420 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 56. 



speare's age the subject of their study may better spare 

 a better author than Samuel Rowlands." 



The opinions of botli these wi-iters are entitled 

 to some respect, but they certainly looked upon 

 two very different sides of the question. Gil- 

 christ's conjecture that he was an ecclesiastic is 

 quite untenable, and I am fully inclined to agree 

 with Sir M^alter Scott, that Kovvlands' company 

 was not of the most select order, and that he must 

 often have frequented those " haunts of dissipa- 

 tion " whicli he so well describes in those works 

 which are the known production of liis muse. 



Edward F. Rimbault. 



" APRICOT," " PEACH," AND " NECTARINE," 

 ETYMOLOGY OF. 



There is something curious in the etymology of 

 the words " apricot," " peach," and " nectarine," 

 and in their equivalents in several languages, which 

 may amuse your readers. 



The apricot is an Armenian or Persian fruit, 

 and was known to the Romans later than the 

 peach. It is spoken of by Pliny and by Martial. 



Plin. N. H., lib. xv. c. 12. : 



" Post auturanum maturescunt Persica, aestate pra- 

 cocia, intra xxx annos reperta." 



Martial, lib. xiii. Epig. 46. : 



" Vilia maternis fueramus prcecnqua ramis, 

 Nunc in adaptivis Persica cara surous." 



Its only name was given from its ripening earlier 

 than the peach. 



The words used in Galen for the same fruit 

 (evidently Grsecised Latin), are irpoKiKKia and 

 7rp6K(iKfcia. Elsewhere he says of this fruit, tuuttjs 

 iK\fAe7(pdai, rh Tra^aihv ofoixa. Dioscorides, with a 

 nearer approach to the Latin, calls apricots irpoi- 



K6Kia. 



From prcBCox, though not immediately, apricot 

 seems to be derived. 



Johnson, unable to account for the initial a, 

 derives it from apriciis. The American lexico- 

 grapher Webster gives, strangely enough, albas 

 coccus as its derivation. 



The progress of the word from west to east, and 

 then from east to south-west, and from thence 

 northwards, and its various changes in that pro- 

 gress, are rather strange. 



One would have supposed that the Arabs, living 

 near the region of which the fruit was a native, 

 might have either had a name of their own for it, 

 or at least have borrowed one from Armenia. 

 But they apparently adopted a slight variation of 

 the Latin, tS irakathu ovofx-a, as Galen says, e|€\e'- 



The Arabs called it v.j j or, with the article, 



Tiie Spaniards must have had the fruit in Mar- 

 tial's time, but they do not take the name imme- 

 diately from the Latin, but through the Arabic, 

 and call it albaricoque. The Italians, again, copy 

 the Spanish, not the Latin, and call it alhicocco. 

 The French, from them, have ahricot. The English, 

 though they take their word from the French, at 

 first called it abricock, then apricock (restoring 

 the p), and lastly, with the French termination, 

 ap)-icot. 



From malum persicum was derived the German 

 Pfirsiche, and PJirsche, whence come the French 

 peche, and our peach. But in this instance also, 



the Spaniards follow the Arabic ,llj j, or, with 



the article ^ll_i -.1', in their word alherchigo. 



The Arabic seems to be derived from the Latin, 

 and the Persians, though the fruit was their own, 

 give it the same name. 



Johnson says that nectarine is French, but gives 

 no authority. It certainly is unknown to the 

 French, who call the fruit either peche lisse, or 

 hrugnon. The Germans also call it glatte PJirsche. 



Can any of your readers inform me what is the 

 Armenian word for apricot., and whether there is 

 any reason to believe that the Arabic words for 

 apricot and peach, are of Armenian and Per- 

 sian origin ? If it is so, the resemblance of the 

 one to prcBCOX, and of the other to persicum, will 

 be a curious coincidence, but hardly more curious 

 than the resemblance of iraa-xa with ■ttoo-xoi which 

 led some of the earlier fathers, who were not He- 

 braists, to derive iracrxa from 7racrxa>. E. C. H, 



iHtnnr llatrS. 



Chaucer's Monument. — It may interest those of 

 your readers who are busying themselves in the 

 praiseworthy endeavour to procure the means of 

 repairing Chaucer's Monument ; especially Mr. 

 Payne Collier, who has furnished, in the November 

 Number of the Gentleinaiis Magazine (p. 486.), so 

 curious an allusion from Warner's Albion's Eng- 

 land, to 



" venerable Chaucer, lost 



Had not kind Brigham reared him cost," 



to know that there is evidence in Smith's Life of 

 Nullekens, vol. i. p. 79., that remains of the painted 

 figure of Chaucer were to be seen in Nolleken's 

 times. Smith reports a conversation between the 

 artist and Catlin, so many years the principal 

 verger of the abbey, in which Catlin inquires, 



" Did you ever notice the remaining colours of the 

 curious little figure which was painted on the tomb of 

 Chaucer?" 



M. N. S. 

 [We have heard one of the lay vicars of Westmin- 



