Essex, two owls with two hounds barking at them; the margin being filled with divers subjects relating to each county. Sterne may have seen a map with an elephant; or if constructing an imaginary one he would adopt the prevailing fashion, and hit on the elephant by choice or chance. nose. 2. Their doctors," &c., are the partisans of the several theories as to the material of the stranger's """Tis a nose of parchment,' said the bandyleg'd drummer, 'I heard it crackle.' ''Tis brass,' said the trumpeter. "Tis made of fir,' said the master of the inn, I smell the turpentine." As Sterne sets these doctors, the Parchmentarians, Brassarians, and Turpentarians, in array against the Popish doctors, he was perhaps obliquely ridiculing the divers sectaries, like the Anabaptists of Münster, who sprang up in Germany and elsewhere in the sixteenth century. 3. "Didius," &c.-These are fictitious names of certain friends of the author, like Eugenius, by which appellation he designated his friend J. Hall Stevenson. See Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne, chap. ii. p. 35, ed. 1798; p. 53, ed. 1812, and Sterne's preface, vol. iii. p. 87. 4. "The herb Hanea, of which Elian relates such effects," is one of the many passages borrowed verbatim from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, in the second edition of which work it was first introduced (part iii. sect. 2, memb. 6, subs. 1). Burton took it from Elian's Natural History, ix. 26, where, speaking of the shrub "Ayvos (the Agnus castus, a variety of the Vitex), he says: τοῦτόν τοι καὶ ἐν Θεσμοφόροις ἐν ταῖς στιβάσι τὰ γύναια τὰ Αττικὰ ὑποστόρνυνται· ἤδη δὲ καὶ ὁρμῆς ἀφροδισίου κώλυμά ἐστι. Dioscorides and Galen state the same, and Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxiv. 38, "Vitex, Græci lygon vocant, alii agnon, quoniam matrona Thesmophoriis Atheniensium castitatem custodientes his foliis cubitus sibi sternunt." The word "Hanea" seems to have been coined by Burton to represent the Greek ȧyveía, chastity. I have not been able to find it in any dictionary or other work. 5. The reference here should be to vol. vii. p. 97 (not viii.), and in the original edition the name is Sequier, not Séguier. No author of this name is mentioned by Brunet, but there is no reason to doubt that some M. Sequier may have written an account of Auxerre. The only St. Maxima I can find is one martyred in Africa A.D. 258. There may have been another subsequently, as St. Germain died at Ravenna and was brought back to Auxerre in 448, after which the St. Maxima in question "came from Ravenna to touch the body." Is it possible that Sterne invented St. Maxima, or changed the name of some other saint to Maxima for the sake of introducing the joke that "she and St. Maximus were two of the greatest saints in the whole martyrology"? It is, perhaps, more probable that he was told of some local St. Maxima, whose name suggested "the popping in with his St. Maximus," of which name there are many in the calendar. W. E. BUCKLEY. The sources of information usually referred to for notices of the Séguiers are French biographical dictionaries of an early date and the general histories of the Thirty Years' War. The more prominent members of the family appear to have been the Chancellor Pierre Séguier, the uncle of Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle; the Advocate-General A. L. Séguier; a Pierre Séguier, described as a religious enthusiast; and John Séguier, the travelling botanist, and fellow labourer with the Marquis Massei. Highgate Road, N.W. F. PETER SÉGUIER. "MARE" (THE SEA) AND WORDS FOR DEATH (6th S. iv. 268, 453, 497).-Your correspondent ST. SWITHIN wishes to know why Bopp's derivation of mare from Sansk. vári, water, should be condemned. The reasons are not far to seek. The derivation is arbitrary, and not in analogy either with the history of the root or with sound philological deduction. not usually, if ever, change into a nasal. OrdiThe labial aspirate v when initial in a root does narily in the cognate tongues the v is preserved. Thus Sansk. vinsáti Lat. viginti, Sansk. vid= Lat. vid-eo, Sansk. vira Lat. vir, Ger. wer, &c. = = In the Cymric, where initial mutations abound, the church of Mary, Llan-figael, the church of m changes to v, never the reverse. Thus Llan-vair, Michael. The