166
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL FKB. -27, im
INDIAN NAMES. The daily papers, com-
menting on the appointment of a native
to the Governor-General's Council in India,
warn us that " Mukharji is not a surname,
but a great Brahman cognomen." I suspect
that this is the colloquial form of the name
which appears on State occasions as Muk-
hopadhyaya. Indian family names exhibit
many peculiarities of great interest to the
onomatologist. There is a kind of surname
in use among Indian Mohammedans which
upsets all our notions of what a surname
should be. This kind is not only not here-
ditary, but differs as between brother and
brother. The explanation is that these are
really personal names. Mohammedans have
no surnames, so when brought into contact
with Western civilization they treat the
final part of their compound personal names
as such. For example, there is a class of
names commencing with Abdul, e.g., Abdul
Rahman. An Indian of that name would
evade the difficulty caused by absence of
surname by treating Rahman as one, and
figure in English society as "A. Rahman,
Esq." His brother, however, can obviously
never be Rahman. His name, we will
suppose, is Abdul Ghani, so he becomes
" A. Ghani, Esq." This is surely unique.
A real equivalent to our surnames is to be found in the Mahratta hereditary names ending in -kar, derived from names of places. The royal name of Holkar will occur to every reader. Other examples are Mom- baikar, " the man from Bombay," Shir- gaokar, " from Shirgao " ; Tanjorkar, " from Tan j ore " ; Vijapurkar, " from VI ja- pur," &c. JAS. PLATT, Jun.
" ARTIFICIAL." In the clever, but fan- tastic " appreciation " of Edgar Allan Poe which appeared in the Literary Supplement of The Times for 14 January, the following quotation is made from ' The Fall of the House of Usher ' :
" But the fervid facility ot his impromptu* could not he so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasies, the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement."
The writer observes that (except for the "artificial") this is much nearer a true account of the actual conditions that have attended the making of every lyrical poem ever written, including Poe's own. In the Supplement for the following week Mr. George Hookham wrote to suggest t?iat possibly the word " artificial," to which
exception was taken, was not used in its
ordinary modern sense, but was perhaps
connected in sense with " artificer " rather
than with " artifice." So Shakespeare in
' A Midsummer Night's Dream ' :
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our neelds created both one flower.
If " artificial " is used as if it were equivalent to producing " a work of art," it would certainly make excellent sense, both in Poe and Shakespeare, and, as Mr. Hookham remarks, it would be quite in the manner of the former. Perhaps a correspondent may be able to produce some other instance in which the word is used with this meaning. Unfortunately, I cannot refer to the word in the ' N.E.D.' W. F. PBIDEATIX.
Grand Hotel, Locarno.
" BILKER." ' H.E.D.,' while giving bilk, bilked, and bilking, does not include bilker, though the last word has at least a semi- literary ancestry. In The Daily C our ant for 27 Dec., 1717, there was announced, as part of that night's programme " by the Company of Comedians, at the Theatre in Little-Lincoln's-Inn-Fields,"
" A Dramatick Entertainment of Dancing, call'd, The Cheats, or, The Tavern Bilkers. The part of Harlequin to be perform'd by Mr. Lun, Scaramouch by Mr. Thormond, and Punch by Mr. Cook. With all the Scenes, Machines, and other Decorations proper to the Play."
Al,FBED F. ROBBINS.
" COME TO SCHOOL " CALL. In many places the school-bell is sounded, a call to the children to be in time, and this call is at times set to words :
All good children, come to school now ; Hark ! we hear the bells ring !
Ting a ling ; ting, ting, ting.
Each line is said twice in a sing-song way as the children trot along hand in hand. At any rate, this is how the infants go. There are variations, no doubt.
THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.
DB. JOHNSON AND EDMUND SMITH. In preparing his memoir of Edmund Smith for the " Lives of the Poets " Johnson makes a large preliminary quotation from what he calls " his character, as given by Mr. Oldisworth, with all the partiality of friend- ship." This, says he quite explicitly and with perfect candour, as it " comprises great part of what can be known of Mr. Smith, it is better to transcribe at once than to take by pieces." His own share in the pro- duct he designs is to be modest and sub-
