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BETHAM.-Can any of your readers inform me
in what parish in Staffordshire a place called
Bethom or Betham was situate? From about
1490 until 1600 I find it mentioned without an
interval as the place of residence of different
Staffordshire families. After the last-mentioned
date I find no trace of it.
F. W. M.

INSCRIPTIONS ON ALTARS.-Can you tell me of
any instances of inscriptions on altars? I have
heard of one near Denbigh, inscribed in Greek
characters "Non Incognito Deo." It is said to
have been on an old altar table in a church
formerly the old parish church of Denbigh, and is
now about a mile from Denbigh. After the above
words come "I. R., 1617." Can any of your
correspondents throw any light on the subject?

A. G.

VERTUE.-There was a Vertue a bookseller at the Royal Exchange, whose widow married the famous Samuel Goatsby, and he carried on the business, dying at a great age in 1808. The widow's name was Hannah Vertue. Timperley spells it Virtue, but he is wrong. Was her husband a descendant of Geo. Vertue, the engraver ? C. A. WARD.

Walthamstow.

MILL'S LOGIC.'-At p. 228 of his 'Principles of Science,' Prof. Jevons says: "But I shall feel bound to state, in a separate publication, my very deliberate opinion that many of Mill's innovations in logical science, and especially his doctrine of reasoning from particulars to particulars, are entirely groundless and false." Has such a publication ever appeared; and, if so, who are the publishers, and what is its price? E. HOBSON.

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Surely a more sarcastic commentary on the prevailing mode of furnishing derivations of placenames than that afforded on the page last quoted could hardly be met with. Three guesses at the derivation of the one name Wetherby are backed by such names as those of SIR J. A. PICTON and CANON TAYLOR, of which it is perfectly safe to say that, while two of them must be wrong, it is most likely all three of them are. Admitting the possibility of the compound viðar-bær-though I greatly doubt if it ever could have been "standard" or CAPT. MARRYAT.-This popular author, chiefly" classical" Old Danish or Icelandic-still it is not of books relating to seafaring life, is said, in his clear how it ever could have meant "wooden house." 'Life, by his daughter, Mrs. Church, to have been The authority quoted by CANON TAYLOR gives to born in Westminster. No special locality is given. the Icel. bar or býr, Dan. and Swed. by, the meanIs it known where he was born? ing of " a farm, a landed estate," and adds that in Iceland it denotes "" a farm, or farmyard and buildings." In other words, but for the "dirty acres " there would be no bar or by. Nor do I see how this consideration is to be excluded in the attempt to explain the formation and meaning of an English place-name ending in by. But besides, in such a settlement, over and above the owner's or settler's own domicile, the dwelling or dwellings of his servants-thrall or free-the byres and stables and cotes for his stock, the lathes for his corn, and the like, have all to be thought of as

Emanuel Hospital, S.W.

J. MASKELL.

BEVERIDGE OR BELFRAGE.-I should be glad to know whether this is strictly a Scottish family name. Bishop Beveridge was born in Leicestershire, and I am not aware that he came of a Scottish family. The name is very common in Fife. Belfrage is the older form of it. Its derivation is unknown to me.

Alloa.

A. W. CORNELIUS HALLEN.

Angles to the exclusion of the Saxons; and it has
been alleged, moreover, that it is not always easy to
distinguish between Anglian and Scandinavian
names and words. But there is one thing abun-
dantly clear,—that no derivationist of English place-
names is in a very good position if he be desirous to
conduct his inquiries in the only legitimate and
reasonable way, and that is on the same lines as
the compilation of the New English Dictionary."
He has not the materials. There are copious lists
of the place-names occurring in different north con-
in England, save, perhaps, the Domesday list, which
is not too accessible to the general reader. And
until such lists are made, and are made available to
the general student, we can have nothing but what
is, for the most part, made up of essentially guess-
work derivations. The foreign lists referred to are
not only useful in their way to the English inquirer,
they are altogether indispensable. But without
the corresponding English lists they lack more
than half their possible utility. The lists of field,
and common field names alone would be of almost
unimagined utility. But there seems to be no
one-no society even-to take the matter up. I
know that it has been suggested once and again,
and that in either case the response has been,
"Our hands are too full as it is." The work of
some of these societies, however, must now be
getting fast on. Can none of them be put on this
-as yet new-quest?
J. C. ATKINSON.
Danby in Cleveland.

