Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/22

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. JULY *, im

led to that of "to watch over, to direct, to guide." The Middle-English wīten had a similar sense, as in the Ancren Riwle, p. 14: "The vif wittes, thet witeth the heorte alse wakemen," the five senses, which watch over the heart like watchmen.

The allusion to the German weisen must, of course, be taken to mean that this German word is a more deflected form, ultimately deducible from the same Indo-Germanic root *weid.

The question asked at p. 171 was quite different, viz., Is the E. guide derived from a word spelt akid, presumably Arabic, as is calmly asserted in a translation of the Moallakat? Of course not; but you can never cure an Englishman who is staggered by an accidental resemblance between an English and Eastern word of rushing, blindly enough, to a rash conclusion.

Walter W. Skeat.


Hove (10 S. ix. 450).—Hove is a parish of equal antiquity with Brighton, being mentioned in Domesday Book as Hov, and deriving from a Saxon word meaning "low-lying." The name Cliftonville was coined by the builders in the fifties for a few new streets to the east of the old village of Hove, but well within the parish boundaries. So to talk about "the Cliftonville end of Brighton being called Hove" is absurd. The old name disappeared for all but parochial purposes from the fifties to the eighties, West Brighton coming into favour, but was restored when incorporation came, the Post Office and railway company joining hands with the municipality to give the new borough a separate existence from Brighton in name as well as fact. I thought and hoped the objectionable Cliftonville was obsolete. Perceval Lucas.


A. C. T. asks for "information as to how the Cliftonville end of Brighton came to be called Hove." A more pertinent inquiry would have been how a portion of the parish of Hove came to be called Cliftonville. Hove was a manor at the time of the Conquest, and has been a parish, at any rate, since the beginning of the thirteenth century, and probably before, whereas Cliftonville is a modern monstrosity in nomenclature. If what A. C. T. wants is an account of the origin of the modern borough of Hove, perhaps the following facts may be of service to him. In 1830 the east portion of the parish of Hove, adjoining Brighton, having been built over, was placed under the government of a new body called "The Brunswick Square and Terrace Commissioners." In 1858 Hove village, having begun to grow, was placed under a body called "The West Hove Commissioners." In 1874 the two bodies were amalgamated to form "The Hove Commissioners." Their jurisdiction was extended to the adjoining parish of Aldrington 26 Sept., 1893. In 1894 the Commissioners were abolished and an Urban District Council formed. The town continued to be governed under the Local Government Board till 1898, when it was incorporated by Royal Charter dated 8 August, and is now governed by a mayor, ten aldermen, and thirty councillors. The population of the borough of Hove in 1904 was 39,305. John B. Wainewright.


This place derives its name from the fact of its having first constituted the endowment of Hova Ecclesia and Hova Villa, two prebends in the cathedral church of Chichester. J. Holden MacMichael.


Maghull Yates (10 S. ix. 469).—It is not improbable that the Stipendiary Magistrate for the Manchester County Division, J. M. Yates, Esq., K.C., might be able to supply Alter Ego with the information he seeks. Mistletoe.


Hungarian Grammar (10 S. ix. 489).—In addition to Singer's 'Grammar' (Trübner, 1882), the 'Ungarische Sprachlehre' in the "Gyakorlati Beszélgetésekkel" series of Rozsnyai Käroly of Budapest, Muzeumkorüt 15, might be found useful. It costs 60 fillér. M.


The best is still Csink's. It has long been out of print, but any capable second-hand bookseller should be able to procure a copy.

L. L. K.


"Angel" of an Inn (10 S. ix. 488).—Is it not possible that either of the two following explanations will meet the query? The room may have been the second floor, outside of which the sign of an angel was suspended, or it may have been one in which there was an open bed without bedposts, known as an "angel-bed."

J. Holden MacMichael.


Was not this a common name for one of the reception-rooms in inns in olden days? So Hostess Quickly speaks of her "Dolphin-chamber," and Cherry, in the 'Beaux Stratagem,' cries: "Chamberlain, shew the Lyon and the Rose." It would be interesting to know whether all such rooms were called