"MADAME CHIENFOU."- Will one of your French or other correspondents tell me who this is? Is she a personage of French nursery lore?— "Ce déguisement!' dit-elle [Cosette]. Père, que voulez-vous que j'en fasse? Oh! par exemple, non, je ne remettrai jamais ces horreurs. Avec ce machin-là sur la tête j'ai l'air de madame Chien fou."-Victor Hugo, Les Misérables,' partie iv. livre iii. chap. v. M. Gasc, as usual "good at need," defines machin what do call it ?......thingumbob," &c. you JONATHAN Bouchier. as SUN-STONE.-Proclus talks of a sun-stone, which by its golden rays imitates those of the sun. There is another stone called "the eye of heaven," or the sun. It has a figure like the pupil of an eye, from Are there any the centre of which a ray shines. counterparts in nature to these things; or are they conjured by the magic on which our philosopher is writing? The French alchemists called red sulphur pierre solaire, but this was a production of art, not nature. "Elle donne seulement la matière dont on les faits, comme elle donne le grain dont on fait le pain." This is Pernety's mythc-hermetic and magisterial dictum thereon. Chingford Hatch, E. C. A. WARD. Referring to this subject, I have recently come across an article in the Mirror of April 14, 1832, evidently inspired by a prospectus pamphlet issued by Dr. Weatherhead, sometime Medical Director of Beulah Spa, which possibly may be of interest to MR. TEGG and others. The article is headed by a woodcut of the entrance lodge, which the worthy doctor describes in the flowery language common to prospectuses of all ages as 66 an elegant rustic lodge in the best taste of ornate rusticity, with the characteristic varieties of gable, dripstone, portico, bay window and embellished chimney; the latter being in the best style of our olden architects, planned by Mr. Decimus Burton, the originator of the architectural embellishments of the Zoological Gardens." In his description of the spa, Dr. Weatherhead says: "The spring rises about fourteen feet within a circular rock work enclosure; the water is drawn by a contrivance at once ingenious and novel; a glass urn-shaped pail, terminating with a cock of the same material, and having a stout rim and cross handle of silver, is let down into the spring by a pulley, when the vessel being taken up full the water is drawn off by the cock." The article, after describing a tastefully laid out lawn, says : "A few yards from the lawn a rustic orchestra is erected, whence the dulcet and harmonious sounds of music may attune with the joyful inspiration of the natural beauties of the scene. " It would be interesting if at the reopening a set of quadrilles, entitled 'The Beulah Spring Quadrilles,' which were in vogue in the early days of the spa, could be revived; but it is scarcely possible that a copy is in existence. The spa also possessed wooded land, a maze, and a terrace. The prospect from the last is thus described by Dr. Weatherhead :— The ancient archiepiscopal town of Croydon lies at your feet; more remote Banstead Downs spread a carpet of blooming verdure to the sight; in the extreme distance Windsor Castle peers its majestic towers above the mist; while elsewhere the utmost verge of the horizon is bounded by the bold range of the Surrey and Hampshire Hills. Turning to the left you enjoy a view of Addiscombe Place, the seminary for cadets of the East India Company; of Shirley, the sporting seat of John Maberly, Esq., M.P.; of the Addington hills clothed with heaths; and of the park, the seat of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury; when the prospect deepening in extent stretches as far as Knockholt Beeches, near Seven Oaks, and, winding round, comprehends the tall spire of Beckenham Church piercing through the dense woods which surround it; Shooter's Hill, Blackheath, and the village that intervenes. Immediately beneath you are the grounds of the Spa, every portion of which can be distinctly traced from this spot, and the paths winding among the woods till they disappear, as it were, MORRIS PAYNE. NORSE EARLS OF ORKNEY.-Can any of your readers give me a pedigree of the Norse Earls of Orkney, or tell me where I can find one? McGhee, in his History of Ireland,' states that they were fourteen in number. Burke (Extinct Peerages,' edition 1883, p. 493) gives only the names of the in trackless solitude." few first and last. J. G. INIGO JONES (8th S. vi. 227).