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in pig-styes." An extract from Curwen, i. 181, shows the Irish peasant sharing his cabin with his four-footed benefactor:"On stooping to enter at the door I was stopped, and found that permission from another was necessary before I could be admitted. A pig, which was fastened to a stake driven into the floor, with length of rope sufficient to permit him the enjoyment of sun and air, demanded some courtesy, which I showed him, and was suffered to enter.'

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A more classical authority, still before 1840, is Shelley, who was not always an angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain. Edipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant' (1820), is not the most ethereal of his works. The older meaning of the word "pig" is found surviving when the "First Sow" says, "My Pigs, 'tis vain to tug." But the generic sense predominates. The Chorus of Swine sing 66 we pigs"; we hear of "a jury of the pigs," "the glorious constitution of the pigs and Zephaniah is now a "hogbutcher" and pig-butcher."

now

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Heidelberg, Germany.

L. R. M. STRACHAN.

About here a pig is a pig from birth till six or eight months old, when it becomes a boar, a hog, or a sow. Swine, the plural of sow, is not used here except by the Agricultural Department, who in public notices use a swine as the equivalent of a sow, a misuse of the word. A bacon hog may be of any weight over five score. Smaller animals would be quarter-pork when dead, but whether so called from being quartered by the butcher, or from being a quarter of a year old, I cannot say. The spare-rib and griskin of a bacon hog or sow are called pigmeat, whether large or small. The divisions of an orange are called pigs. Ingots of iron are pig-iron, and a guinea-pig is a pig to the end of life. JOHN P. STILWELL.

Hilfield, Yateley, Hants.

How about the learned pig at fairs and races-really a full-grown swine, i.e., sow? A. HALL.

·

"SJAMBOK": ITS PRONUNCIATION (10th S. iv. 204, 332).—The pronunciation of this word as given in the supplement of Webster'viz., "shámbok". -is the way the word is commonly pronounced by the English-speaking people in South Africa. The Dutch people and the Kaffirs pronounce it as sambók," thej being silent, this being the correct way, I believe.

The Kaffir word is Isa-bó-ukwe, the bo being pronounced like "bau" in baulk and the u being silent.

As to the etymology of the word I have

not as yet been able to see a 'Supplement of Skeat, but I should think it is possibly from Portuguese-Malay, as are many other words in the "Taal." ARNOLD PICKFORD RAWSON. Rhodes University College, South Africa. The invariable South African pronunciation is "shambuck " with the accent equally divided, whether used as a noun or a verb. FRANK SCHLOESSER.

This work is by Voltaire, and is to be found 'ZAPATA'S QUESTIONS' (10th S. iv. 449).— in the British Museum. There is also 'The the French by a lady), pp. 28. Questions of Zapata,' &c. (translated from London, Hetherington [1840 ?] 8vo.

National Liberal Club.

FRANCIS G. HALEY.

'Les Questions de Zapata' is one of Voltaire's works, and consists of sixty-seven queries on Biblical and theological subjects. It was included in the 'Recueil Nécessaire,' and has often been reprinted both in French and English. It is, of course, included in Bengesco's Voltaire bibliography (No. 1737). WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

COL.

CHARLES LAMB (10th S. iv. 445). PRIDEAUX will find the explanation of the reference to Lamb's continental tour, to which the writer he quotes from calls attention, in The London Magazine for August, 1822. In the Lion's Head' for that month the first paragraph refers to Re-prints of Elia,' which it was intended should now and then be inserted. The first one, which appeared in the same number, was 'The Confessions of a Drunkard,' and this was followed in the next issue by 'A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People.' The paragraph above referred to runs as follows:

"Many are the sayings of Elia, painful and frequent his lucubrations, set forth for the most part (such his modesty!) without a name, scattered about in obscure periodicals and forgotten miscellanies. From the dust of some of these, it is our intention, occasionally, to revive a Tract or two, that shall seem worthy of a better fate; especially at a time like the present, when the pen of our industrious contributor, engaged in a laborious digest of his Continental Tour, may haply want the leisure to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations." (The italics are mine.) The continental tour referred to his recent visit to France. appears only to have visited Versailles, where he stayed with the Kenneys and enjoyed a few short days of connubial felicity" with Kenney's child wife Sophy, and Paris, where he met and supped with Talma the actor.

