316
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn. A 20, 1007.
ii. 245, ed. 1837. Compare the poet's own
account of the incident in his " Apologetic
Preface to ' Fire, Famine, and Slaughter,' "
in ' Poetical Works,' i. 274, ed. 1835, or
Dykes Campbell's ' Poetical Works of 8. T.
Coleridge,' pp. Ill and 527.
THOMAS BAYNE. [Several other correspondents thanked for replies.!
DUKE OF KENT'S CHILDREN (10 S. vii. 48, 115, 172, 235). When MR. PEET speaks of exceptional treatment of Constance Kent, does he mean exceptionally lenient ? For a murder which was committed at sixteen, and which she voluntarily confessed in order to clear her father long after all search had been given up, she was, by order of the Home Office, kept in prison for twenty years. This is certainly exceptional, but it is an odd reason for supposing her to have been related to the royal family.' B.
"FRIEZE": ITS PRONUNCIATION (10 S. vii. 245). I have frequently deprecated the consideration of questions of pronunciation because the simplest elements of it remain still wholly unknown to most readers. All who really have worked at the subject come, sooner or later, to appreciate and understand the great and violent changes that have taken place during the last three or four centuries.
The lines about the cloths of gold and of frieze go back to the time of Henry VIII., when the i in despise retained the Norman sound, like the French i in the modern words machine and pique.
It is the word frieze that is exceptional ;
it was felt to be a foreign word, and so
remained unchanged. The conclusion drawn
is, in fact, exactly contrary to the truth.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
I remember a tailor who spoke to me of " frize " some five-and-twenty years ago, and I have an impression that the word is often so rendered in Ireland, and other parts of the United Kingdom, still. The lines quoted by your correspondent were either made up or much quoted when Mary, daughter of Henry VII. and widow of Louis XII., married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. ST. SWITHIN.
The rime despise : frieze in an old poem might prove either that despise was for- merly pronounced like the modern word displease, or that frieze was pronounced like the modern third person singular of fry. As a matter of fact, it is the word despise that has changed its pronunciation. I do not know from what source the lines are
quoted, but the use of dispise= disdain and
the reflexive use of match point to the Eliza-
bethan period. In Shakespeare's English
(10 S. vi. 281) the word despise still had its
old sound, though the modern pronuncia-
tion was already becoming current. Poetic
tradition might tolerate the older rime-
even after the modern pronunciation had
triumphed. L. R. M. STRACHAN.
Heidelberg, Germany.
In Ireland, probably the original home of the production of the rough woollen fabric called " frieze," the word is universally pronounced to rime with " wise."
HENRY SMYTH. [MR. PIERPOINT agrees as to "frize."]
PILLION: FLAILS (10 S. iii. 267, 338, 375 r 433 ; iv. 72 ; vi. 274, 313 ; vii. 272). Having perhaps the chief collection of flails extant, and having written on the- implement for the Newcastle Antiquarian Society, I am much interested in the subject, and ask for any local sayings, songs, or de- scriptions of the tools that your readers- may happen to possess.
Perhaps a general statement on the ques- tion may be of interest. The flail is a Celtic (old Irish) implement, and the primitive flail-forms of Ireland are three : (1) two grooved sticks with an eelskin dumbbell tie ; (2) a perforated handle with a tie or thong passing through it to a cap on the beater ; and (3) two wood or leather capped sticks, united by a thong. The Celtic (Erse and Gaelic) name for the flail i& suist : Isle of Man soost ; and Welsh ffust. I should much like to know the old Cornish name and also that of Brittany.
The No. 1 form described above went from the Norse settlements in Ireland (Dublin, &c.) to Norway, where it is still to be found and is termed a tust (thust).
The No. 2 form is found in Wales, in Scotland, and in the north of England down to the Tees.
In Yorkshire a different form (akin ta those of Saxony) appears, and is character- ized by an iron staple on the " handstaff,' r and a laced cap on the beater or " swipple.' r
In Southern England the handstaff or handle is characterized by a swivel of wood or horn, and the flails are the most perfect that I have seen.
The iron swivels which are seen on the handles in the South, and also in North- umberland and Durham, are of recent date,, coming in some thirty to sixty years ago. The war-flail (holy water sprinkler or morning star) had a wooden handle strengthened