-Don Iñigo Lopez de Recalde, commonly called Ignatius Loyola, being a Guipuzcoan by birth, bore the name of Iñigo, the Navarrese form of Ignatius, in which then represents the gn of the Spanish Ignacio and of the French Ignace, as in Champaña for Champagne and Gran Bretaña for Gran Bretagna. The accent is, of course, on the second syllable, and the architect's name should be pronounced Ignígo, or at all events Inigo Jones. His parents having been Roman Catholics accounts for his receiving the baptismal name of the great Jesuit saint. Charnock ('Prænomina,' p. 64) absurdly makes Inigo a corruption of Heinrich or Henry. This must be a mere guess. ISAAC TAYLOR. I do not believe that Swift pronounced the name ILīgo with the penultimate long, any more than that he made the penultimate of carmina long when he wrote, And should our Gantawen's art grow fallow, Yet, "niget quis carmina Gallo,' in the Country Life.' Poets must take liberties now and then, especially when long proper names occur. The accurate Virgil does not hesitate to end a line with "Dardanio Anchise," "Ncëmonaque Prytanimque," and a score more. In Swift's line I would pronounce admire as three syllables, and slur over the penultimate i in Inigo, and then it reads smartly enough. J. CARRICK MOORE. venture), is at all analogous to the one under discussion, except that of victual. MR. WARREN says he supposes that no one would pronounce this word to rhyme with little. I shall be very much obliged to him if he will give me a better rhyme to it. Does he pronounce the c? The spelling of victual, like that of iron, is no guide to its pronunciation. In the one case the c has been foisted into the word, in the other the r has been misplaced. In each case (whatever may be the general rule), popular pronunciation is nearer to the original form of the word than our literary form is. с I may add that Longfellow makes forehead rhyme with abhorred, and that I have never in any dialect heard the r in iron trilled so as to make the word rhyme with Byron. C. C. B. [Hood makes forehead rhyme with florid.] I think, with MR. WARREN, that the true guide to proper pronunciation is found in declamation and in the utterance of a good reader; also, with W. C. B., that the use of good singers gives a good guide for such words as this. No one would sing iern in Jackson, of Exeter's, good old song : Time hath not thinned my flowing hair But between proper and colloquial pronunciation My friend MR. E. H. MARSHALL makes as few PRONUNCIATION OF "HINDOSTAN" (8th S. vi. 187, 234).-A correspondent who signs himself D. states that the right pronunciation, according to native usage, of the words Hindostan and Afghan-'eels. istan is respectively Indostaun and Afghanistan. As regards the penultimate syllables in each case I am not concerned to enter upon any discussion, but with reference to the in one case and the ǎ in the other, I am tempted to point out that the strictly classical spelling (as given in my 'English-Persian Dictionary') would make each of these vowels long instead of short. If, therefore, natives at times and in certain localities deviate from critical accuracy, such pronunciation, far from being "right," is loose and slovenly-a remark which applies with perhaps greater force to the As Butler here gives the correct pronunciation, so omission of the letter H from the word Hindústán. can truly say I never pronounced it, nor ever Surely it would scarcely be admissible to lay heard any really cultured person pronounce it down as a canon of pronunciation in this country otherwise. And yet PROF. SKEAT says, "We say that, according to native usage," the words iern." hand and heart are sounded as and and eart, albeit the fact is scarcely open to question. ARTHUR N. WOLLASTON. IRON (8th S. v. 327, 474; vi. 56, 96).-The notes of MR. WARREN and W. C. B. at the last reference open up the subject of pronunciation to its widest extent. None of the instances they adduce, however (into the general question of literary versus colloquial pronunciation I must not Aldenham. Ah me, the perils that environ So W. C. B. affirms, "Colloquially we all say apeny." I have lived more than threescore years and ten, and never said apeny in my life. Cockneys and schoolboys are surely not to be our masters in pronunciation. I have heard some affirm that in the words of the Psalm, "Laud ye the name of the Lord!" they find no difference in sound between the first word and the last. If this is not affected, it shows the want of a delicate ear. When I say, "I see the sea," many tell me the variation in sound between ee and ea is imperman" was always so important a person as a small ceptible. If diremonts and virelets are not "vulgar dissyllabizations," I know not what are. The trisyllables "diamonds" and "violets" in verse only require a rapid pronunciation of the vowels to be used as dissyllables with perfect harmony of cadence. Surely, "Tell me where the violets grow," is far more euphonious than "vilets" or "virelets." As I am on the subject of pronunciation, I will add that the intolerable vulgarism of 'umble is now commonly taught in our pronouncing dictionaries, and not seldom disgusts us in the reading-desk. One might have hoped that this abomination would have perished with Uriah Heep. G. L. F. Clevedon. landowner; and the idea is that such a man, whether landowner or not, was one competent to be of good service with his bow, in those times when the archers formed the backbone of our English armies. There seems to be some reason in this view, since the term signified originally a "Yewman," so called from bearing the bow in battle. There is an interesting account of the English yeomanry in Buckle's History of Civilization in England,' vol. i., that will repay the trouble of perusal. C. P. HALE, DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY FROM THE PULPIT (8th S. vi. 227).