Teroe! or, the Third Day's Journey "; and "The Sprigs of Fashion; or, the Spur Club." The poem is full of allusions to the various publishers, particularly the Longmans, and appears to have been issued during the first quarter of the present century. W. ROBERTS. 63, Chancery Lane, W.C. "SLOPSELLER."-A witness to the execution of a deed of conveyance of lands at Bredgar, Kent, dated 1813, subscribes himself as "John Smith, Slopseller." What is the meaning of "slopseller"? HARRY GREENSTED. ["Slops" are cheap ready-made clothes. Smockfrocks and the loose linen, "overalls worn by painters, engineers, &c., are called "slops.' See Annandale's 'Ogilvie,' s.v. "Slops." " Slop-shop' is, or was, a familiar phrase.] ENGLISH SAPPHICS.-In the Youth's Magazine, August, 1825, there was a letter to the editor from R. S. F., Cambridge, on English Sapphics,' which contained some "Sapphic stanzas from the commencement of the 138th [137th] Psalm," beginning: Fast by thy stream, O Babylon, reclining, WWoe-begone exile, to the gale of evening Only responsive, my forsaken harp I Hung on the willow. The stanzas stated, and probably rightly stated, to be superior to the sapphics of "Sir P. Sidney, Dr. Watts, and Mr. Southey' -were written by a schoolboy, whose name was known to R. S. F., although he does not mention it. The paraphrase was taken from some book, and will be found, as printed in the Youth's Magazine, in N. & Q.,' 1st S. iv. 182. Is it known who the schoolboy was, and in what book the sapphics were first published? J. F. MANSERGH. Liverpool. ARTHUR ONSLOW (1731-92), M.P. FOR GUILDFORD, appears to have become a lieutenant-colonel in the army on March 27, 1759. I should be glad to know (1) where he was educated; (2) when he entered and retired from the army, with the dates of his several promotions; and (3) where he was buried. G. F. R. B. MERE-STONES.-Lord Campbell, in his 'Lives of the Chancellors,' vol. ii. p. 428, tells that Bacon gave excellent advice to Justice Hutton, then just made a Judge of the Common Pleas. Among other counsels, he says, "Contain the jurisdiction of your Court within the ancient merestones, without removing the mark." What is a mere-stone? Can it be a misprint for milestone? In which case the meaning would be clear: "You may move the milestone a yard or so without injury, provided the mark remain." Or did Bacon use an old verb "to mere," to divide, from the Greek peépw, which is used by Spenser, and quoted by Johnson? Mere-stone is not in Prof. Skeat's 'Dictionary.' J. CARRICK MOORE. Beplies. ITALIAN IDIOM. (8th S. ii. 445, 498; iii. 37, 171.) The extract given at the last reference from a letter addressed to MR. INGLEBY by an unimpeachable " authority by no means warrants him in arriving at the firm conclusion that he was correct in stating that a king would never be addressed in Italian as voi. I The extract-which does not appear to me to possess the authoritative character ascribed to it treats of the Italian so-called polite mode of address, and, incidentally, of the customary usage in addressing royal personages. The rule for the employment of this polite mode-known in Italy as dar del lei-is laid down in all of the numerous Italian grammars I have seen, but the strict and invariable agreement of the verb with the subject is not de rigueur in every case, as I shall have no difficulty in showing. From the examples which I am about to adduce it will be seen that "mistakes, very similar to those made by English people who try to write in the third person, are often made" by many, if not all, of the best writers in the Italian language. The fact is there is no mistake in the matter; grammatical rule is not rigorously adhered to, nor is the use of the second person plural in any way unusual. have before me a booklet, 'Dieci Lettere ad un Uomo di Stato......scritte da cinque Ecclesiastici' (Turin), and I find that, in the principal letters, the second person plural is used throughout; in others there is an occasional lapse into the third person singular; whilst all conclude "di Vostra Eccellenza." And I would remind MR. INGLEBY'S correspondent that not one commercial letter in a thousand is written in the third person, even when the addressee is a sole partner. Tasso, in dedicating some of his "Rime to Leonora Sanvitale, concludes "senz' alcun biasimo è V. Signoria. E le bacio le mani," whilst, in a letter to the Duke of Mantua, he begins "Vostra Signoria si stancherà," and concludes "Baciate in mio nome le mani...... e vivete felice." The employment of “vostra " instead of sua, in conjunction with "Signoria," "Eccellenza," and the like, in letters written in the third person, appears to be rather the rule than the exception. Whether grammatical or not, vossignoria and its congeners, although incorporating the possessive adjective of the second person plural, are used in agreement with the third person singular. “Maestà” is a nominative in the singular, and that it