366 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 52. 



mean " the- 



that the expression together may 

 gathering," the company assembled. 



The autliorities 1 have useil are Forby's Voca- 

 hulary of East Avglia ; Moor, Svffnlk Words and 

 Phrases ; and Lemon, English Etymology ; in 

 which, if IcE^'us will refer, he will find the subject 

 more fully discussed. E. S. T. 



Conflagralion of the Earth (Vol. ii., p. 89.).— 

 The eventful period when this globe, or "the 

 fabric of the world,"* will be " wrap'd in flames" 

 and " in ruin hurl'd," is described in language, or 

 at least, in sense similar to the quotations of your 

 correspondent in p. 89., by the poets, philosophers, 

 fathers, and divines here referred to : — 



Lucan, lib. i. 70. et seqq. 75. : — 



" Omnia mistis Sidera sideiibus concuirent." 



Seneca ad Marciam, cap. nit. : — 



" Cum tempus advenerit, quo se mundus renovaturus 

 extinguat, viribus ista se suis cedent, et sideia sideribus 

 incurrent, et omni flagrante materia uno igne quicquid 

 nunc ex disposito lucet, ardebit." 



Quasi. Nat. iii. 27., which contains a commen- 

 tary on St. Peter's expression, " Like a thief in 

 the night :" — 



"Nihil, inquit, difficile est Naturae, ubi ad finem 

 sui propeiat. Ad originem rerum parce utitur viribus, 

 dispensatque se incrementis fallentibus ; subito ad rui- 

 nam et toto impetu venit . . . Blonicnto fit cinis, diu 

 silua." 



Compare Sir T Browne's Rel. Med. s. 45. 

 Seneca, Hercul. (Et. 1102. 

 Ovid. Metamorph. lib. i. s. viii. 

 Diphilus as quoted by Dr. H. More, Vision. 

 Apoc. vi. 9. 



Cicero, Acad. lib. ii. 37. " Sonni. Scipionis." 



de Nat. Deoinim. lib. ii. 46. 



Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 16. 



These are the opinions of writers before Christ ; 

 whether they were derived from Scripture, it is 

 not now my purpose to discuss. See also Lipsii 

 Physiologia. On the agreement of the systems of 

 the Stoics, of the Magi, and of the Edda, see Bishop 

 Percy's Notes to Mallet's Northern Antiquities, 

 vol. ii. 



The general conflagration and purgatorial fire 

 were among the tenets of the Sibylline books, and 

 maintained by many Fathers of the Greek and 

 Latin churches down to the sixth century. See 

 Blondel on the Sibyls, and Arkudius adve7-sus Bar- 

 laam. Among modern writers on this subject, it 



* Magius, " that prodigy of learning en pure perte " 

 (Villebrune), concludes from the words of the text 

 " the /icnveiis shall pass away," that the universe will be 

 dissolved ; but that it will undergo mutation only, not 

 annihilation. — Cf. Steuchiis de Perenni Philosuphiu, 

 lib. X. 



will be sufficient to name Magius de 2Iundi Exus- 

 tione. Dr. II. More, and Dr. T. Burnet. Ray, in the 

 third of his Physico- Theological Discourses, dis- 

 cusses all the questions connected with the dis- 

 solution of the World. T. J. 



Wraxen (Vol. ii., p. 267.).^G. W. Sktring will 

 find the following explanation in Ilalliwell's Dic- 

 tionary of Provincial and Archaic Words, " to grow 

 out of bounds, spoken of weeds," c. Kent. Cer- 

 tainly an expressive term as used by the Kentish 

 women. J.D.A. 



Wraxen. — Probably analogous to the Nor- 

 thumbrian '■'■icrax, wraxing, wraxed," signifying 

 to stretch or (sometimes) to sprain. 



A peasant having overworked himself, would 

 say he had wraxed himself; after sitting, would 

 walk to wrax his legs. Falling on the ice would 

 have icruxed his arm ; and of a rope that has 

 stretched considerably, he would say it had wrojced 

 a gay feck. 



It may possibly have come, as a corruption, from 

 the verb icax, to grow. It is a useful and very 

 expi-essive word, although not recognised in polite 

 lanjuaiie. S. T. R. 



Wraxen. — Rax or Wrax is a very common word 

 in the north of England, meaning to stretch, so 

 that when the old Kentish woman told Mr. Skt- 

 bing's friend her children were wraxen, she meant 

 their minds were so overstretched during the week, 

 that they required rest on Sunday. AV. 



iHi^rcIIaufnuS. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC. 



Of the various changes which have been made of 

 late years in public education, there is not one so 

 generally admitted to be an improvement as that which 

 has made the study of 



" The tongue 

 Which Shakspeare spake," 



an essential part of the system ; and probably no indi- 

 vidual has so eflfectu:dly contributed towards this im- 

 portant end as Dr. Latham, the third edition of whose 

 masterly and philosopliiral volume, entitled The English 

 Langiinye, is now before us. Ur. I-atham has ever 

 earnestly and successfully insisted on the disciplinal 

 character of grammatical studies in general, combined 

 with the fact, tliat the grammatical study of one's own 

 language is CNcKisively so; and having established this 

 theory, he has, by the production of various elementary 

 works, exhibiting a happy combination of great philo- 

 logical acquirements with the ability to apply them in 

 a logical and systematic manner, enabled those who 

 shared his views to put that theory into practice. 

 Hence tlie change in onr educational system to which 

 we have alluded. His volume entitled The English 

 Language is, however, addressed to a higher class of 