-It is often difficult to answer such questions as this without a knowledge of the We may well say, in regard to the pronunciation ground on which they are based; the ground of this word : Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me ? The late well-known clergyman, the Rev. William Josiah Irons, D.D., was always called Dr. Ierns or Ions. Still there is no doubt as to the pronunciation of the word irony. Shortly after the publication of 'Ion,' in five acts, by Serjeant Talfourd, he was introduced as its author to a fashionable lady, who felt annoyed at "being introduced to Talfourd, the iron-merchant," as she called him. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. YEOMAN (8th S. vi. 101, 178, 235).—I remember very well the case of a farmer who claimed exemp. tion from some tax, on the ground that men of his profession were not liable. The claim was disallowed because he farmed his own land, and was, therefore, not (legally considered) a farmer, but a yeoman. Eventually, however, he obtained exemption, on the ground that although one of his farms was his own property he rented the other, and was thus a farmer as well as a yeoman. This was between thirty and forty years ago. C. C. B. There is a reference to this term in Timbs's 'Notabilia,' where a contrast is drawn between it and another word, to wit, "Esquire." In this we find an extract from Sir Thomas Smyth's Commonwealth of England' (ed. 1621) giving a not too flattering account of the names. He says: "For amongst the Gentlemen they which clayme no higher degree, and yet bee to be accompted out of the number of the lowest sort thereof, be written Esquires. So amongst the Husbandmen, Labourers, the lowest rascall sort of the people such as bee exempted out of the number of the rascability of the popular, be called and written Yeoman, as in the degree next vnto Gentle men." may really give reason for further investigation, or, as I suspect to be the case here, it may turo out to be quite insufficient. For I think it is quite safe to say that neither in the seventeenth century nor, I believe, at any other time, could any legal disposition of property be made through the parish priest, as such, without the execution of a will in the ordinary way. But there are many other ways in which the parish priest might then be concerned in the matter, as he might be still. He might draw the testator's will for him, or receive his nuncupative (i. e. verbal) will-these were not abolished till the beginning of the present reign; or MR. BRAD. SHAW's authority may refer to the advice on the subject which the priest, in visiting the sick, was then, and is now, to give if necessary. Or, lastly, in the case of very small estates, where no disputes were likely to arise, it is quite possible that he might, by private request, make an informal distribution of effects, and might even announce this from his pulpit. It is for MR. BRADSHAW to consider which of these possibilities best suits the case he has in his eye; but I much doubt whether any legal enactment of the kind ever existed, or even anything which can be properly called a custom." C. F. S. WARREN, M. A. In Sir Henry Ellis's Original Letters from Eminent Literary Men,' issued by the Camden Society for 1843, there is a letter from a Mrs. Ockley, widow of Simon Ockley, Professor of Arabic, Cambridge, to the Lord Harley, in which she says (Oct. 3, 1720) : "It is a great concern to think that I must trouble your Lordship with so melancholy a subject, but, relying upon your Lordship's clemency, do humbly beg pardon for this attempt in laying before you the deplorable state of my affairs which att present I labour under by the decease of the Professor, his debts being beyond what A husbandman is thought to have been formerly his effects will amount to; and the severity of his one who tilled his own land, in distinction to a reasonable time to make the best of his assets, but had Creditore is such that the Executor is not allowed a farmer, who occupied the land of another person. yesterday an intimation read in Church, with the allow But it seems doubtful whether the ancient "yeo-ance but of one week to come in; by which means I am destitute of necessarys, and also rendered incapable of assisting my children." C. W. PENNY. Wokingham. CELLIWIG (8th S. vi. 67, 132).