would be no less incongruous to say in English, "Do your Majesty wish?" than to say, "Spero che vostra Maestà volete!" in Italian. A like incongruity is found in Roumanian, e.g., "Cui ati* dat Dumneavóstrâ cârtile*?" where "Dumneavóstrâ" is considered equivalent to "you" and is preceded by the plural form of the verb. An analogous custom in modern Greek is cited by MR. INGLEBY says, in concluding his note, "As Diez, evyéviá σový§‹ÚρEIS ÖTI K.T.A., where the I expected, the speaker would naturally drop into singular noun is followed by the verb in the plural. the use of the third person." I am assured by an The subject of the "pronomen reverentia" is Italian friend that the contrary is the case, and treated at some length by this author in his well-that sustained conversation, starting in the elevated known grammar of the Romance languages. style, very soon drops into the second person. plural. In despite, therefore, of the deliverance of MR. INGLEBY'S friend, I submit that "Voi, Signore," to the king, is the most formal and deferential mode of address. J. YOUNG. Glasgow. MR. YOUNG accuses me of having declared the construction "voi avevi" to be analogous to the well-known French irregularity in which, e., vous aimiez" is used after a past tense instead of "vous aimassiez." I never said anything so utterly ridiculous. What I compared was not the construction, but the similar regard for brevity and euphony in the two cases. With regard to the form of address to be observed in the case of royal personages, it is tolerably certain that DR. CHANCE, in his remark on the use of voi when addressing the king, did not have in view such of the royal entourage as are privileged to greet the sovereign with a familiar Buon giorno!" I certainly did not contemplate such a case in stating that in my opinion MR. INGLEBY was in error in taking exception to DR. CHANCE's observation. I alluded to the formal« mode of address, such, for instance, as would be used in a communication to the king from Parliament, in which case-unless my memory deceives me-it is customary to use voi. It may be, but I think it unlikely, that I have confused this deferential voi with the Spanish usage, spoken of by Diez in the above-mentioned grammar: "doch wird vos (nach dem Wörterbuch der Akad.) immer noch Geringeren gegen sehr Vornehmen und umgekehrt gebraucht." In Portuguese also "vós is employed in elevated style; in sermons, lectures, addresses; 'Vós, Senhor,' to the king" (D'Orsey's 'Port. Gram.'), and it is to be borne in mind that the third person is the almost exclusive form of address in both of these languages. There are two obsequious prefaces in Italian to Florio's New World of Words'; they are addressed to Queen Anne in the second person singular. That of Florio himself begins thus: "In su l'altare della tua eccelsa e serenissima Maestà......che le tue innate e reali virtù ecc." In Salvini's translation of Macbeth' the following passage occurs in the last act : Macbetto. Di tua lingua A far saggio qui giungi; or presto, narra. In this case the officer is addressing the king, and MR. INGLEBY's informant makes rather a curious observation with respect to "volete" used with "Vostra Maestà." He is presumably aware that As for the Italian idiom itself, MR. ADAMS and I disagree upon two points only. One point is whether, at the present time, "voi avevi" is used of one person only or indifferently of one or more persons. The second point relates to the origin of the avevi which is used with voi. But With regard to the first point, it is quite true that in all the grammars which have been brought before me, whether the more ancient ones quoted by MR. ADAMS or the more modern ones which I happen to possess, such as Diez (third edition, ii. 146), Corticelli (revised edition, 1874, p. 76), Petrocchi (1887, p. 161), there is, as MR. ADAMS says, no question of numerical restriction. this seems to me to be due either to too great conciseness or to carelessness. They content themselves with saying that avevi is used for avevate, and do not say whether the avevate is used of one or more persons. In favour of my contention that "voi avevi" is now used by educated people of one person only I have the Italian lady mentioned in my last note. She will not budge from her statement, though she is willing to allow that some educated people who have not been in the habit, in conversation, but in conversation only-use the as she has, of teaching Italian may sometimesidiom of more than one person, whilst she believes such a use to be common among the uneducated. And I have, moreover, the testimony of no less a person than the Italian statesman Massimo d'Azeglio. In his historical novel 'Niccolò de' Lapi' (written in 1841), in the 1866 edition (published by Le Monnier, of Florence), I find no fewer than six passages in which voi, addressed to a single person, is used with a singular verb. These are, in p. 39, "voi vi dovessi," "voi eri," "voi