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He

It is a more difficult matter to say who it was that concealed himself under the unpleasant-sounding pen-name "Enort." But whoever he was, he certainly was, as COL. PRIDEAUX states, a very inaccurate writer, for not only is Lamb's tragedy misnamed, but the extract from 'Oxford in the Vacation' is also incorrectly quoted. Lamb did not write "I will have him (Dyer) bound in Russia," which would have been absurd-and Lamb was never absurd in his essays-but "I longed to new-coat him," &c.

COL. PRIDEAUX is greatly to be congratulated on possessing two such treasures as he mentions. To have even a copy of "Elia" is somewhat, and when he informs us that it is in boards, uncut, and with the first title-page (by which I presume he means the rare halftitle) it makes one rub one's eyes. But not content with this, when he further states that it is a presentation copy, it inclines one to the opinion that this is a very unequal sort of world. S. BUTTERWORTH.

SPLITTING FIELDS OF ICE (10th S. iv. 325, 395, 454).—Readers who are interested in this question may like to have attention directed to a passage in Lowell's essay entitled 'A Good Word for Winter,' from which we learn that he did not understand Wordsworth's lines in the 'Prelude' to be descriptive of a thaw; for we find him declaring that the most impressive sound in nature is either the fall of a tree in a forest during the hush of summer noon, or "the stifled shriek of the lake yonder as the frost throttles it." After quoting Wordsworth's lines Lowell commends Thoreau's use of the term "whoop" to designate the sound referred to, and then himself pronounces it to be "a noise like none other, as if Demogorgon were moaning inarticulately from under the earth."

F. JARRATT.

My second reference, of course, only illustrated and supported MR. BAYNE'S original contention. As to my first quotation, it is very possible that I owe him an apology for misinterpreting. But it seemed to me that in writing

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other readers of N. & Q.' may give their opinions. Personally, upon the whole I am inclined still to think this the more natural, as well as more poetic, meaning, and to make answer to MR. BAYNE'S questions, at my first reference." Surely if the poet had meant the growling of the remnant of the stream only, he would not have said "the whole imprison'd river." But perhaps we drift from the splitting fields of ice into word splitting.

By my final paragraph I intended merely to express a passing regret that Thomson does not reach the greater public by means of those popular series which, alluring primarily by pretty covers, lead their purchasers afterwards (I hope) to penetrate within. If indirectly I have sent any reader to purchase Thomson in one of the editions mentioned by MR. BAYNE, I am well content to have been guilty of quoting without sufficient cause. MR. BAYNE surely agrees that Thomson is not appreciated as he deserves. CHARLES MASEFIELD. No doubt some readers have recalled to mind Coleridge's lines in The Ancient

Mariner':

·

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound.

NORTH MIDLAND.

415, 455).-J. T. F.'s criticism of my theory is DETACHED BELFRIES (10th S. iv. 207, 290, just, but not, I think, conclusive. Innovations do not immediately become universal. Electricity is a novel mode of illuminating a house, but houses are still being built which S. D. CLIPPINGDALE. are lighted by gas.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (10th S. iv. 468).—The lines beginning Yet all these were,

When no man did them know, are to be found in the third stanza of the introduction to the second book of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.' WALTER W. SKEAT. [Several other correspondents kindly supply the reference.] 'HUGH TREVOR' (10th S. iv. 429) is by Thomas Holcroft. RALPH THOMAS.