constituting the structural part of the composite by; and these are several buildings, not simply a 66 house." On this ground, therefore, CANON TAYLOR'S explanation of "wooden house" seems to be inadmissible. But even sinking the farm | part of the idea altogether, and substituting "buildings" for "house" would not meet all the difficulties attending the importation of the word viðar, or the meaning "wooden." For what were such buildings, and alike in the Scandinavian lands and in England, actually and universally framed and made of? There is but one answer to the ques-tinental districts or provinces. There are none such tion, wood, and wood only. And if so, what becomes of the distinctiveness, the essence of the meaning, of the name itself? It would be something like calling a house in Old Whitby the "Redtiled House" by way of distinction. Neither do I think either of SIR J. A. PICTON's suggestions at all happier on the score of meaning. It seems but a very poor compliment to the common sense of the colonists who settled this district, and named their several settlements, to assume that they could do no better in the way of name-giving than the nonsensical platitude of "the farm-settlement of a wether," or that "of the weather." For my own part, and after thirty-five years of consideration and study of the place-names of this North Yorkshire district, I am satisfied that in the strangely preponderating majority of the place-names ending in by-not to advert to others now-where the prefix is not manifestly a qualifying word-as in Mickleby, Overby, Netherby, Kirkby, or Kirby, Newby, &c.-it is unquestionably a personal name. The simplest inspection of a carefully compiled list of such names in their earliest known forms is (7th S. vi. 445).—Although the winged globe and sufficient to establish this point. Add to this that caduceus is not to be found in the great collection the same personal name is perpetually found in the of Imprese Illustri' by Ruscelli (Venice, 1584), general class of like names, both with the in- this evidently arises from its not having been flexional genitival form and the genitival s, and a appropriated by any particular princely or noble suggestion is at once afforded as to the possible or house. It was, however, a convenient emblem for probable explanation of the prefix in Wetherby-a a painter or engraver to put on a portrait, as a flattersuggestion which loses no force from the circum-ing innuendo that the exalted position of the perstance that the names which follow Wedrebi in the sonage portrayed was as much the result of merit as Domesday list are Wedreslei and Wedresleie, and of the accident of high birth. With the substitution from the further circumstance that such Scan- of a winged cap of honour for the winged globe, it dinavian names as Ketell Vedur, Vedra-Grímr, will be found in Alciat. See page 146 of the and the like, are to be met with. It may also be French translation of his Emblems' (Lyon, added that SIR J. A. PICTION'S collation of the 1549), illustrating the emblem Essex name Wethersfield (or Weathersfield, as it compaigne":— A vertu, fortune used constantly to be spelt in the days of my boyhood, when I lived there), is not happy. I have a list of a dozen different forms of that name by me, and while these vary in the equally extravagant and extraordinary manner I do not find it in Paradin's 'Symbola Heroica known to students of such matters, the Domesday (Antwerp, 1563), but it turns up again, beautifully -and, I suppose, ultimate-form known is Westre-engraved by Crispin de Pas, in the Nucleus felda. SIR J. A. PICTON also speaks of the predominance of "Saxon" names of places in the Wetherby district. Is that so? I had thought the district was one that had been occupied by the

EGYPTIAN HIEROGRAMS ON ENGLISH PICTURES

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D'æles, Serpens, et Amalthées cornes
Ton Caducée (O Mercure) tu ornes:
Monstrant les gens d'esprit, et d'eloquence,
Auoir par tout des biens en uffluence.

Emblematum Selectissimorum quæ Itali vulgo
Impresas (sic) vocant,' by Gabriel Rollenhagen, of
Magdeburg (Cologne, 1611). The cut by De Pas,
afterwards used by Wither in England, illustrates

the motto “Virtuti fortuna comes," and bears this the states of modern Europe probably originated epigram:

Virtuti fortuna comes, Sudore paratur Fructus honos oneris, fructus honoris onus. When the symbol is found on a royal person's portrait, the globe takes the place of the cap, and means that personal merit has made him or her worthy of the right to rule. Simply this, and no deep mystery of "Egyptian hierograms" such as it would seem is surmised by your correspondent J. E. J. is the real solution of the query. FREDK. HENDRIKS.

DR. GUILLOTIN (5th S. i. 426, 497; 7th S. vi. 230, 292). In the "Scelta d'alcuni Miracoli e Grazie della Santissima Nunziata di Firenze descritti dal P. F. Gio. Angiolo Lottini, in Firenze, 1619," small 4to., there is a plate, at p. 208, to illustrate cap. lxvii., in which an instrument exactly like the modern guillotine is represented. The chapter is headed, "Dovendosi tagliar il collo a Francesco, è miracolosamente impedito il taglio della Mannaia"; and on p. 210 the miracle is described :

"Posciachè tagliata dal Giustiziere la corda, a cui legata la grave mannaia attiensi, e questa con grâ ruina e prestezza sopra dell' esposto collo cadendo: non pur la pelle non gl' intaccò o recise: ma all' opposto di quanto fare quel taglio solea, si rattenne, in niente la carne offese, nè in parte alcuna fe nocumento."

