214 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 99. 



Mr. Bannel's Query. The propriety of the 

 English practice, in this res])ect, may be doubted. 

 Nervous is eorrectly equivalent to Lat. nercostis ; 

 Fr. nerveux, strong, vigorous. In the sense of 

 ne7-vous weaknesn, or, perhaps more correctly, n^r- 

 vhie iveakness, the word should probably be nervi.sk, 

 analogous to qualmish, squeamish, aguish, feverish, 

 &c. In Scotland, thougli the English may regard 

 it as a vulgarism, I have heard the word used in 

 this form. F. S. Q. 



Coleridge's Essays on Beauty (Vol. iv., jj. 175.). 

 — I have copies of the Essays referred to. They 

 were republished about 18-36 in Eraser's Literary 

 Chronicle. Mortimer Collins. 



Guernsey. 



''Nao " or " Naiv," a Ship (Vol. iv., p. 28.). — I 

 have already answered Gomer upon the imaginary 

 word now, a ship: I beg now to remark on i\lii. 

 Eenton's nav. \( nav was a ship at all, I am at a 

 loss to know why it should be " a much older term." 

 Itwould probably be subsequent to tiie introduction 

 of the Latin noun, which it docks of its final is. 

 The word or name is quoted from a Triad, the 

 ninety-seventh of tliat series which contains the 

 mention of Llewelyn ap Griflith, the lust prince of 

 Wales; and what makes it "one of the oldest" 

 Tuinds, I have no idea. Nor <io I know what 

 ascertains the date of any of them ; or removes 

 the date of the composition of any one of them 

 beyond the middle ages. 



But Nevydd is no very uncommon proper name 

 of men and women, derived from nev, heaven ; 

 and nav neivion is simply "lord ofI()r<ls." It forms 

 the plural like mab, meibion, and march, meirchion. 

 ]\lr. Walters gives nav under no word but lord. 

 David ap Gwelyn either mentions the navigation 

 of the lords, the Trojan chieftains, to Britain ; or 

 else that of Nevydd Nav Neivion, cutting short 

 his title. But the former is the plain sense of the 

 thing. If Mr. Fjjntgn will only turn to Owen's 

 Dictionary (from which uuw, a ship, is very pro- 

 perly excluded) he will there find the quotation 

 from Gwalchmai; in which the three Persons of 

 the Trinity are styled the Undonion Neivion, "har 



_" _. i T 1," T.T :i 



monizMig or consentaneous Lords." He 

 scarcely make bold to turn them into ships. 



will 



A.N. 



Unde derivutur Sto'uhevge (Vol. iv., p. 57.). — 

 Your correspondent P. P. proposes to interpret 

 this word, horse-stones, from hengst, the Saxon 

 for a horse ; and to understand thereby lar(,e 

 stones, as the words horse-chesnnt, horse-daisy, 

 horse-mushroom, &c., mean large ones. But, if ha 

 had duly considered the arguments contained in 

 Mr. Herbert's Cyclops Christianus, pp. 162-4., he 

 woulil have seen the necessity of showing, that in 

 Anglo-Saxon and English t!ie description can 

 follow, in composition, the thing described ; which 

 it seems it can do in neither. In support of his 



stone-horse, he should Lave produced a chesnut- 

 horse in the vegetable sense; a daisy-horse, or a 

 mushroom-horse. Till he does that, the gram- 

 matical canon appealed to by that author, will 

 remain in as full ibrce against the stone-horse as 

 against the stone-hanging. E. A. M. 



Nich Nack (Vol. iii., p. 179.). — A rude species 

 of music very common amongst the boys in Shef- 

 field, called by them nicka-nacks. It is made by 

 two pieces of bone, sometimes two pieces of wood, 

 placed between the fingers, and beaten in time by 

 a rapid motion of the hand and fingers. It is one 

 of tlie periodical amusements of the boys going 

 along the streets. 



" And with his rii^ht dtew foith a truncheon of a 

 white ox rib, and two pieces of wood of a like form ; 

 one of black Ebeii, and tlie other of incarnation Br,izile ; 

 and put them betwixt the finijers of that hand, in good 

 symmetry. Then knocking tliem together, made such 

 a noise, as the lepers of Britany use to Ho with their 

 clappering clickets ; yet better resounding, and far 

 more harmonious." — Rabelais, book ii. c. 19. 



II. J. 



Meaning of Carfax (Vol. iii., p. 508.). — E. J. S. 

 says " Carfoix reminds me of Carfax in Oxford. 

 Are the names akin to each other?" When at 

 Oxford I used to hear that Carfa.x was ])roperly 

 (iuarfax, a contr.iction for quatuor fades, four 

 faces. The church, it will be remembered, looks 

 one way to High Street, another to Queen Street, 

 a ihiril to the Cornmarket, and the fourth to St. 

 Aldate's. H. T. G. 



Hand giving the Benediction (Vol. iii., p. 477.). 

 — Eabbi Bechai tells iis of the solemn blessing in 

 Numbers vi. 25, 26, 27., in which the name Jeho- 

 vah is thrice repeated, that, when the high priest 

 pronounced it on the people, " elevatione nianuuui 

 sic digitos composuit ut Triada exprimerent." 



AV. Eraser. 



Unlucky for Pregnant Women to take an Oath 

 (Vol. iv., J). 151.). — J beg to inform Cowgill that 

 Irishwomen of the lower order almost invariably 

 refuse to be sworn while pregiuint. Having fre- 

 quently had to administer oaths to Leads of fa- 

 milies api)lying for relief during the famine in 

 Ireland in 1847-8-9, I can sjjeak with certainty 

 as to the fact, though I am unable to account for 

 the origin of the supei'stition. Bartanus. 



Dublin. 



Boi-ougk- English (Vol. iv., p. 133.). — Burgh 

 or Borough-English is a custom apjjendant to an- 

 cient boroughs, such as existed in the days of 

 Edward the Confessor and A\'illiam the Conqueror, 

 and are contained in the Book of Domesday. 

 Taylor, in his History of Gavelkind, p. 102., states, 

 that in the villages round the city of Hereford, 

 the lands are all held in the tenure of Borough- 

 English. There appears also to be a customary 



