishment to a Forger — Chronograms and Ana- 

 grams — Abigail — Burial in unconsecrated Ground — 

 "Cob" and "Connors"' — Coleridge's Unpublished 

 MSS._ Selling a Wife — Life — Passage of Thucy- 

 dides on the Greek Factions — Archbishop King — 

 Devonianisms — Perseverant, Perseverance — " The 

 Good Old Cause " — Saying of Pascal — Paint taken 

 offof old Oak — Passage in the " Tempest" . - 42 



MiscEiiANEOUS : — ; 



Notes on Books, &c. - - - - - 45 



Books and Odd Volumes wanted - - • - 45 



Notices to Correspondents . • - - 46 



Advertisemeuts > .... .46 



V0L.VIII. — No. 193. 



THE EYE : ITS PRIMARY IDEA. 



I do not remember to have remarked that any 

 writer notices how uniformly, in ahnost all lan- 

 guages, the same primary idea has been attached 

 to the eye. This universal consent is the more 

 remarkable, inasmuch as the connexion in ques- 

 tion, though of course most appropriate and sig- 

 nificant in itself, hardly seems to indicate the most 

 prominent characteristic, or what we shouM deem 

 to be par excellence the obvious qualities of the 

 eye ; in a word, we should scarcely expect a term 

 derived from a physical attribute or property. 



The eye is suggestive of life, of divinity, of in- 

 tellect, piercing acuteness (acies) ; and again, of 

 truth, of joy, of love: but these seem to have been 

 disregarded, as being mere indistinctive accidents^ 

 and the primary idea which, by the common con- 

 sent of almost all nations, has been thought most 

 properly to symbolise this organ is a spring — fonsy 



Thus, from T^V, manare, scatere, a word not in 

 use, according to Fuerst, we have the Hebrew VV^ 

 fons aquarum et lacrimarum, h. e. oculits. This 

 word however, in its simple form, seems to have 

 almost lost its primary signification, being used 

 most generally in its secondary — oculus. (Old 

 Testament Hebrew version, passim.') In the sense 

 of fons, its derivative VV^ is usually substituted. 



Precisely the same connexion of ideas is to be 

 found in the Syriac, the Ethiopic, and the Arabic. 



Again, in the Greek we find the rarely-used 

 word ottt;, a fountain, or more properly the eye, 

 whence it wells out, — the same form as oir^, oculus ,-: 

 ii\(/, v^ts, oTTTOfiai. Thus, in St. James his Epistle,, 

 cap. iii. 11. : /jlt^ti fi -nriyi] tK Trjs avr^s ottJjs Ppvei rb 

 y\vKv Kal rh iriKpSy. 



In the Welsh, likewise, a parallel case occurs : 

 Llygad, an eye, signifies also the spring from 

 which water flows, as in the same passage of St. 

 James : a ydyiv ffynnon or un llygad (from one 

 spring or eye) yn rhoi dwfr melus a chiverw ? 



On arriving at the Teutonic or old German 

 tongue, we find the same connexion still existing : 

 Avg, auga, — octdus ; whence ougen ostendere — 

 Gothis augo ; and awe, auge, ave, campres ad am- 