Though more than a century later than the drawings referred to by MR. GIBBS, this passage is valuable as showing the general use of the instrument in Italy. W. E. BUCKLEY.

Very good representations of the guillotine, "standing in no need of being further perfected," are in Holinshed's 'Chronicle, 1577, vol. ii. p. 654, &c., which, although a valuable book, is not rare, as it is to be found in almost every library R. R. of any pretension.

Boston, Lincolnshire.

The whole history of the guillotine, with its anticipations and results, may be seen in J. W. Croker's History of the Guillotine,' from the Quarterly Review, 1844, Lond., J. Murray, 1853. ED. MARSHALL.

However in the territory we now call France. that may have been, they certainly reached us in a French dress. When, therefore, we speak of the romance hero, not of the

magnus imperator, Boni fructus bonus sator, Et prudens agricola

it is better to say Charlemagne. The distinction
There is but a very shadowy
is not a vain one.
likeness between the "Christi miles fortis," in
whose honour the priests of Aachen sang, and the
hero whose deeds were chanted by minstrels from
Kirkwall to Palermo and from Breslau to Cadiz.

ASTARTE.

"BRING" AND "TAKE" (7th S. vi. 225, 313, 454).—It is a noticeable fact that those who have spoken Gaelic in their youth almost invariably use bring where others would say take. A typical instance occurs to me. Once, in a strange place, and in somewhat peculiar and trying circumstances, I was along with a friend whose Gaelic idiom still troubled him. We sadly needed a place of refuge and entertainment, and when at the end of our own resources, my friend suddenly stopped in front of a stalwart policeman, and in theatrical tones observed, "You'll require to bring us to a place of refreshment, sir!" Being thus partly entreated, partly commanded, and very nearly threatened, the official, with a docile bewilderment of expression, did as requested, and our troubles were over. Compare, however, with this, the appeal of the dainty Rosalind to the shepherd in 'As You Like It, II. iv. 69, and it will appear that the idiom is not necessarily an Irishism after all :

I pr'ythee, shepherd, if that love, or gold,
Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
Bring us where we may rest ourselves, and feed.
THOMAS BAYNE,

Helensburgh, N.B.

FRIAR'S LANTHORN (7th S. vi. 168, 257, 338, 473).-The ignis fatuus or Will-o'-the-wisp is supposed in popular superstition to be generally a soul which has broken out of purgatory, and not particularly the soul of a priest. I refer to Brand's Popular Antiquities,' vol. iii. p. 398 of Bohn's edition. I think that the explanation to which MR. GRIFFINHOOFE alludes can hardly be correct, although ingenious enough. E. YARDLEY.

CHARLEMAGNE (7th S. vi. 426).—There cannot be any doubt that the name of the great Frank should be written "Charles" by Englishmen. That is the best English equivalent for his name; and so he was almost always written BELGIAN CUSTOM (7th S. vi. 249, 336, 456).— and spoken of until recent days, when it became a fashion to imitate French ways. If your Is not this so-called Belgian custom of hanging out correspondent will take the trouble to look up a bundle of straw suspended by a long string from the references given in the index to the pub- a window, as a sign of repairs going on above, also lications of the Parker Society, he will find many an English practice? If my memory serves me examples of the way his name was written in the rightly, I have noticed more than once, when sixteenth century. It would be easy to give seven-travelling on the river steamers on the Thames, a teenth century examples almost without limit.

The romances concerning the great founder of

similar bundle of straw suspended by a cord over one of the archways of Waterloo Bridge (which at

the time was undergoing repair), and I took it that it was intended as a friendly warning that if we chose to steer directly underneath it we might suffer for our temerity by a brick or a stone falling upon our heads. J. S. UDAL. Inner Temple.

He

SIR MICHAEL LIVESEY (7th S. vi. 408).-Sir M. Livesey was one of the Commissioners and Council of War appointed for the county of Kent, by ordinance of Parliament, April 23, 1645. is frequently mentioned in 'The Declaration of Col. Anthony Weldon,' 4to., 1649. Weldon was major in Livesey's regiment of horse, and quarrelled with his colonel, whom he accused of misconduct as a soldier (pp. 13-26). See also Weldon's petitions in the Record Office. Livesey was present at Cropredy Bridge and Alresford. He took part in the defeat of the Earl of Holland's rising in July, 1648 (Rushworth, iv. 2, 1182). After the Restoration he fled to Holland. In September, 1663, he is said to have been living at Arnheim ('Cal. State Papers, Dom.,' 1663-4, p. 266).

