30 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 63. 



certainly appears to be the " iter processionaie " 

 referred to in the will of Williiuu llyder. Any 

 iiifornKitioa as to the subject of the good woman's 

 tradition would be very acceptable. Perhaps 

 S. S. S. \Yill allow me, in return for liis satisfactory 

 explanation of the " dark passage " in question, to 

 ofler a very luminous passage in confirmation of 

 his view of Goldsmith's. H. G. T. 



Lights on the Altar (Vol. ii., p. 495.). — In the 

 42nd canon of those enacted under King Edgar 

 (Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Listituies of England, 

 vol. ii. pp. 252-3.) we find : — 



" Let there be always burning lij^lits in flie church 

 wliun mass is singing." 



And in the 14th of the canons of iElfric 

 (pp. 348-9. of the same volume) : — 



" Acoluthus he is called, who bears the candle or 

 taper in God's ministries when the Gospel is read, or 

 when the housel is hallowed at the>a!tar ; not to dispel, 

 as it were, the dim darkness, but, with that light, to 

 announce bliss, in honour of Christ who is our light." 



C. W. G. 



Time u-Jien Herodotus u-rote (Vol.ii., p. 405.). — • 

 The passage quoted by your correspondent 

 A. W. H. affords, I think, a reasonable argument 

 to prove that Herodotus did not commence his 

 work until an advanced age ; most probably between 

 the ages of seventy and seventy- seven years. 

 INIoreover, there are various other reasons to jus- 

 tify the same conclusion ; all which A. AV. H. will 

 find stated in Dr. Smith's Dictionart/ of Greek and 

 Roman Biagvaphy and Mijthologij, vol. ii. I be- 

 lieve A. W. II. is correct in his supposition that 

 the passage has not been noticed before. 



T. II. KEKSLEr, A.B. 



Ts-'xi:.^ William's College. 



Adur (Vol. ii., p. 108.). — The connexion of the 

 Welsh ydwr with the Greek wap is remarkable. 

 Can any of your readers tell me whether there be 

 not an older Welsh word for water ? There are, 

 I know, two sets of Welsh numerals, of which the 

 later contains many Greek words, but the older 

 are entirely different. Is not cader akin to KaQeZoa, 



and glas to •)A.aui.-o'c? 



J. W. H. 



The Word ''Alarm" (Vol. ii., pp. 151. 183.).— 

 I send you an instance of the accurate use of the 

 word " alarm" which may be interesting. In an 

 account of the attempt made on the 29th of Oct. 

 1795, to assassinate Geo. III., the Earl of Onslow 

 (as cited in Slaunder's Universal JBiog, p. 321.) 

 uses the following expression : — • 



" His Majesty showed, and, I am persuaded, felt, on 

 alarm; much less did he fear." 



Is not this a good instance of the true difference 

 of meaning in these two words, which are now 

 loosely used as if strictly synonymous ? II. G. T. 



The Conquest (Vo]. ii., p. 440.). — W. L. is in- 



formed that I have before me several old parch- 

 ment documents or title-deeds, in which the words 

 " post conquestum " are used itierely to express 

 (as part of their dates) the year after the accession 

 of those kings respectively in whose reigns those 

 documents were made. P. H, F. 



Land Holland (Vol. ii., p. 267. 345.). — J. B. C. 



does not say in what part of England he finds this 

 term used. Holland, in Lincolnshire, is b}' Ingnlph 

 called Holland, a name which has been thouglit to 

 mean hedgeland, in allusion to the sea-walls or 

 hedges by which it was preserved from inundation. 

 Other etymologies have also been proposed. (See 

 Gough's Camden, " Lincolnshire.") In Norfolk, 

 ho\vever, tlie term olland is used, Forby tells us, 

 for " arable land which has been laid down in 

 grass more than two years, q. d. old-land." In a 

 Norfolk paper of a few months since, in an adver» 

 tiseinent of a ploughing match, I observe a prize 

 is offered " To the ploughman, with good charac- 

 ter, who shall plough a certain cpiantity of olland 

 within the least time, in the best manner." C.W.G. 



iHt£iteIIaitc0U)?. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATAEOGUES, ETC. 



The Camden Society have just issued to the members 

 a highly important volume, Walter Mapes De Nugis 

 Curialium. The best idea of the interesting character 

 of this work may be formed from the manner in which 

 it is described by its editor, Mr. Thomas Wright, who 

 speaks of it as " the book in which this remarkable 

 man seems to have amused himself with putting down 

 his own sentiments on the passing events of the day, 

 along with the popular gossip of the courtiers with whom 

 he mixed ; " and as being " one mass of contemporary 

 anecdote, romance, and popular legend, interesting 

 equally by its curiosity and by its novelty." Tliere 

 can be little doubt that the work will be welcomed, not 

 only by the members of the Camden Society, but by 

 all students of our early history and all lovers of our 

 Folk Lore. 



Though we do not generally notice the publication 

 of works of fiction, the liandsome manner in which, in 

 the third volume of his Sertha, a Jiomance of the Dark 

 Apes, Mr. IVIacCabe has thought right to speak of the 

 information which he obtained, during the progress of 

 his work, through the medium of Notes anu Quekifs, 

 induces us to make an exception in favour of his 

 highly interesting story. At the same time, that very 

 acknowledgment almost forbids our speaking in such 

 high terms as we otherwise should of the power with 

 which IMr. MacCabe has worked up this striking nar- 

 rative, which takes its name from Bertha, the wife of 

 the profligate Henry IV. of Germany ; and of which the 

 main incidents turn on Henry's deposition of the Pope, 

 and his consequent excommunication by the inflexible 

 Gregory the Seventh. But we the less regret this 

 necessity of speaking thus moderately, since it must 

 be obvious that when an accomplished scholar like the 