absence in Sanskrit and Greek of an equivalent for mare, as applied to the sea, is very significant, as I will endeavour to show. The presence of the same radical word for the nations indicates a common origin, and that the sea in all the Indo-European or Western Aryan term was adopted under circumstances common to them all. The Eastern Aryans had their own term for the ocean, samudra; but this amongst would naturally fall into disuse, and as their wanthe wandering tribes in the north-west of India derings led them westward, into contact with large oceans, whether the Caspian, Black Sea, or Mediterranean, a new term would have to be coined or and his follower Dr. Wm. Smith, so far as I am an old one adapted. With the exception of Bopp aware, all writers on the subject-e.g. Fick, Pictet, and Max Müller-derive mare and its congeners and equivalents from the root már, sterben, verderben, to die, perish. Hence, says Max Müller, "We can hardly doubt that their idea in applying this name to the sea (the Mediterranean) was the dead or stagnant water as opposed to the running *See Fick, Vergl. Wörterbuch, i. 172, 392, 717; Pictet, Orig. Indo-Européennes, i. 110; Max Müller, Lectures, Second Series, 320. streams (l'eau vive)"; as Fick puts it, todtes Wasser. I concur in the derivation from the root már, but for the very opposite reason. It is true that Sansk. mri, doubtless a corruption of the root már, has the neuter signification of dying, perishing, but in its active or causative form, mára-yati, it carries the meaning of destruction, occidere, zermalmen, zerbrechen, &c. Certainly the bright sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, especially where dashing upon the rocky coasts and isles of the Ægean, convey anything rather than the idea of todtes Wasser. Byron's notion of the ocean when amongst "the blue Symplegades" was more consonant with this derivation : "Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed," &c. I conclude, therefore, that mare and its congeners, as applied to the ocean by all the Indo-European races except the Greeks, are derived from the root már in its active causative sense. Máru in Sanskrit means an arid desert without water-a strange term to apply to the ever-moving active liquid sea. It would be lucus à non lucendo with a vengeance. It is a singular phenomenon that the Greek language should be destitute of this expression; μáp-aivo in the neuter sense, and μáp-vapai in the active, seem to have a connexion with the root már, but never applied to the sea. The origin of eálagoa is very obscure. The derivation from äλs is unsatisfactory. At all events, it seems to indicate that the Latin and Greek immigrations into Europe were distinct and separate, the former in some way connected with the Celts, Teutons, and Slavs. Sandyknowe, Wavertree. J. A. PICTON. MODERN PROPHECIES: CAZOTTE (6th S. iv. 428). A question as to the supposed prophecy of M. Cazotte appeared in " N. & Q.," 4th S. ii. 8, from MR. W. E. A. AXON, when he took his account of the anecdote in which it is related from the Memoirs of Madame du Barri, vol. iv. p. 291, Lond., 1831. An answer from LORD Arthur RUSSELL was inserted at pp. 45-6, from which it appeared that the story first was published in the Euvres Posthumes of La Harpe, vol. i., Par., 1806, and was a simple invention of his, which was stated in a MS. of La Harpe's own composition not published, but preserved by his executor M. Boulard. Further details were stated to be given in Beuchot, Journal de la Librairie, p. 382, 1817; E. Fournier's Esprit dans l'Histoire, p. 251, note; SainteBeuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. v. p. 110; and La Harpe's own account of "Cazotte's Prophecy," in Didot's Biogr. Générale, art. "Cazotte." The story may be read in English in Dr. Neale's The Unseen World, Night xi. pp. 192–8, Lond., 1853, where some (insufficient) reasons for its being considered authentic are given. M. Jal states that Cazotte had nothing to do with it (Dict. Crit., Par., 1872, " Cazotte"). ED. MARSHALL. SNUFF-BOXES (6th S. iv. 445) in France have been sometimes used politically. Thus the Bonapartists, during the banishment of their chief to Elba, and while plotting his return, filled their boxes with violet-scented snuff, the violet being Napoleon's distinctive flower, and