350 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 79. 



your correspondents offer aay confirmation of 

 tliis ? B. J. 



Liverpool, March 31. 185L 



Defoe's Project for purfijing the English Lan- 

 guage. — Among the many schemes propounded by 

 De Foe, in his Essay upon Projects, published in 

 1696, there is one which still remains a theory, 

 although eminently practicable, and well worthy of 

 consideration. 



He conceived that there might be an academy 

 or society formed for the pin-pose of correcting, 

 purifying, and establisliing the English language, 

 such as had been founded in France under Cardinal 

 Richelieu. 



" The work of this society," says Defoe, " should 

 be to encourage polite learning, to polish and refine 

 the English tongue, and advance the so much neglected 

 faculty of correct hinguage ; also, to establish purity 

 and propriety of style, and to purge it from all the 

 irregular additions that Ignorance and affectation have 

 introduced ; and all these Innovations of speech, if I 

 may call them such, which some dogmatic writers have 

 the confidence to foster upon their native language, as 

 if their authority were sufKcient to make their own 

 fancy legitimate." 



Never was such a society more needed than in 

 the present day, when you can scarcely take up a 

 newspaper, or a periocHcal, a new poem, or any 

 modern literary production, without finding some 

 new-eoined word, perplexing to the present 

 reader, and a perfect stumbling-block in tjie way 

 of any future editor. 



Some of these words are, I admit, a welcome 

 addition to our common stock, but the greater 

 part of them are mere abortions, having no analogy 

 to any given root. 



A society simibr to the one proposed by Defoe 

 might soon be established in this country, if a few 

 sticli efficient autliorities as Dr. Kennedy would 

 take the initiative in the jnovenient. 



He who should first establish such;a society, and 

 bring it to a practicable bearing, would be con- 

 ferring an inestimable boon on society. 



I trust that these hints may serve to arouse 

 the attention of some of the many talented contri- 

 butors to tlie " Notes and Queries," and in due 

 season bring forth fruit. Davjd Stevens. 



Godalming. April 19. 1851. 



Great Fire of London. — Our popular histories 

 of England, generally, contain very indefin'te 

 statements respecting the extent of destruction 

 wrought upon the city of London 'by the Great 

 Fire. I have therefore thought it may be inte- 

 resting to others, as it has been to myself, to peruse 

 the following, whicb purports to be " extracted 

 from the Certificates of the Surveyors soon after 

 appointed to survey the Ruins." 



" That the fire that began in London upon the 

 second of September, 1C66, atone Mi\ Farryner's house, 



a baker in Pudding Lane, between tlie hours of one 

 and two in the morning, and continued burning until 

 the sixth of that month, did overrun the space of three 

 hundred and seventy-three acres within the walls of 

 tlie city of London, and sixty-three acres three roods 

 without the walls. Tliere reaEaLaed «eventy-iive acres 

 three roods standing within the walls unlxurnt. Eighty- 

 nine parish churches, besides chappels burnt. Eleven 

 parishes within tlie walls standing. Houses burnt, 

 Thirteen thousand two liundred. 



" Jonas Moore, ) „ ., 



,, i> o t iSurvevors. 



" ItALPH Gatrix, 3 



I copy this from a volume of tracts, printed 

 1679 to 1681'; chiefly " Narratives " of judicial and 

 other proceedings relating to the (so called) 

 "Popish Plots" in the reign of Charles II. 



Wm. Franks JMathews. 



Noble or Workhouse Names — 



" The only three noble names in the county were to 

 be found in the great house [workhouse]; mine [Berners] 

 was one, the other two were Devereux and Bohun." — 

 Lavengro, iii. 232. 



The above extract reminds me ofa list of names of 

 the poor about St. Albarfs, which I forwarded some 

 months since, viz. Brax, Brandon, De Anier, De 

 Ayton, Fitzgerald, Fitz Jolni, Gascoigne, Har- 

 court, Howard, Lacey, Stanley, Ratciifle. A. C. 



PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT ILLUSTRATED 

 JTBOM DEMOSTHENES. 



Acts xvii. 21.: 



" For all die Athenians and strangers which were 

 there spent their time in notlning else, but cither to tell, 

 or to hear «ome new thing." 



Can any of your .biblical correspondents inform 

 me in what commentary irpcai the New Testament 

 the coincidence with the following passages in 

 Demosthenes is noticed, or whether any other 

 source of the historical fact has been recorded ? 

 In the translation of Petrus Lagnerius, Franc. 

 1610 (T have not at hand the entire works), we 

 find these words : 



" Nihil est omnium, Atihenlenses, in prajscntia no- 

 centius, quam quod vos alienati estis a rebus, et tan- 

 tisper operam datls, diun audientes sedetis, si quid 

 Novi nuntiatum fuerit" (4. contr. F/iil.). 



Again : 



" Nos vero, dicetur verum, nlliil facientes, hie per- 

 petuo sedcmus cunctahundi, tum decernentes, turn in- 

 terrogantes, si quid Novi in foro dicatur." — 4 Orat. ad 

 P/iilipp. Episf. 



rrica3us, in his very learned and valuable Com- 

 7nentarii in v.arios N. T. TJhros, Lond. 1660, fol., 

 at p. 628., in v. 21., says only — 



" Videantur qua^ ex Demosthene, Plutarcho, alii.s, 

 Erudili .annotarunt. " 