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Till, seized from shore to shore The whole imprison'd river growls below, Thomson meant not that the water left unfrozen went growling on beneath the ice HORSE-PEW HORSE-BLOCK (10th S. iv. 27, (which I take to be MR. BAYNE's rendering) but that, upon being seized, the spirit of the 132, 334).-For ". near Cessisi," at last referwhole river, like an angered beast, "growled ence, read near Assisi. below," under the frost's action. WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK. Lowell's words, I thought that the allusion

Or, in

was to "the stifled shriek of the lake (here,

Glasgow.

'ARABIAN NIGHTS' (10th S. iv. 409).—I am

stream) as the frost throttles it." Perhaps able to inform MR. JAMES PLATT that there

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is no edition of the Alif Laila' with vowel this skull, with the invariable results of points throughout. The Calcutta edition, dreadful screams proceeding from the grave, edited by Sir W. H. Macnaghten, which is unaccountable disturbances about the house, usually considered the best, has all the verse and other equally unpleasant occurrences.' portions vocalized, but the prose is un- At the other (p. 252) MR. J. H. INGRAM speaks pointed. I have not seen the Bombay of it as the "well-known screaming skull' edition referred to by MR. PLATT, but I am of Bettiscombe House, near Bridport, Dorset," informed by the Librarian of the India Office and reminds us that his work on the 'Haunted that in this respect it exactly follows the Homes and Family Traditions of Great Calcutta edition. Metrical considerations Britain' (second series) contains an account render it desirable that the verse should be of it. I have not my copy of that work by vocalized, but the prose portions are written me, but MR. INGRAM tells us that his account in such easy Arabic that vowel-pointing, is based on the full description given to him which would add enormously to the expense by Miss Garnett, who had paid a visit to the and trouble of printing, is not at all neces-old manor house at Bettiscombe in 1883. Now sary. In 1875 I held an appointment in the Indian Foreign Office, and the rules for civil and military examinations being then under revision, the Government of India adopted my suggestion that the 'Alif Laila' should be included among the text-books for candidates. This gave rise to a certain demand for the book, and I imagine was the raison d'être of the Bombay issue.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

IN THE OPEN FIELDS

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may I be allowed, as probably the first person who made the story of "the Bettiscombe skull" known in print and that in the pages of N. & Q.' over thirty years ago (4th S. x. 183)-to protest against the skull at Bettiscombe being included in the list of Screaming Skulls"?

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If I remember rightly it was from seeing in MR. INGRAM's interesting work Miss Garnett's account, in which she very vividly described her visit to Bettiscombe (which must, I "the good woman of the house"!), and the think, have been exceptionally trying to reputation of the skull for screaming, that I was moved (in 1891) to send to the pages of the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries

SUICIDES BURIED (10th S. iv. 346, 397, 475). Surely the passage from Erckmann - Chatrian's 'Histoire d'un Paysan,' quoted by MR. H. T. SMITH, has no relation with the burial of suicides. The speaker, the bigoted old blacksmith Valentin, was alluding to the ecclesiastical a healthy and thriving descendant of its disabilities imposed on the Calvinists, and the sentence applies only to the question of burial in consecrated or unconsecrated ground-a question, alas! which is still vexatious enough to those who have to administer and provide cemeteries.

E. E. STREET.

I think MR. H. T. SMITH takes an unkind view of the intention underlying the burial of suicides at cross-roads. In the old days a crucifix was usually erected at cross-roads, and it seems the better opinion to believe that suicides were buried there that, though exiled from the churchyard, they might yet lie under the shelter and protection of the Cross. WM. CK. BD.

"THE SCREAMING SKULL" (10th S. iv. 107, 194, 252, 331).—At the second and third references are allusions to a supposed "Screaming Skull" at Bettiscombe House, near Bridport, in Dorset, in one of which (p. 194) MR. MORETON states that "the skull is said to have been that of a negro murdered by his master, a Roman Catholic priest," and in which it is said that "several attempts had been made to bury or otherwise dispose of

