54 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 221. 



calling at Leith both ways for passengers. The 

 times of sailing will probably be announced to- 

 wards spring in the public prints. This oppor- 

 tunity of visiting that strange and remarkable 

 island in so advantageous a manner is worthy of 

 notice, as desirable modes of getting there very 

 rarely occur. 



The observing traveller, in addition to the 

 wonders of nature, should not fail to note there 

 the social and physical condition, and diseases of 

 the inhabitants. He will there find still lingering, 

 fostered by dirt, bad food, and a squalid way of 

 living, the true leprosy (in Icelandic, spetalshd) 

 which prevailed throughout Europe in the Middle 

 Ages; and which now survives only there, in Nor- 

 way, and in some secluded districts in central and 

 southern Europe. He will also note the remark- 

 able exemption of the Icelanders from pulmonary 

 consumption ; a fact which seems extraordinary, 

 considering the extreme dampness, inclemency, 

 and variability of the climate. But the con- 

 sumptive tendency is always found to cease north 

 of a certain parallel of latitude. 



Wm. E. C. Notjkse. 



8. Burwood Place, Hyde Park. 



Starvation, an Americanism. — Strange as it may 

 appear, it is nevertheless quite true that this 

 word, now unhappily so common on every tongue, 

 as representing the condition of so many of the 

 sons and daughters of the sister lands of Great 

 Britain and Ireland, is not to be found in our own 

 English dictionaries ; neither in Todd's Johnson, 

 published in 1826, nor in Richardson's, published 

 ten years later, nor in Smart's — Walker remo- 

 delled — published about the same time as Ri- 

 chardson's. It is Webster who has the credit of 

 importing it from his country into this ; and in a 

 supplement issued a few years ago, Mr. Smart 

 adopted it as " a trivial word, but in very common, 

 and at present good use." 



What a lesson might Mr. Trench read us, that 

 it should be so ! 



Our older poets, to the time of Dryden, used 

 the compound " hunger-starved." We now say, 

 starved with cold. Chaucer speaks of Christ as 

 " He that star/ for our redemption," of Creseide 

 "which well nigh star/ for feare ;" Spenser, of 

 arms " which doe men in bale to sterve." (See 

 Starve in Richardson.) In the Pardoneres Tale, 

 v. 12799: 



" Ye (yea), sterve he shall, and that in lesse while 

 Than thou wilt gon a pas not but a mile ; 

 This poison is so strong and violent." 



And again, v. 12822 : 



" It happed him 

 To take the botelle there the poison was, 

 And dronke ; and gave his felau drinke also, 

 For which anone they storven bothe two." 



Mr. Tyrwhit explains, " to die, to perish ; " and 

 the general meaning of the word was, " to die, or 

 cause to die, to perish, to destroy." Q. 



Strange Epitaphs. — The following combined 

 " bull " and epitaph may amuse your readers. I 

 copied it in April, 1850, whilst on an excursion 

 to explore the gigantic tumuli of New Grange, 

 Dowth, &c. 



Passing through the village of Monknewtown, 

 about four miles from Drogheda, I entered a 

 burial-ground surrounding the ivy-clad ruins of a 

 chapel. In the midst of a group of dozen or more 

 tombstones, some very old, all bearing the name 

 of " Kelly," was a modern upright slab, well 

 executed, inscribed, — 



" Erected by Patrick Kelly, 



Of the Town of Drogheda, Mariner, 



In Memory of his Posterity." 



" Also the above Patrick Kelly, 



Who departed this Life the 12th August, 1844, 



Aged 60 years. 



Requiescat in Pace." 



I gave a copy of this to a friend residing at 

 Llanbeblig, Carnarvonshire, who forwarded me the 

 annexed from a tombstone in the parish church- 

 yard there : 



" Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. 



Here lie the Remains of Thomas Chambers, 



Dancing Master ; 



Whose genteel address and assiduity 



in Teaching, 



Recommended him to all that had the 



Pleasure of his acquaintance. 



He died June 13, 1765, 



Aged 31." 



R. H.B. 



Bath. 



cauertoJ. 



BUONAPARTE S ABDICATION. 



A gentleman living in the neighbourhood of 

 London bought a table five or six years ago at 

 Wilkinson's, an old established upholsterer on 

 Ludgate Hill. 



In a concealed part of the leg of the table he 

 found a brass plate, on which was the following 

 inscription : 



" Le Cinq d'Avril, dix-huit cent quatorze, Napoleon 

 Buonaparte signa son abdication sur cette table dans 

 le cabinet de travail du Roi, le2me apres la chambre a 

 coucher, a Fontainebleau." 



The people at Wilkinson's could give no account 

 of the table : they said it had been a long time in 

 the shop ; they did not remember of whom it had 