—I do not think that there is much historic value in the Historical Triads of the Island of Britain.' They are the productions of the dark ages, and refer to events seven centuries before. There are many reasons why Arthur could not hold his court in Edinburgh; but the fact most fatal to the triad is that that city was not built until the seventh century. It was built by Edwin, the fifth Bretwalda, who named it after himself, Edwinsburgh. For the same reason there could not be an Archbishop of Edinburgh in Arthur's time. Indeed, it was not until far into the fifth century that Scotland had a bishop of any grade. Milner, in his History of the Church,' tells us: "The deacon Palladius being ordained Bishop of Scotland, arrived there in the year 431. Scotland had never before seen a bishop and was in a state of extreme barbarism." I have always understood that there were only three archbishops in Britain previous to and at the time of Arthur. Usher, in his Eccles. Brit., p. 195, says that the three archbishops of Britain attended the Council of Arles, A.D. 314, and subscribed the rules agreed upon there for the government of the Church. They were Ivor Archbishop of York, Rhystyd Archbishop of London, and Brawdol Archbishop of Caerlleon on Usk. According to the Archaeology of Wales,' vol. ii. p. 3, there were only three archbishoprics in Britain in A D. 482, viz., London, York, and Caerlleon on Usk. Lewis's History of Britain,' p. 180, says that when Arthur was invited by the British people to be their king, Dyfrig=Dubricius, after consulting the bishops, consented to crown him, and the narrative proceeds : "On the occasion of his coror ation Arthur made a feast in Caerlleon on Uek, to which he invited all the kings and princes of Britain; there were also present the Archbishops of Caerlleon on Usk, London, and York. On the appointed day, when all the guests had assembled, Dyfrig, the archbishop, placed the crown of Britain upon the head of King Arthur, after which he walked to the cathedral between two bishops, four kings walking before bim bearing four golden swords. Gwenhwyfar, the queen, walked to the church of St. Julian between two bishops, and four queens went before her carrying four white doves. After the services they returned to the hall to dine, the men by themselves and the women by themselves, according to the old Welsh custom on such occasions," &c. The above does not agree with your contributors in fixing Silchester as the scene of the pageant. I am inclined to accept the Welsh account, for Silchester was then a ploughed field, Aella and the South Saxons having utterly destroyed it in A.D. 493, twenty-three years before Arthur's coronation. It might perhaps assist MR. HALLETT to identify Celliwig if he took into consideration the meaning of the word, for I should think that the place, wherever it is, must be in harmony with the appellation. Celliwig is a noun collective, and may be seen in any ordinary Welsh dictionary. Celli= a grove, celliwig a forest. The suffix wig has the same significance as in coedwig=a wood. There is a place in Herefordshire, on the border of Radnor, known to Welshmen of the present day as y Gelli-the grove, but to Englishmen it is known as Hay. The forest of Radnor is not far 17, Upper Warwick Street, Liverpool. off. JNO. HUGHES, THE ALMOND TREE (8th S. iv. 309, 359; vi. 97, 157, 219). The fact that Judas has been said to have hanged himself on half a dozen different sorts of trees, some of which, as, eg, the fig and the tamarisk, are almost everywhere considered trees of good omen, robs W. C. B.'s objection of its point. The Judas-tree itself is said by Gerard to be known in Spain by the name of Arbal d'amor, which means, I suppose, the tree of love. Not a very likely name, this, for a tree to which such a legend attaches. C. C. B. WILLIAM SHIELD (8th S. v. 185).-It may be noted that the inscription on a tombstone in the south cloister of Westminster Abbey records that William Shield, musician and composer, born March 5, 1748, died Jan. 25, 1829. DANIEL HIPWELL. LUSIGNAN (8th S. vi. 188).-The late Mr. Lusignan used to officiate for the late Rev. C. Mackenzie at Allhallows, Lombard Street; he married me in November, 1870. I think the most likely person to give you any information would be the neighbouring clergyman, Minor Canon Hall, who has been rector of St. Clements, Eastcheap, since 1865. C. B. BARBER. Sion College, E.C. Crockford's 'Clerical Directory' for 1870 gives Michael William Lusignan, lecturer of Allballows, Upper Thames Street, residing at 2, Little Bush Lane, Thames Street. There is a Constantine Adolphus Lusignan on the 'Clergy List,' who changed his name to De Lusignan. W. C. B. SLIPSHOD ENGLISH (8th S. vi. 185).-MR. E. WALFORD Owns that he is responsible for the italics which emphasize the syntactical iniquity of Prior. SERIAL ISSUE OF NOVELS (8th S. vi. 207).