C. H. FIRTH. CHARTISTS (7th S. vi. 187, 273, 432).-William Lovett, cabinet maker, who died at 137, Euston Road, London, August 8, 1877, drew up, in 1837, the address and rules of the Working Men's Association, and for some time acted as the secretary. A volume in the British Museum, marked 8138a, contains thirty-two pamphlets relating to the proceedings of the association. For an account of William Lovett (who suffered imprisonment for his political and social opinions) and his writings consult the Bibliotheca Cornubiensis,' pp. GEORGE C. BOASE.

1269.

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that Borrow's note-books, MSS., and correspondence went to America, to the possession of Prof. W. J. Knapp, Yale University, New Haven, who is an enthusiastic student of Borrow. Prof. Knapp intends to publish a full biography of Borrow, and will correct many errors that have been made in the inadequate notices of him that have appeared from his pen appeared in an American magazine, in this country. An interesting article on Borrow the Chautauquan, November, 1887. Borrow was born July 5, 1803, and so was more than " twentyone when 'Romantic Ballads' was published." O. W. TANCOCK. Norwich,

"Faustus: his Life, Death......Translated from the German of F. M. von Klinger by G. B.," 1825, 8vo., heads the list of Borrow's works appended to the sketch of his life in the 'Dict. of Nat. Biog.,' vol. v. p. 408. G. F. R. B.

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'NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY,' VOL. III. (7th S. vi. 347).-The following instances of the employment of elect may be of use to MR. BRADLEY:

"Poet (laughing). Ha, ha, ha, ha......if he should, and the 324,The Snake in the Grass,' ed. 1760, p. 97. elect had but wit enough to stand out."-Aaron Hill,

36, James Street, Buckingham Gate, S.W. THE FIRST PUBLISHED WORK OF GEORGE BORROW (7th S. vi. 428).-The Romantic Ballads' was not the first published work, but it was the first that bears his name. He had published in 1825 Faustus: his Life, Death, and Descent into Hell,' translated from the German, London, Simpkin & Marshall, 1825. It was a translation of Von Klinger's 'Faustes Leben,' &c. There are two issues of the Romantic Ballads.' It was first issued in May, 1826, as 'Romantic Ballads, translated from the Danish, and Miscellaneous Pieces,' by George Borrow, Norwich, S. Wilkin, 1826, 8vo., pp. xi, 187. Then part of the edition was handed to a London publisher, and issued with a new titlepage, ending, "London: John Taylor, Waterloo Place, 1826." I think copies of this issue are more common. Probably something of the same kind was done in the matter of the Faustus,' for I have seen a copy with a preface dated "Norwich, April,

1826." There is no doubt that he also wrote 'Celebrated Trials, &c., to the Year 1825,' which Sir Richard Phillips published in six volumes on March 19, 1825. I am not sure if it is known

"Young Apollo, Laureat supreme, but conferring Bays of a new Model, on a Laureat elect, to encourage him."Ibid., p. 88.

"Poet, Who? I! If ever I make songs, in a fright, I'll put up for Poet-elect, to the Opera."-Ïbid., p. 99.

F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

THE SCENES OF JOHN CONSTABLE'S PICTURES

(7th S. vi. 426).—MR. COBBOLD, in writing to you respecting this matter, has perhaps followed the course which appeared best to him, but I regret that he did not previously communicate to me his intention of so doing. That he has been treated with discourtesy I at once admit, but this has been through a misunderstanding. Upon receiving his letter I at once sent it to the writer of the article, and asked him to reply to it. I now for the first time learn that "he thought it better to do nothing in the matter." I had been waiting to hear the result from him, which accounts for no correction having appeared in the Art Journal. It is now, unfortunately, too late to insert it in last year's volume. MARCUS B. HUISH, Editor. PITSHANGER, EALING (7th S. v. 448; vi. 33, 317, 414).-I am concerned only with the alleged equation of y=2, which I regard as a misapprehen

no reply; but, aided by his comrades, builds the cruel stones higher and higher until they reach her breast. Again she appeals in vain, and implores him, for the sake of their unborn babe, to set her free. Steadily, remorselessly, her murderers close the walls around her till the living tomb is finished, and her dying voice is heard reproachfully whisper

sion. We are referred to the Scottish Dalziel, also
written Dalyell; the name is topographical. Dal-
ziel, in Lanarkshire, was written Dalgheal, i. e., white
mead or fair meadow, our Shenley. Here dal is
the Celtic "part, share, or section," equating the
Teutonic dale, deal, dole. Now gheal may well pair
off with the Teutonic "yellow," cf. gelt, gilt; but
the suggested z is, I think, a misreading. Speaking:-
ing genealogically, Dalziel reads "I dare." Well,
I dare not define my thoughts anent this legend.
Zell is common on the Continent; it is, I under-
stand, a form of cell, celle, celles, common in France;
Celtic kil.
A. HALL.