ascoltavi"; in p. 43, "se voi non mandavi"; in p. 74, "la più piacevol beffa che voi udissi mai"; and in p. 137, se voi m'avessi ummazzata." It will be noticed that in three of these passages the voi is used with the imperf. subj. In other places, however, D'Azeglio uses the regular second person plural of one individual, as, e. g., in p. 41 "dicevate," and in p. 317 "che m'avevate promessa" (of a girl speaking to her father), so that it would seem that avevate is more respectful than voi avevi. But I cannot discover that he anywhere uses such a construction as voi avevi when more than one person is addressed. Indeed, there are at least three passages in which, in such a case, the plural is used. These are "speravate negli uomini” (p. 376), "che volevate vedere" (p. 398), and “già sapevate (p. 521). With regard to the second passage, the Italian lady is rather surprised that che volevi vedere" was not used, as the speaker is a "popolano.' And here I may observe that the voi may be left out when the verb is singular (just as it is commonly when the verb is plural), provided always that it has already been made clear that the person is addressed with voi. " It seems to me very doubtful, therefore, whether voi avevi is ever now used by educated people of more than one person. Can MR. ADAMS quote any example from a modern author? And now with regard to the origin of this avevi when used with voi. MR. ADAMS has well shown that in Old Italian a singular verb is not infrequently found with a plural pronoun used of more than one person, and this in other tenses than the imperfect and with demonstrative pronouns as well as with the personal pronoun voi; and, indeed, he has since been kind enough privately to supply me with examples in which a singular verb is used after a plural noun. All this would be likely to originate with uneducated persons, and such is the view of the three grammarians I have quoted, for Diez uses the word "volksüblich," Corticelli popolaresco," and Petrocchi "popolare"; and their view is confirmed by the fact that the voi avevi is still used of more than one person as a rule by the people only. But for a time, as is evident from MR. ADAMS's quotations, this irregular use of the singular verb was not confined to the people, but extended from them upwards and prevailed among good writers, partly, perhaps, for the reason named in my last note. Later on, when the use of voi of a single person had become more general, the voi avevi came to be restricted, among the better educated, to one person only, possibly, in part at least, for the reason assigned by the Italian lady, viz., that one person only is addressed.* Strictly speaking, voi avevi is equally ungrammatical whether it is used of one person or of more than one person. But voi is now so universally used of one person that voi avevi addressed to one person strikes one as less MR. ADAMS, however, prefers to believe that the idiom did not arise in a popular use. He follows Nannucci, who takes this avevi to be a plural derived from the Lat. habebatis, through habebati, abebati, avevati, avevai, avevi. But Nannucci cannot produce any of these intermediate forms. Nor anything more, so MR. ADAMS tells me, in favour of his view, than that some ancient writers (such as Jacopone in the thirteenth century) made the second person plural of every verb to end in i, instead of e as at present.* Such evidence seems to me altogether too scanty, and till much better is produced I must believe that this avevi was always really a singular used by the uneducated as a plural. F. CHANCE. Sydenham Hill. PRIMROSE, COWSLIP, AND OXLIP IN FRENCE (8th S. iii. 245).-MR. BOUCHIER is quite right; French dictionaries are in a fog with regard to the exact equivalents of these flowers; but the fault lies with the scientists, not with the lexicographers. I have had myself to wade through many a worse muddle, from A to Z, in scientific works, chiefly botanical and zoological. Here it happens that the English botanists have given special names to varities of the same plant, while the French botanists have not done so; and, on the other hand, as to coucou, laymen have given the same name to plants of totally different kinds. Primevère is primrose, in a general sense (Latin primula). See Chambers's Encyclopædia and Bouillet's 'Dictionnaire des Sciences.' "The common primrose (Primula vulgaris) is the plant," says Chambers, " to which the English name primrose specially belongs." And the French primevère, used alone, means that only. But primevère, with some adjective or other, is also cowslip, oxlip, and polyanthus, which are themselves kinds of primroses (Primula). Cowslip (Primula veris) is, according to Bouillet, the primevère commune, called also coucou and brayette. So Spiers's explanation of brayette as cowslip is right, and that as common primrose by the dictionary-maker whom MR. BOUCHIER mentions by the way, is wrong. Oxlip (Primula elator) is, according to Bouillet, the primevère élevée. With reference to the different renderings of coucou, we find in Littré, and also in Bescherelle (under "Coucou ") and in Bouillet (under "Narcisse" and "Lychnide"), that, besides cowslip, it means the barren strawberry plant, the cuckooflower, or ragged-robin (Lychnis flos cuculi), and the common daffodil (Narcissus pseudo-narcissus). In the last two senses the French is fleur de coucou, as well as coucou alone. MR. BOUCHIER asks how an educated man would translate such a sentence 88 I am going out to gather cowslips and primungrammatical than voi avevi addressed to more than one person. 