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great progenitor-a long discussion of this subject too long, I thought, for the pages of N. & Q.'-but which from its entirely local character would be more acceptable to Western readers. But as that excellent little periodical may not be accessible to your general readers, perhaps I may be allowed to recapitulate a little of what I said. I stated that my information had been mainly derived from a Dorset lady who in her younger days had often visited and stayed at the old manor house at Bettiscombe, and who had learnt and treasured up the legend as she had first heard it before time and publicity had lent a somewhat heightened and conjectural aspect to the tradition. I there stated that I had some twenty years before sent to N. & Q.'a somewhat general account of the superstition, treating it simply as a matter of folk-lore, and not even stating where the skull was kept. This short account appeared at 4th S. x. 183. Upon the late DR. GOODFORD, formerly Provost of Eton, inquiring for further particulars (p. 436), I gave certain additional information (p. 509). It is true that I mentioned that the skull had been pronounced to be that of a negro, but not one

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word was ever said or believed as to its possessing any screaming attributes. Miss Garnett's statement to that effect was the first that ever I had heard, nor had I been told that the owner of the skull had ever been the servant of a Roman Catholic priest, with its resulting tragedy.

If it be a negro skull-as to which I had doubts, but, though only the upper half of the skull remains, that should not be difficult to decide by an expert-I have now a much more interesting and romantic solution of its ownership in connexion with the Pinney family, which has afforded me many pleasant hours of research in the West Indies. The result of this research has since appeared in the pages of the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries at some considerable length (vol. viii. p. 308, 1903), and a final paper on the subject has just come out (vol. ix. p. 315) in the September quarterly part for the current year. These I felt were all too long-if not too local-to communicate to 'N. & Q.'

-scream.

In conclusion I may say that I have the assurance of those who knew the legend in its earliest form and on the spot that there was not at that time the slightest suggestion of the skull ever having been known to The legend in its original and true form may be all the tamer for this denial; but, knowing the subject as I do, I am jealous that the tradition should continue to be pure, and unadulterated by-it may beaccretions from other and not dissimilar sources. Like your distinguished correspondent PROF. SKEAT, I cannot abide these guesswork innovations, and I only wish that I had, like him, a stronger way of showing it. J. S. UDAL, F.S.Ă.

Antigua, W.I.

LINCOLNSHIRE DEATH FOLK-LORE (10th S. iv. 465).—What applies to Lincolnshire does not appear to have held good for Shropshire in 1904, though in this county we have many folk tales concerning the visits of birds and the fatal results of the same.

My youngest child, a boy, was born in August last year, and a few hours afterwards a pigeon, a stranger to the district, flew into the bedroom, and was with difficulty put out of the window.

The next day it appeared again by way of the nursery window, and as it evidently had come to stay, it was given good quarters in a large outside aviary.

It is now living a contented easy life, prospering in equal manner with my young hopeful.

No one in any way connected with my family died within twelve months, and, as the bird is a nun, I can only suppose my boy will have to go out into the world as a missionary. HERBERT SOUTHAM.

RABI'AH, SON OF MUKADDAM (10th S. iv. 449).-The value of the Arabic vowels, according to the best classical usage, is the same as in Italian. There are many variations in the local dialects. Each of the above names consists of three syllables, the stress falling in each case on the middle syllable. rimes Thus, Rabî'ah with Leah, and Mukaddam sounds very much like the Scotch surname Macadam. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

No Englishman can pronounce the first of these names as an Arab does, as it contains a letter which is unknown to the IndoGermanic tongues. The nearest pronunciation would be "Rubeeyah," the u as in rub, and the accent on the ee. Mukaddam should be pronounced "Mookuddum," the oo being pronounced as in foot, and the u in each case as in rub. The accent is on the second syllable. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