when offering a pinch would significantly inquire, "Do you love this perfume?" Talleyrand argued that snufftaking was essential to all great politicians, as it gave them time for thought in answering awkward questions, while pretending only to indulge in pinch; or a proper management of the box enabled them to adapt themselves to many temporary Pinch of Snuff, 1840, says :— necessities of diplomacy. The author of the keeping up friendly relations with foreign powers, we "Of the importance of snuff-boxes as a means of need only quote, from the account of sums expended at the coronation of George IV., the following entry: 'Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, for snuff-boxes to foreign ministers, £8205 15 5." WILLIAM PLATT. Callis Court, St. Peter's, Isle of Thanet. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, A.D. 2199 (6th S. iv. 487, 517).-In the future index this query and reply should come under the head of "Thomas Lord Lyttelton." They awake the echoes of "N. & Q." of 1853, where SIR F. MADDEN asks almost the same question (1st S. viii. 33). It may interest your correspondents on this subject to know that, in my copy of Letters of the late Lord Lyttelton (two vols. bound in one; vol. i., sixth edition, 1783; vol. ii., 1782), the following manuscript note, in the handwriting of the late Thomas Samuel Jolliffe, is written on the fly-leaves : "26th Febry., 1786. "Lord Westcote told me this day after dinner at my brothers in Argyll St, that he believed the letters published as his nephew's were spurious; and that the Executors of the late La Lyttelton (he is one) inserted an advertisement in the newspapers upon their first publication, to inform the world of their inauthenticity, which was answered from Glasgow with a declaration that certain indisputable proof of their being the genuine production of L Lyttelton's pen would shortly appear. But no such proof has appeared. Upon the production of the 2nd Vol. the Executors repeated their advertisement that he believed the author of the letters in question which never was answered. Lord Westcto also added was some person acquainted with his nephew, ye late La Lytt" from whose conversation were gathered materials for this work. My own personal knowledge of his Lordship inclines me to think this may be the Fact. The story of the extraordinary Sportsman in Lr 21, Page 141, Vol. 1, Lord Westcote added used to be told by the late Lord Gage as to have happened in Gloucestershire. T. S. JOLLIFFE." Ammerdown, Radstock, Bath. HYLTON. = GLASTONBURY, "THE TOWN OF OAKS (6th S. iv. 329).-In spite of what MR. MAYHEW urges, there is a good deal to be said in favour of the name Glastonbury being connected with the Cornu-British word glastanen, later on glastan an oak. It would seem that for a considerable time, possibly till the reign of Egbert, the CornuBritons extended into a part of Somersetshire; and even after their conquest by the West Saxons it is not impossible that some of their names of places may have remained. The main argument against Glastonbury having this derivation is that all derivations composed of two distinct languages ought to be regarded with suspicion. Bury is Saxon, ergo, it may be urged, glaston ought to be Saxon also. But in Cornwall, not unfrequently, a combined English and Celtic root is to be found, MISTLETOE AND CHRISTMAS (6th S. iv. 509).Will it help MR. MAYHEW to bear in mind that as the early Christian missionaries, with very questionable policy, associated the nativity of Christ with the old festival of Yule, so the mistletoe probably from its healing virtues, specially, it has been said, in puerperal caseswas anciently sacred to Freya, the Saxon Venus? It is not at all unlikely, therefore, that this plant was used to shelter and sanction the loves of youths and maidens in far pre-Christian ages. The sacredness of the mistletoe may have been derived from its being born and sprouting from the bark when the parent tree was in its winter decay. The word has by some been spelt mistiltan or misseldine, and derived from mistl (different) and tan (twig), it being, as Bacon says, " a plant utterly different from the plant whereone.g., Castle-an-Dinas, where Castle is English, an it groweth." G. L. F. MORANT, THE ESSEX TOPOGRAPHER (6th S. iv. 449).