66 • As, e. g., andati for andate. roses, and I hope to find some oxlips as well." All I can say is, that any one who tries to do this must be content to make the best of imperfect materials, and use the terms coucous, primevères, and primevères élevées. It can be done in no other way, and it is easy enough, but that French translation must needs look somewhat clumsy. F. E. A. GASC. In all the French floras I have looked into coucou is given as the vernacular name for the cowslip of our meadows or the polyanthus of our gardens, which is a derivative from it. Other French names for the same plants are brayette, coqueluchon, primerole, printanière. The application of the name oxlip is not so simple as appears at first sight. I may explain it by stating that there are in Britain three species of the genus Primula, in addition to others which are not relevant in this connexion. The three species are (1) the common primrose, Primula grandiflora, or syn., P. acaulis; (2) the_cowslip, P. veris; (3) the Bardfield, or true oxlip, P. elatior. Why No. 3 should be considered the true oxlip, or the oxlip par excellence, I do not know. It is a rare plant, and the size of the flower does not warrant the application "ox lip" (see Britten and Holland's 'Dictionary of Plant Names"). Other two much more common oxlips, one of which must have been Shakspere's plant, remain to be mentioned. The common primrose throws up its flowers singly on stalks direct from the root-stock, but there is a variety of it, which is not uncommon, which throws up from the stock a common shaft, at the top of which is borne a cluster of flowers instead of a single bloom. This is the variety caulescens of the common primrose, and is, so far as I know, the commonest oxlip. Then there is a form which is supposed to be a hybrid, or cross, between the primrose and the Cowslip, bearing its flowers on the top of a common shaft, as in the last-mentioned plant. This is known botanically as Primula variabilis, so called because its characteristics are, as might be expected from its hybrid origin, variable. I presume all these oxlips occur in France as well as in our country, and I suspect the peasantry would apply the word coucou to each and all of them. The common primrose in Northern France and Belgium is not so common as it is here; and, so far as I can glean from the French books at my disposal at the moment, is never called coucou. MAXWELL T. MASTERS. KEARNEY (8th S. iii. 188).-Unless it is desired either to throw doubt on the published pedigree of Count Kearney, in which case the point or points in doubt should be clearly stated, or to dispute the right of the Pope, while a temporal prince, to confer titles of nobility on others than his own subjects, it is difficult to see the precise value of the query signed A. I. K. The reference to Countess Tasker, whatever the facts of that case, is obviously irrelevant. The pedigree of the Kearneys of Knockanglas, co. Tipperary, afterwards of Ballinvilla (in Landed Gentry "Ballinvalla "), co. Mayo, is stated in the account of Robert Cecil, Count Kearney, in Burke's Peerage' for 1884, which I happen to have at hand, to be "on record in Ulster's Office," where it could presumably be verified. Comparing the deduction of the descent that given s.v. "Kearney of Blanchville," "Landed as given in Burke's Peerage,' above cited, with eldest son of James Kearney of Rathcoole (b. 1625, Gentry,' 1879, it would appear that John Kearney, James II. (I have been unable to trace him in m. 1648, d. 1709), was a Secretary of State to him to France, and that his younger brother, Haydn's 'Book of Dignities '), and accompanied Michael (b. 1658, d. 1716), was father of Martin, created Count de Kearnie (in 'Landed Gentry' Kearney"), who m. 1741 Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of the sixth Earl of Abercorn. From the 'Peerage' it would seem that the Secretary was father, not uncle, of Martin, Count de Kearney, an antinomy which I am not able to reconcile. The dates given in the 'Landed Gentry' favour the statement there made. Robert Cecil Kearney, in whose favour the title of Count Kearney is stated ('Peerage,' loc. cit.) to have been "revived" by letters patent, 1868, was third son of Robert Kearney of Ballinvilla (or Ballinvalla), representaof Secretary Kearney. tive of Richard, the eldest brother of the ancestor NOMAD. Maud Fitz-John, who was probably the daughter of John Fitz-Geoffrey and Isabel, though the last link of actual proof has not yet been discovered, married William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in 1298. Isabel, her daughter, married (1) Patrick Chaworth, (2) Hugh Le Despenser. Maud Chaworth, her daughter, married Henry Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, who died in 1345. Henry, Duke of Lancaster, her son, married Isabel, daughter of Henry, Lord Beaumont, and died in 1361. Blanche, his younger daughter, was the wife of John of Gaunt. Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop of York, was certainly not the son of Rosamond, and was not much, if at all, her junior. HERMENTRUDE. more difficult and more rare than they are now- Aston Clinton. 66 The statement that Henry II. had two children by Rosamund Clifford-generally known as Fair Rosamund-William de Longespée and Geoffrey, titular Bishop of Lincoln, and consecrated Archbishop of York, rests on no sure historic basis. It first appears in Speed's History of Great Britain,' in 1611. That Geoffrey was Rosamund's son is disproved by chronology. The future Archbishop of York was born in 1151/2, while Rosamund is spoken of as a girl" (puella) by Giraldus Cambrensis more than twenty years later. Walter I wrote, proving conclusively, but my reply was Map also distinctly tells us that the name of Geofnot inserted, that Henry had not two children by frey's mother was Ykenai or Hikenai, and that Rosamond. Now MR. C. W. CASS repeats the previous she was a low woman of profligate life, who prestatement. It is quite clear to any one who will sented the boy to Henry as his at the beginning consult my reference to Walter Mapes's ' De Nugis of his reign. The evidence for Longsword being Curialium,' Dist. v. cap. vi. p. 235, Cam. Soc., Rosamund's son is equally untrustworthy, and the 1850, that Geoffrey was the son of the king and fact is discredited by all sound recent historical Ykenai or Hikenai. He became Bishop of Lincoln writers. The name of his true mother is unknown at the uncanonical age of twenty, and was after-even in early tradition. The argument drawn from wards Archbishop of York, A.D. 1191, ob. 1212. It is only a popular error which makes him the son of Rosamond. There can be no question about it. Walter Mapes was both a contemporary and an acquaintance of Geoffrey. ED. MARSHALL. I cannot see the full bearing of the suggestion that the assertion of John of Gaunt's descent from Fair Rosamond might have arisen from ignorance or forgetfulness of the fact that the heiress of the main line left no children by Thomas of Lancaster. She married twice, if not thrice, after. She certainly left no child by her second husband, Ebulo le Strange. But what about her third (or fourth ?) husband? I do not think, as a fact, that the lady left any children. But MR. CASS does not notice the possibility, neither does he refer to the fact that the first William de Longespée had two sons and three daughters married, with issue, I believe; another daughter was twice married, but issueless. From one of the sons one of John of Gaunt's sons-inlaw was descended. Then, again, William de Longespée the second had, I think, three sons and one daughter at least; so the possibilities of John of Gaunt's descent from Fair Rosamond are greater than MR. CASS seems to imply. When we remember that every man has two grandfathers and two grandmothers, and that in those days the next ascending generation would be of eight different persons, one higher would include sixteen, and the next step thirty-two-by "those days" I mean days when marriages of affinity were much the grant made to Longsword by his father, shortly CHAUCER'S "STILBON" (8th S. iii. 126, 249).— The remarks by E. S. A. at the last reference are sadly behind the age. The passages from Alanus de Insulis, which he repeats, were long ago printed by Prof. Hales, and are given in full in my edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems,' Oxford, 1888, p. lxv. Of the existence of this book he seems entirely unaware; so I trust he will buy a copy. The fact that Chaucer was well acquainted with John of Salisbury, &c., is really very old indeed. All these authors, and many more, have long ago been consulted by me. Or, if I do not count, Prof. Lounsbury's 'Studies in Chaucer,' at any rate, discusses them at great length, bordering on prolixity. As to Stilbo, I am behind the age myself. Dr. Köppel showed, in 'Anglia,' xiii. 183 (1890), that he was Stilpo, of Megara, mentioned by Seneca; also that Chaucer got the name from Walter Map's Valerius,' cap. 27. Stilbon, for Mercury, occurs in Alamis, 'Anticlaud,' iv. 6. It is of no consequence what new opinion may be offered as to the person meant by Bernard the Monk. He is certainly Bernard of Clairvaux, as was expressly explained, more than two hundred |
