440 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 293. 



" ENGLISH, PAST AND PRESENT." 



In reading Mr. Trench's interesting book, 

 English, Past and Present, some remarks and illus- 

 trations have occurred to me which perhaps may 

 be worth insertion in "N. & Q." 



Page 8. Punctilio.'] Bacon uses punto {Advance- 

 ment of Learning, ii. 23. 2., Parker's edition). 



Page 41, Arride.'] Used by Charles Lamb, but 

 with some affectation of eccentricity : 



" Above all thy rarities, Old Oxenford, what do most 

 arride and solace me are thy repositories of mouldering 

 learning, thy shelves." — Oxford in the Long Vacation. 



Page 41. Statua.'] Collier (on Rich. III. 3. 7.) 

 says that the old folios and quartos give no coun- 

 tenance to the reading statua. He prints statue 

 there and elsewhere, saying that it was pro- 

 nounced as a trisyllable. Bacon has statua ; at 

 least the word is so printed in the old editions of 

 the Advancement of Learning. 



Page 51. Siloicultrix.] Better sylv-, as siren 

 than syren (vide p. 191.). 



Page 53. Starvation."] It is remarked in the pas- 

 sage alluded to in " N. & Q.," that the word starve 

 is mostly used in old English of cold; and that 

 " starved with cold " is still a common expression 

 in Cumberland. Clem is the word used for starve, 

 as applied to hunger in the Midland and Northern 

 Counties. I have heard a lady (Staffordshire- 

 born) tell a story of an old woman who lived at a 

 distance from her usual place of worship, and 

 being kept at home by a fall of snow for some 

 time, complained that " her soul had been clemmed 

 these three weeks." 



Page 56. Perhaps Sir Walter Scott has done as 

 much as any writer of modern times to make 

 Chaucer intelligible to ordinary readers. A great 

 number of Saxon (and French, as flesher, douce, 

 gigot, bonnalhj, gardyloo, jeisticor, tron,) words 

 are preserved in the Lowlands of Scotland. A 

 sojourn of a few weeks there, in two or three 

 summer tours, and familiarity with Sir Walter's 

 works, made many expressions in Chaucer's writ- 

 ings seem like old friends to me, which I think I 

 should otherwise have found it hard to understand. 



Page 58. As Mr. Trench notices a word current 

 among miners, perhaps it may not be amiss to 

 note a few from the railway vocabulary. The 

 navvies (navigators) call the materials of their 

 iron way, plates or rails; the blocks on which 

 they rest, chairs; the timbers laid across for their 

 support, sleepers ; the machine used for driving 

 piles, a monkey. Not that these words are new, 

 or changed in form, but they are well chosen, and 

 do credit to their Saxon users. The last must be 

 excepted ; at least I have no right to say it is well 

 chosen, since I cannot understand it. There is, I 

 believe, an instrument used on board ship for a 

 somewhat similar purpose, called " a monkey's 

 taU." 



Page 80. Schimmer.] In Kenilworth, in the de- 

 scription of the bedchamber at Cumnor Hall, we 

 find the expression " trembling and twilight 

 seeming shimmer." 



Page 80. Heft.] Is not this the same word as 

 haft, the weight by which the blade of the knife 

 or axe is heaved ? 



Page 84. Mixen.] Midden or mixen is still heard 

 in Worcestershire, and maybe in the neighbouring 

 counties. Nor is the word used only by labourers. 

 I heard it at Cambridge from the lips of a Wor- 

 cestershire man of good birth and connexions, 

 and he was surprised that I did not understand 

 him. 



Page 92. Nuncheon.] Compare nuncle for uncle, 

 which occurs fourteen times in King Lear, though 

 Shakspeare has used it nowhere else. There is a 

 common saying, " Nunky pays for all." I have 

 met with the word naunt, but I cannot remember 

 where. In Old Poz, Miss Edgeworth makes Mrs. 

 Bustle complain that her servants talk of their 

 sandwich instead of their luncheon. With respect 

 to the derivation of the word from the hour at 

 which the meal was taken, compare the Cambridge- 

 shire words levens 2Ln^ fours, used by labourers for 

 the refreshment they take (when they can get it) 

 at eleven and four. 



Page 93. Sad.] Bacon uses this word in its 

 original sense of unmoved, grave {Adv. of L., ii. 

 23, 4.). It occurs oftenest in old English writers, 

 as applied to clothes of a grave colour. 



Page 94. {Note.) Is not the -word fall, for autumn, 

 still in common use in America ? It remains in 

 England only in the phrase '■'■spring SLudfall." 



The word fen, mentioned by an American cor- 

 respondent of " N. & Q ," I perfectly remember 

 from my schoolboy days ; used, too, exactly in the 

 sense he gives, " je defends." Perhaps he recol- 

 lects the word jaw for good advice, and crack-jaw 

 as an epithet for a hard word. 



Page 97. Hearten.] Is this quite gone ? I have 

 certainly heard it used, particularly of heartening, 

 refreshing food ; and I think met with it in En- 

 glish books of our own day. 



Page 98. Twybill (as it is commonly spelt) sur- 

 vives in many parts*of England as a surname. 



Page 100. Lightsome.] Burns has "Wi' light- 

 some heart I pu'd a rose;" and Dryden speaks of 

 " the lightsome realms of love," adopting the word 

 probably from Chaucer. In Northumberland a 

 skittish horse is called boglesome, from bogle ; the 

 notion being that he shies at bogles, or spirits, 

 unseen by his rider. 



Toothsome occurs in the Ingoldsby Legends. 

 Mettlesome is still in common use. \ 



Page 102. Pinchpenny.] Compare lichpenny 

 (Scott) ; splitplum, a word I never saw in print, 

 but remember applied to a schoolmaster's wife who 

 was overthrifty. 



Page 121. Creep, crope,] Does this form ex- 