-In Thompson Cooper's Biographical Dictionary, 1873, is given (p. 882, s.n.) this brief notice of the learned antiquary :— "Philip Morant, F.S.A., was born at St. Saviour's, Jersey, 6 Oct., 1700; and educated at Pembroke College, Oxford (M.A. 1724). He obtained successively several livings in Essex, the principal of which was that of St. Mary's, Colchester. He died in London, 25 Nov., 1770. Mr. Morant published the History of Colchester, folio, and the History of Essex, 2 vols. folio. He was also one of the compilers of the Biographia Britannica; and was appointed by the House of Peers to publish a copy of the rolls of Parliament, which work, at his death, devolved to his son-in-law, Mr. Astle.' Cf. also Watt's Bibl. Brit., "Authors," vol. ii. p. 681, o. p., for a list of his works. WILLIAM PLATT. Callis Court, St. Peter's, Isle of Thanet. If MR. WALFORD will refer to Robert Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, published in 1824, or Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, pp. 201-5, he will find a much longer account of Philip Morant and his works than is to be found in Allibone's Dictionary. Watt and Nichols both give the year 1770 as the date of Morant's death. ARTHUR MYNOTT. and Dinas are clearly Cornish. The argument of Avallon being used tells both ways, but I think more strongly for the oak derivation. Both point to a tree, i.e. "the Glastonbury thorn," connected with the early legendary history of the town. Thus it seems that a word expressing the peculiarity of the town exists, meaning that peculiarity in a language which was most probably used by its ancient inhabitants, i.e. the Cornu-British. Why should we assume that such a word cannot be the origin of the name now used? = W. S. LACH-SZYRMA. WHISKERS MOUSTACHES (6th S. iv. 406).-I think Macaulay was quoting, and must have known the meaning of the word whiskered. The best passage I remember on the subject is the following: "My Beard I had once suffer'd to grow till it was about a quarter of a Yard long; but as I had both Scissars and Razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except what grew on my upper Lip, which I had trimm'd into a large Pair of Mahometan Whiskers, such as I had seen worn by some Turks, who I saw at Sallee; for the Moors did not wear such, tho' the Turks they were long enough to hang my Hat upon them; but of these Muschatoes or Whiskers, I will not say they were of a Length and Shape monstrous enough. and such as in England would have pass'd for frightful." -Robin on Crusoe (Golden Treasury edition), p. 152. did; O. W. TANCOCK. About three years ago I searched the parish But we have only to look at a cat to know that register of Aldham, Essex, for Glascock or Glass-whiskers and moustaches were once the same. cock, and I remember noticing at the time that Philip Morant was for some time vicar of the A SIN TO POINT AT THE MOON (6th S. iv. 407). parish. His entries were clearly and carefully-I find a superstition prevalent here which must written, contrasting very favourably with the preceding and succeeding vicars. J. L. GLASSCOCK, Jun. He was born in 1700, and wrote his Christian name "Philippe." He is mentioned in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, Didot's Nouvelle Biographie Universelle, Rose's New Biographical Dictionary, and Michaud's Biographie Universelle. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. be nearly akin to this; viz., that it is a sin to try to count the stars. Both superstitions have the same origin; nor can it be said that the worship of the sun, moon, and stars has quite died out in England, as long as many grave old gentlemen touch their hats, while little girls curtsey three times, to the new moon. At this period of extreme anxiety as to agricultural matters, I feel that it would be useless to remonstrate with my church warden for trying to catch sight of the new moon over his right shoulder; especially as he might possibly detect me in turning over my money three times at the same moment. W. D. PARISH, Selmeston, Sussex. For a long time I have known a similar saying as to the new moon. Its longest form is this, heard from a pure Londoner of Welsh extraction, "It's so unlucky to look at the new moon through a glass that you should always shake the money in your pocket." But its local habitats, in