io s. XL JCXE 19,
NOTES AND QUERIES.
48-5
1856. Musical Bouquet Edition. One Hundred
Songs by Charles Dibdin : Music and words.
London : Musical Bouquet Office, 192, High
Holborn. 1856.
Royal 8vo, pictured green paper cover. Memoir ! 2 pp. ; songs, pp. 5 to 72.
1859-60. *Xaval and other songs of Charles Dibdin. . . .arranged. . . .by H. Phillips.
Folio. Nos. 6, 8, 10, and 12 are in the British Museum.
1861 (?). *Charles Dibdin's Sea Songs auJ other Nautical favourites. No. 46 of Chappell's Musical Magazine. 4to.
1863. *The Songs of C. Dibdin.
110 Songs, without accompaniments. 8vo.
1863 Sea Songs and Ballads. By Dibdin and others. London : Bell & Daldy, 186, Fleet Street ; and Sampson Low, Son & Co., 47, Ludgate Hill, 1863. 16mo, pp. xiv, 328.
1865 (circa), Cramer's Vocal Gems, No. 15. Twelve Songs by Dibdin. London : J. B. Cramer & Co., 201, Regent Street. W. Price 6d. Royal 8vo, pp. 49 to 72.
1868-1874. *A Choice Collection of Nautical Songs by C. Dibdin. 20 numbers, folio, London.
1874. *The Britannia Quadrilles on Dibdin's
best melodies. By R. Hughes. Folio.
1874. *Our Sailors' Quadrille on the Nau- tical Melodies of Charles Dibdin. By H. West. Folio.
1877. Sea Songs and Ballads by Charles Dibdin. London and New York, George Routledge & Sons, 1877.
16mo. Decorated stiff yellow paper cover. Price one shilling. Consists of two separate portions, with distinct titles, viz., Sea Songs, 142 pp. ; Sea Ballads, 144 pp. Probably they first appeared as separate volumes.
1877. *Royal Sailor Quadrilles on Dibdin's
airs. By E. Delorme. Folio.
1891. The Royal Naval Exhibition Edition. Charles Dibdin's Songs [Portrait after Devis.] Price Twopence. London : Published by Ritchie & Co., 6, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.
8vo, paper cover. No title ; pp. 62, and 2 pp. index.
1905. Sea Songs and Ballads. Charles Dibdin. London : The Library Press, 9, Duke Street, Charing Cross. N.D. 12mo, pp. 160. Vol. VI. of the Cameo Classics.
E. RiMBAtn/r DIBDIN.
Morningside, Sudworth Road, New Brighton.
SEETHING LANE. (See 7 S. viii. 327, 395.) I have not observed any solution of the meaning of this name of a London street. But at the latter reference several old spellings are given, from Riley's ' Memorials of London,' &c., which are (I think) quite sufficient to solve it. The printed spellings are Siventhenelane, Sinechenelane, Syne- chenelane ; and at a much later date, Sidon, Sything, or Seeding Lane. Those who know the ways of editors will easily perceive that th in the first form is a misprint for ch ; and that n in the second and third forms is a misprint for u, the symbol for v. This reduces the spellings to Sivenchene, Siuechene, Syuechene ; and it is highly probable that
the former n in Sivenchene is due (as not
unfrequently is the case) to anticipation of
the second n. and so goes for nothing. We
then have the form Sivechene to deal with,
in which the che is the usual Anglo-French
way of writing ke ; and the final e may be
mute. I see no reason why Sivechene may
not represent Sifecan, the regular genitive
case of the known A.-S. name Sifeca, which
occurs in the poem named ' The Wanderer.'
Moreover, Sifeca can hardly be separated
from Seofpca ; for which see Birch, ' Cart.
Saxon.,' iii. 201, in the place-name Seo/ocan
wyrth, representing (as I am told) the modern
Seacourt, near Oxford. If this be right, it
would appear that the sense is " Seofeca's
lane," which became Siveken lane ; and
then Sive'n lane, probably with a lengthened
i, pronounced like the i in machine. This
would readily have given a later Seevin lane,
altered to Seething or Seeding by association
with the verbs seethe and seed.
This explanation is, of course, only a suggestion ; if any one else can better explain the spellings and the sounds, by all means let him do so.
If we regard co as a diminutive suffix, we may suppose that Sifa was a variant of Sifeca, without that suffix. This would enable us to derive Siuechene from Sifeca, whilst we take Seething to represent Sifan. So also we have Bedford from A.-S. Bedan ford, ie. Beda's ford ; whilst the same place further appears as Biedcan ford, with a diminutive suffix. WALTER W. SKEAT.
CENSORSHIP OF PLAYS. This being a question which is much to the fore, it is interesting to listen to the Curate in ' Don Quixote' (Book IV. chap, xxi.), who says that the poets who pen the comedies are not chiefly to be blamed for certain defects, because
" players would not buy them if they were of any other than the accustomed kind ; and therefore the poet endeavours to accommodate himself to the humour of the player who is to
pay him for his labour Others there are that
write without any judgment, and with so little heed of what they do, as after their works have been once acted, the players are constrained to run away and hide themselves, fearing to be punished, as often they have been for acting things obnoxious to the prince, or scandalous to some families. All which inconveniences might be redressed if there were some under- standing and discreet person ordained at court to examine all comedies before they were acted, and that not only such as were played at the court itself, but also all others that were to be acted throughout Spain, without whose allow- ance, under his hand and seal, the magistrate of no town should permit any comedy to be played ; by which means the players would diligently^send
