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NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. XL FEB. 13, im
hundred other like places in. the Bahama
Archipelago. The indigo of the horizon, clear-
ing itself, in the middle distance, into lines of
flashing emerald and sapphire, and then
melting in the nearer waters into tones of
jasper and topaz, until at last the iridescent
wave breaks in foam upon a beach of snow,
is a thing that must be seen to be believed.
FBANCIS KING.
BRUGES : ITS PRONUNCIATION (10 S. x. 408, 473 ; xi. 74). In justice to myself I must point out that MR. LIONEL ISAACS has mis- understood me. I maintained that when this name is spelt Bruges the French pro- nunciation of it is preferable to the anglicized " Brew-jees," but I did not enter into the question of whether Bruges should be superseded by Brugge as the English name of the town. I submit that MR. ISAACS has started a new controversy. He would, I gather, insist on our using the Flemish instead of the French names for all places in Flanders, but would excuse us from writing Luik and Namen instead of Liege and Namur, because those are in the Walloon district. This at any rate is consistent, and better than the extraordinary muddle we find in Browning's poem ' How We brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.' where the local names are drawn from no fewer than four languages English, French, Flemish, and German. It is my own ex- perience that more Flemish than French is spoken in Flanders ; in fact, it is useless for a traveller to venture far unless he knows how to " Vlaamsch klappen," i.e. speak the native tongue. JAMES PLATT, Jun.
I can remember meeting many years ago, at Queen's College, Oxford, Thomas H. Ludlow Bruges, M.A. of that college, where he had graduated in 1818. His name cer- tainly was then pronounced as a mono- syllable, and was probably pronounced in a similar manner in the West of England, where he had represented Bath and Devizes. In Burke's ' Landed Gentry ' there is a short pedigree of Bruges of Seend, co. Wilts.
JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.
EGG GOOD IN PARTS (10 S. xi. 70). The phrase " excellent [not " good "] in parts, like the curate's egg," which has become proverbial in its application, owes its origin to a picture in Punch which appeared some twenty years ago. It depicts a curate breakfasting with a bishop. The former a meek individual of the ' Private Secretary ' is apparently in trouble with his egg.
The bishop observes : "I am afraid that
egg is not quite good, Mr. Simpson ? "
" Oh, thank you, my Lord, it is excellent
in parts." EUSTACE REYNOLDS-BALL.
27, Chancery Lane, W.C.
[S. D. C. also refers to Punch.']
' THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR ' : WOLF'S CRAG (10 S. xi. 46). MR. PICKFORD, in discussing ' The Bride of Lammermoor,' says that " the original of Wolf's Crag is undoubtedly Fast Castle." There is cer- tainly a tradition to this effect, and as I was spending two months of last summer in the neighbourhood of Fast Castle, I took some pains to find out what ground there is for the tradition.
A visit to Fast Castle will satisfy any of your readers that it could not possibly be the Wolf's Crag described by Sir Walter Scott. The Castle is situated on rugged rock almost severed from the land, as Wolf's Crag is described to be ; but there the similarity ends, because the rock is not more than 50 or 60 feet above the level of the sea, whilst the cliffs immediately behind it rise to a height of several hundreds of feet. Consequently it is impossible to obtain from the Castle that v view over the surrounding moors which could be had from Wolf's Crag.
Moreover, in a note to the " Border Edition " of ' The Bride of Lammermoor ' the author states that he had never seen Fast Castle except once from the sea, and that it was only the fancy of some of his readers that identified it with Wolf's Crag. PERCY F. WHEELER.
6, Kenningtoii Court, W.
LADY HONORIA HOWARD (10 S. xi. 66). It may be added that this lady was married to Sir Robert Howard at Wootton Basset Church on 10 Aug., 1665 ; her first husband, Sir Francis Englefield (married 1656), had died in May only of the later year. She was buried at Englefield, 10 Sept., 1676.
Sir Robert Howard's first wife (married 1 Feb., 1645) was Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Kingsmill of Malshanger Church, Oakley, Basingstoke (d. 1662), whose elder daughter Dorothea was married on 30 March, 1639, to John Fanshawe of Parsloes, Essex. It was at the house of Lady Honora O'Brien doubtless Lemenagh Castle that Lady Fanshawe, wife of Sir Richard, saw the ghost which cried, " Ahone " (Lady Fanshawe's memoirs, ed. 1907, p. 58). The reason of the Fanshawes' visit to her was no doubt that her elder sister Mary was married to Viscount Cullen, brother of the second wife of Sir