some such form, are more extensive. From some other county-in all probability Devonshire-I have had it, It is unlucky to look at the new moon through a window, though not unlucky to look at it without an intervening medium. BR. NICHOLSON. ever, the word is more frequently used in the present day than its fellow noun substantive antiquary. G. F. R. B. Dr. Murray, or one of his readers, could probably give a full answer to C. M. I.'s question. As one of them, I am able to tell C. M. I. that Sir Walter Scott, who used the word antiquary as the title of one of the Waverley Novels in 1816, is found ten years later, in another of them (Woodstock), using the words antiquary and antiquarian (substantive) in the same paragraph. C. T. B. to poetry has given grace and splendour to his In 1778 Dr. Johnson wrote, "Percy's attention studies of antiquity. A mere antiquarian is a rugged being" (Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Routledge, 1867, ch. xxxvii. p. 338). R. H. C. FITZHERBERT. ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF "HORE B. VIRGINIS " (6th S. iv. 407).-Southwell is one of my favourite "sweet singers." Supposing these hymns to have been earlier pieces by him than any now extant, and allowing for the "woorde by woorde" necessities of translation, I must yet think-though one would like longer examplesthat the rhythm is not sweet enough, and that the I was under the impression that my nurse, a Licolnshire woman, warned me that some people said it was not right to stare at the stars; I now begin to think that the impropriety I was cautioned against may have been that of pointing at them. To point at a person is so often a sign of want of respect or of actual scorn, that it is not surprising it should be considered irreverent, and therefore wrong, to point at anything so intimately associated with our conceptions of the glory of God as the star-language is beneath his powers and feelingssown heavens. ST. SWITHIN. ANTIQUARY: ANTIQUARIAN (6th S. iv. 309).Antiquary and antiquarian appear to have run side by side from the beginning of the seventeenth century. The former occurs in Grafton's Chronicle, vol. i. pt. vii., where Leland is spoken of as "the excellent antiquary." Here the meaning is properly a keeper of records or antiquities. Sir J. Ferne, in his Blazon of Gentrie, 1586, p. 131, says, "What shoulde a poore antiquarie intermedle of so honourable a matter?" From this time the word is common. Antiquarian occurs in Holland's Camden's Britannia, 1637, p. 6, "I referre the matter full and whole to the Senate of Antiquarians, for to be decided"; and is found regularly since. Of late years antiquarian seems to have become more common than antiquary, but it certainly has not superseded it. I do not find any difference in the use of the two words, further than that antiquary appears to carry with it a more technical sense. XIT. Bishop Warburton, writing to Hurd in a letter dated July 5, 1752, says :— "You talk of Jackson's Chronology, on which occasion you quote a line of Mr. Pope, which he would have envied you the application of; and would certainly have drawn a new character of a diving antiquarian for the pleasure of applying this line to him." Todd, in his second edition of Johnson (1827), says that "this word is improper, and is now rarely if at all used.". In spite of Todd, how especially in the "Stabat Mater." Could " mournfull moode" be his rendering of the "lacrymosa" of the agonized Mother, or even "passing doleful" of "dolorosa," or could he have translated those most beautiful first three lines by the three lines given? Neither are these hymns (teste Grosart) in the Stonyhurst MS.