— The new departure in the serial issue of novels in the periodicals referred to by your correspondent A. C. W. is now an almost recognized institution. The custom is common among the provincial weeklies, and is not unknown in London. Although new to A. C. W., I should imagine that many readers of N. & Q.' are familiar with this weekly synoptical arrangement of the main incidents of serial tales. My recollection of its adoption carries me back some three or four years ago, about which time I think it was beginning to come into vogue. The system bas certainly many advantages, not the least important of which is that a perusal of the weekly synopsis enables a reader to keep the main incidents of the story in view; a rather difficult task, I opine, for many, considering that the serial issue sometimes runs through as many as twenty numbers or more. I have observed, however, that in some periodicals this summarizing only appears during the first few published chapters of a serial story, and then is dropped; in other cases it will be published until within a few chapters of the end of a story, and then, probably owing to its length, be discontinued. An instance in point of the first of these practices is observable in Mr. Grant Allen's new story, 'Under Sealed Orders,' now appearing serially in the People. The first twelve chapters or so were preceded by a weekly synopsis, but this has now, as early as the nineteenth chapter, been discontinued, and will not again appear. In some cases, however, the custom is carried through to the end of a story. C. P. HALE. which the author had omitted, deviding my whole purpose into three several bookes, whereof the first was to persuade me' unto true resolution, the seco'd to instruct us how rightely to begin, the third, how a man may hould out and persever. Secondly I shewed that being entered into the worke, and having set downe an other order and method to myself than that treatise of D. Loartes did observe; and having begunne the first booke touching resolution whereof no part was handled in that other treatise; I found by experience that I could not well conjoine th'one with th'other, if I would satisfie either h'order or argument by me conceaved; and therefore that I was informed to resolve upon a further labour than at the first I had intended, and this was to draw out the whole three bookes myself, not omitting any thing that was in the said exercise, or other like good treatises to this effect." J. J. H. In Wood the report of "his enemies and those of the Protestant party is that the platform of the said Resolution was laid to his hand by L. de Granada" (vol. i. col. 307, 1691). This is not an assertion by Wood himself. There is more to the ED. MARSHALL. same effect. S. vi. 166).-During repeated and lengthy tarryWELSH SURNAMES FOR CHRISTIAN NAMES (8th ings in Merionethshire, that Wales of Wales, I practice, that it is still far from a rare thing for a was more than once assured, with examples of the son to take a Christian name of his father as a surname for himself; thus an offspring of Robert Williams (his neighbours of the same tribe being very numerous) would be styled William Roberts, and Hugh Evans might become Evan Hughes. F. G. S. SALMON FOR SERVANTS (8th S. vi. 125).-This was certainly supposed to have a parallel in Glou cester: "It was formerly a standing condition in the indentures of apprenticeship at Gloucester, that the apprentice should not be obliged to eat salmon more than thrice a week; which was undoubtedly intended as a precaution against leprosy." " See extract from Counsel's 'History of Gloucester, 'N. & Q.,' 2nd S. iii. 406. See also the "proofs' examined by CUTHBERT BEDE, 3rd S. viii., with a PARSONS'S CHRISTIAN DIRECTORY' (8th S. vi. negative result, as also by the editor of the Wor128). Since sending the above query I have ex-cester Herald at p. 234. On the contrary, PAUL amined an old copy of A Christian Directorie,' with no publisher's or printer's name, but the date "Anno 1585, Augusti 30," which contains a preface in which Parsons gives the 'causes of letting forth the booke of Resolutions." It contains the answer to my query, thus : "First, that the primitive occasion, inducing me to thinke upon this worke, was the sight of a book intitled 'The Exercise of a Christian Life,' written in Italian by Doctor Loartes of the Societie of Jesus, and translated some years since by a vertuous learned gentleman of our countrie. Which booke for that I understood of certaintie to have profited many towardes pietie and devotions: I was moved to cause the same to be printed againe, with certain ample additions to the furnishing of some matters FERREY asserts, at p. 198, that it was so at Christchurch, Hants; in support of which there are statements by J. WILKINS, B.C.L, at vol. xi. p. 123 of the same series. The controversy sprang up with fresh life at 4th S. i. 321, and is kept on at pp. 474, 518; ii. 139. Apparently there was no direct evidence to support the common supposition. But several contributors took an interest in it. ED. MARSHALL. ROBERT SEYMOUR (8th S. vi. 87).—The son and only surviving representative of R. Seymour, the artist, is living at 1, Wincheap Grove, Canterbury. R. SEYMOUR. |