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capitals for street, road, &c., in my 'Aggra- and was borne by some of the Himyaritic vating Ladies,' 1880. RALPH THOMAS. kings. In its Sabæan form it is spelt Yetha' amar, which means "Yetha' has WELSH POEM (10th S. iv. 208, 392).-Dean commanded." Yetha' was the tutelary Ramsay, in his Reminiscences of Scottish god of Aden, in Himyaritic times. Life and Character,' gives an anecdote illus-ably Aaron's wife, Elisheba, whose name trating the effective vowel usage of the is Sabaan, was a native of South Arabia. Scottish dialect. If not showing a success in Further reference may be made to two papers continued vowel utterance equal to that of of mine that were published in the second the Welsh poem quoted, it has, nevertheless, volume of the Transactions of the Society of an aptness not less genuine. An interview Biblical Archæology, 1873, entitled On some between a haberdasher and a customer is set Recent Discoveries in South-Western Arabia' forth thus:and Note on M. Lenormant's "Lettre sur C. Ae oo'? l'Inscription dédicatoire Himyaritique du Temple du dieu Yat'a à Abian."" W. F. PRIDEAUX.

H. Ay, ae oo'.
C. A' ae oo'?
H. Ay, a' ae oo'.

This may be anglicized as follows:

C. One wool?

H. Yes, one wool.

C. All one wool?

H. Yes, all one wool.

W. B.

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DUELLING IN GERMANY (10th S. iv. 388, 455).-Law and custom need not agree; at any rate, they do not always do so. Duelling is an old inheritance, and as much may be said for it as against it. To-day the coward is better off than the brave man, and formerly whereas to-day one is at the mercy of lawone could fight for one's right oneself, mongers and supercilious judges. In a duel off quickly; whereas in our peaceful days one might lose one's life, but the affair came one's health into the bargain; and your lawone may lose one's cause, one's fortune, and suit drags on for years. So far as I am aware boxing in the public road was never lawful in England; yet is the time so long when such honest meetings took place past in the open every day in your country? Unfortunately it is no longer generally [As we heard this in Edinburgh more than half true "that severe social condemnation falls a century ago, the first two lines were

I think there must be an error D. M. R.'s third line. Ought not the second word to be weua, "C not weuae"? The final e seems to be redundant. It is an ingenious composition, apparently made up entirely of vowels, the Welsh w (=00) being one. Really, however, all the words having to do with "weaving" and "web" begin in their primitive form with a g-gwau, gwe, gweau, &c.; also gwiw, proper," and gauaf, "winter," the g being dropped by one of the laws of Welsh mutation. C. S. JERRAM.

Oxford.

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A oo'?
Ay, a oo',

i.e."All wool?" "Yes, all wool."]

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.

"THOLSELS" (10th S. iv. 387, 453). MR. PLATT is correct when he writes of "Tolbooth" as a Scotch term, if he means that it has been and is current across the Border; but if his intention is to give the impression that it is not also an English word, he is in error, as the following references bear witness :Dawson, History of Skipton,' p. 203. Canon Raine, Hemingborough,' 10, 149. Cambridge. Walford, Fairs,' 78. Durham.-Thoresby, 'Diary,' i. 140. Ripon.-The Antiquary, July, 1896, 214. Cambridge. 'Luard Memorial: GraceBook A,' p. 213 Bradford.-'Depositions from York Castle' (Surtees Soc.), p. 118. EDWARD PEACOCK. ITHAMAR (10th S. iv. 387, 438).—The interest of this name consists in the fact that it was undoubtedly a South-Arabian appellation,

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on any one who refuses to face his antagonist's pistol. " This only holds good with officers in the army and navy. G. KRUEGER. Berlin.

SAMUEL WHITCHURCH, POET (10th S. iv. 429).-He was an ironmonger at Bath and a correspondent of the old Monthly Magazine. A list of his works will be found in the 'Biographical Dictionary of Living_Authors (1816), and also in Allibone. G. F. R. B.

SIR LAWRENCE DUNDAS (10th S. iv. 448) was the second son of Thomas Dundas, of Fingask, by his wife Bethia, daughter of John Baillie, of Castlecarry, Shropshire. According to Collins :

"In 1756 he attended his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland from London, and had the charge of supplying all the troops in Scotland during the Duke's command......In 1748 his Royal Highness ordered him to attend in Flanders, and under his command. In 1759 he engaged in several appointed him Commissary-General to the army large and extensive contracts with the Lords of His

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