KIRK-GRIMS (7th S. vi. 265, 349).-I am not aware of any church in England of which the story mentioned by your correspondent is told, but there is a similar legend in Transylvanian folk-lore, which is as follows. The Hospodar Negru, who reigned from 1513 to 1521, was taken by the Turks as a hostage to Constantinople, where, by the assistance of a Greek architect, a superb mosque was built by him for the Sultan Selim I., which so pleased that potentate that he dismissed him to his own country with rich presents, so as to enable him to build a church in his principality. Accompanied by the Greek, whose name was Manoel, and nine master-masons, Negru left Constantinople, and on arriving in his own territories selected a site on the river Argisch, where the ruins of an ancient temple stood, for the erection of his new church. The builders set to work, but, wonderful to relate, the walls which were constructed in the daytime were thrown down at night. Manoel at last had a dream, in which he heard a voice, which said that all their labour would be in vain unless they built up in the masonry the first woman who should appear in the morning. He informed his nine comrades of this, and they bound themselves with a solemn oath to do as the voice had directed.

The following morning Manoel, to his horror, beholds his own wife Annika approaching the fatal building, and, falling on his knees, he implores the heavens to send rain, so that a raging flood would impede her progress. His prayers are heard, but it is all in vain, for the faithful wife, who is carrying her husband's breakfast, struggles through the rising waters and howling tempest, till at last, smiling and triumphant, she reaches where he stood, and is greeted by him with the accustomed kiss. With a breaking heart-remembering his vow, but disguising his anguish as best he couldhe carries her up the scaffolding, and then proposes to her, as if in a merry mood, that she would place herself in a niche and see them build around her. The poor young wife claps her hands in glee at the idea. The wall gradually rises around her feet, then the masonry reaches her knees. Fear has now taken the place of merriment in her heart, and she begs to be released. Her husband makes

Treat me not thus cruelly, Manolli, oh! Manolli,
The dreadful wall has now closed o'er me,
Naught but darkness is before me,

Manolli, my Manolli-husband, master, Manolli !
After the victim has been thus immured the build-
ing goes on without interruption, and is soon com-
pleted to the satisfaction of Prince Negru. Shortly
afterwards, when the ten masons are employed
putting the finishing touch to their work, Negru
asks them if they would be able to build a still more
glorious temple. Exulting in their skill, they boast-
fully call from their lofty position that they would
On receiving this reply the Hos-
be able to do so.
podar, who had no desire that his church should be
eclipsed, has the ladders removed, so that his un-
fortunate servants should be left to perish. With
much ingenuity Manoel and his fellow craftsmen
make artificial wings of pieces of scantling, and,
trusting to these frail supports, launch themselves
into the air. They are killed by the fall, and, with
the exception of Manoel, are turned into stones.
He as he is dying imagines he hears his wife's
voice calling her last sad refrain, "Manolli, my
Manolli," and, as tears rise to his glazing eyes at
the mournful sound, he is transformed into a foun-
tain, which to the present time is known as Manoel's
Well. Madame Gerard, in her recently published
work 'Beyond the Forest,' gives extracts from the
doina, or folk-song, entitled 'Temple Argisch,'
which contains the foregoing story.

Cork.

R. STEWART PATTERSON.

There seems to have been a general superstition that the stability of a building could be ensured by the sacrifice of a human being, and we have many legends that church towers and other constructions are assured of lasting by the fact that some one (usually the wife or child of the master-builder or architect) is built up into the wall or buried alive beneath the foundation. This may account for some of the ghosts that, on the best authority, are accused of haunting this or that church. Of course in great buildings it is too often a deplorable incident that life is lost by some untoward accident, and this may have given rise to the popular belief. It holds to this day. I was asked if it was not true that a man had been thus buried beneath one of the towers of the great Brooklyn bridge, and I had some difficulty in convincing the inquirer that it fable. was pure

Closely connected with this story of life-tribute is the saying that blood makes a durable mortar,

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