522 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 87. 



mosaic pavement. Andrea Tafi, towards the close 

 of the thirteenth century, is said to have revived 

 this art in Italy, having learned it from a Greek 

 named Apollouius, who worlsed at the church of 

 St. Mark at Venice, and to have been the founder 

 of the modern mosaic. 



Now for the dei-ivation. The Lithostrata, or 

 tesselated pavements of the Romans, being worked 

 in a regular and mechanical manner, were called 

 opus viusivum, opera qua ad anmssim facta sunt. 

 Hence the Italian musaico, from whence is derived 

 our appellation of mosaic; but, like most of our 

 mts, through the channel of the French mosaiqiw. 

 (Vide Pilisci Lexicon, ii. 242. ; Roscoe's Life of 

 Lorenzo de Medici ; Winkelman ; Pumpeiana, by 

 Gell ; Smith's GreJi and Bo?min Antiq. ; Beck- 

 man's Inventions; and Recherches sur la Peinture 

 en Mosa'ique chez les Anciens, &c., annexed to his 

 Description dun Pave en Mosa'ique, &c. : Paris, 

 1^2.) Geeonimo. 



Prenzie (Vol. iii., p. 401.) — Several words have 

 been suggested to take the place of the unintel- 

 ligible '■'■prenzie'' in Measure for Measure; but 

 none of them appear to me to satisfy all the four 

 conditions justly required by Leoes. 



I would suggest phrensied or pJirenzied, a word 

 extremely like prenzie both in sound and appear- 

 ance, and of the proper metre, thus perfectly 

 satisfying two of the conditions. 



With respect to the propriety of using this 

 word in the two instances where prenzie occurs, 

 Claudio, in the first place, when informed by his 

 sister of the villainy of Angelo, may well exclaim 

 in astonishment — 



" The phrenzied Angelo?" 

 i.e. "What, is he mad?" or, with a note of admi- 

 ration, " Why, Angelo must be mad ! " Then, I 

 think, naturally follows Isabella's reply : — 



" O 'tis the cunning livery of Hell, 

 The damiied'st body to invest and cover 

 In phrenzied guards !" 

 that is, in the disguise or under the cloak of mad- 

 ness. 



Johnson defines Frenzy to be 



" Madness ; distraction of mind ; alienation of un- 

 derstanding ; any violent passion approaching to 

 madness." 



and surely Angelo's violent passion for Isabella, 

 and his determination to gratify it at all risks, may 

 properly be said to appi-oach to madness. 



W. G. M. 



There is a Scotch word so nearly resembling 

 this, and at the same time so exactly answering to 

 the sense which the passage in Measure for Mea- 

 sure requires, that it may be worth while calling 

 the attention of the Shakspearian commentators 



to it. In Allan Cunningham's Glossary to Burns, 

 I find Primsie, which he defines to mean demure, 

 precise. An old Scotch proverb is quoted, in 

 which the word is used : 



" A primsie damsel makes a laldlae dame." 



The terra is evidently connected with, or formed 

 from, the English prim, which has the same sense. 

 It seems this was formerly sometimes written p7-in. 

 Halliwell cites from Fletcher's poems the lines — 



" He looks as gaunt and prin, as he that spent- 

 A tedious twelve years in an eager Lent." 

 Now if from priyn be formed the secondary ad- 

 jective primsie, so from prin we get prinsie or 

 prinzie. But without resorting to the supposition 

 of the existence of this latter word, it is evident 

 that in primzie, which does or did exist, we have 

 a word answering all the conditions laid down by 

 Leges for determining the true I'eading, more 

 nearly than any other that has been suggested. 



Cebes. 



[Dr. Jamleson, in his Scottish Dictionary, defines 

 Primsie, demure, precise, S. from E. prim. 

 "Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt 

 Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie." 



Burns, iii. 129.] 



Lady Flora Hastings' Bequest (Vol. iii., p. 443.). 

 — Were the beautiful lines entitled " Lady Flora's 

 Bequest " in reality written by that lamented 

 lady ? They are not to be found in the volume of 

 her Poems published after her death by her sister, 

 the ISlarchioness of Bute; and they did appear in 

 The Christian Lady's Magazine for September, 

 1839, with the signature of Miss M. A. S. Barber 

 appended to them. 



In the preceding Number of the same ma- 

 gazine there is a very touching account of Lady 

 Flora, from the pen of its talented editress, who 

 mentions the fact of Lady Flora having with her 

 dying hand " delivered to her fond brother a little 

 Bible, the gift of her mother, requesting him to 

 restore it to that beloved parent with the as- 

 surance that from the age of seven ye.ars, when 

 she received it from her, it had been her best 

 treasure; and, she added, her sole support under 

 all her recent afflictions." 



If your correspondent Erza has never seen 

 that obituary notice (Seeleys, publishers) I think 

 she will be glad to meet with it. L. H. K. 



Arches of Pelaga (Vol. iii., p. 478.) — This term 

 is in common use among sailors, meaning the Me- 

 diterranean Archipelago, and they may very often 

 be heard saying — •" When I was up the Arches." 



E. N. W. 

 I South wark, June 16. 1851. 



Engraved Warming-pans (Vol. iii., pp. 84. 115.). 

 — I beg to add to the lists of H. G. T., and E. B. 

 Price. 



Some years ago I purchased one in Bradford, 