-one written under Southwell's superintendence and corrected by himself. But who are said to point to Father Southwell as the author"? These words are over vague. Is it a tradition originating in the eighteenth century, or the guess of one in the nineteenth who has heard that Southwell was an Elizabethan Roman Catholic poet ? I had written thus far when certain dates recurred to my memory. Southwell was tried in Feb., 1594/5, being then about thirty-three. Therefore, according to this un-golden legend, he must have written" Mary" in the collect for the queen three years before he was born! BR. NICHOLSON. THE GREAT GALE AT ST. HELENA, 1821 (6th S. iv. 408)-The storm at St. Helena on May 5, 1821, when the Emperor Napoleon was on his death-bed, is thus mentioned in the Journals of Sir Hudson Lowe, edited by Mr. Forsyth, vol. iii. 287: "While he was dying a violent hurricane swept over the island, which shook many of the houses to their foundations, and tore up some of EDWARD SOLLY. the largest trees." The following extracts from Las Cases's Memoirs of the Emperor Napoleon (translation, Colburn 1836), vol. iv. pp. 386, 387, bear some relation to "I hastened to turn to the 5th of May, to see where I me. It is mentioned by Timbs among other omens in French history : "At the period of Napoleon's dissolution, on the 4th of May, 1821, the island of St. Helena was swept by a tremendous storm, which tore up almost all the trees about Longwood by the roots. The 5th was another day of tempests; and about six in the evening Napoleon pronounced Tête d'armée and expired." WILLIAM PLATT. passage : the bas-relief over his tomb in the convent of Sant' THE BIRCH OF PARADISE (6th S. iv. 427). Sir Walter Scott has the following annotation to the passage quoted by your correspondent: "The notion that the souls of the blest wear garlands, book,' there is a Rabbinical tradition to that effect."-See seems to be of Jewish origin. At least in the MaaseJewish Traditions, abridged from Buxtorf, London, 1732, vol. ii. p. 19. I quote from the Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland (Bell & Daldy, 1871). F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. Cardiff. - The stanzas, in a slightly different form from that given by your correspondent, occur in the ballad, "The Clerk's Twa Sons o' Owsenford," in The Book of British Ballads, edited by S. C. Hall:"The hallow days o' Yule were come, And the nights were lang and mirk, When in and cam' her ain twa sons, And their hats made o' the birk. It neither grew in syke nor ditch, Nor yet in any sheuch; But at the gates o' Paradise That birk grew fair eneuch."-P. 349. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. "BEYOND THE CHURCH" (6th S. iv. 427).-The authorship of this anonymous novel is ascribed in Halkett and Laing's Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain, vol. i., to Frederick William Robinson. J. C. H. "As if to mark a closing point of resemblance betwixt Cromwell and Napoleon, a dreadful tempest arose on the 4th May, which preceded the day that was to close the mortal existence of this extraordinary man. A willow THE "FOURTH ESTATE" (6th S. iv. 428).-A which had been the exile's favourite, and under which passage in Carlyle's fifth lecture on Heroes, Herohe had often enjoyed the fresh breeze, was torn up by Worship, and the Heroic in History, 1841, makes the hurricane, and almost all the trees about Longwood Burke the author of this expression: "Burke said shared the same fate. The 5th of May came, amid wind and rain. Napoleon's passing spirit was deliriously there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the engaged in a strife more terrible than that of the ele-Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all." WILLIAM PLATT. Callis Court, St. Peter's, Isle of Thanet. ments around." See also Hodgson's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, MR. SEYMOUR has not seen the book the latter "Vita del Cardinale Giuseppe Mezzo fanti e Memorie dei piu chiari poliglotti antichi e moderni, opera del Prof. Guglielmo Russell, ora dall' Inglese Recata in Italiano,-Accresciuta di Documenti. Bologna, 1859. Tipografia di G. Monti al Sole." I saw Cardinal Mezzofanti in 1847, but do not remember any earrings, nor do I remember any on "LET ME LIGHT MY PIPE AT YOUR LADYSHIP'S EYES" (6th S. iv. 347).-Such an idea might occur It is not very independently to many minds. likely that the Irish labourer had read Mrs. Montagu's letter, or that either of them was acquainted with the two Latin lines, "Illius ex oculis, quum vult exurere divos, Accendit geminas lampadas acer Amor," which are in Tibullus, bk. iv., Carmen ii. 5, 6, though the authorship of them is uncertain. In a somewhat similar strain Theocritus describes Cynisca blushing so deeply "that you might light a torch at her face ” εὐμαρέως κεν ἀπ' αὐτᾶς καὶ lúxvov äfais (Idyll., xiv. 23). A severe critic like Longinus might possibly regard these conceits |