456
NOTES AND QUERIES. i[ii s. x. DKC. 5, M4.
day the pronunciation " cooeumber " still
lingered in the Western counties. The case
of this word is quite different from that of
" sparrowgrass," which is merely a vulgar
error. This can hardly be said of " cow-
cumber"; it was, however, in error, due to
n general change in the pronunciation of the
diphthong ow. C. C. B.
WALTER SCOTT : SPURIOUS WAVERLEYS, PIRACIES, AND ATTACKS (11 S. x. 330, 374, 393,416). In the second edition of Lander's ' Imaginary Conversations ' (1826, vol. ii. p. 281) there is a note referring to " certain famous novels." Landor says :
" I do not attempt to conjecture who is the author of them ; but he is evidently a person who in his youth and early manhood was without the advantages of literary, or polished, or very decorous society. It is remarkable that the most popular works of our age, after Lord Byron's, are certainly less elegant in style than of any other age whatever. I have perused no volume of them in which there are not, at the lowest computation, twenty gross vulgarisms, or grosser violations of grammar, and in places where the character did not require nor authorize them."
Landor then gives some examples, includ- ing one from ' Redgauntlet,' and he goes on to say :
" I invite the learned to show me, in any volume in any language, the same number of equally great faults within the same space."
The Aquilius Cimber mentioned in the conversation between Marcus Tullius and Quinctus Cicero may, perhaps, be meant for Scott ; but see Mr. Crump's note on the subject in his edition of the ' Conversations ' (vol. ii. p. 65). Landor, however, presently became a warm admirer of Scott. " We ought to glory in such men," he said (Fors- ter's 'Landor, a Biography,' 1869, ii. 527); and he makes Porson say of him :
" There is a freshness in all Scott's scenery ; a vigour and distinction in all his characters. He seems the brother in arms of Froissart."
STEPHEN WHEELER. Oriental Club, Hanover Square.
MODERN ADVOCATE OF DRUIDISM (11 S. x. 408). Dr. Pan Jones, who in the eighties of the last century styled himself " Arch Druid of Wales," may be the person inquired for by MR. KUMAGUSU MINAKATA. If I remember aright, he got into trouble ivy burning his daughter's corpse on a i ; lountain. HALF- WELSHMAN.
MR. KUMAGUSU MINAKATA will be inter- ested to know that, as a Welshman, I can tel I him something of Dr. Price, a medical man in Monmouthshire, near Abergavenny
who was such an advocate of Druidism that,.
when his infant died, he ascended one of the-
neighbouring hills and cremated the corpse-
publicly. The police interfered, and the
doctor was the object of odium and amused
- urprise for some little time. But Wales has
ilways, and apparently always will have, people who cling to Druidism and Bardism ; still, the Welsh character, like the Scotch, is. averse from anything that involves loss of money by being conspicuous in anything that will affoct the market world un- favourably. H. H. JOHNSON.
Dr. William Price of Llantrisant attracted much attention in South Wales by his- advocacy of Druidism, but he can hardly be the " modern writer " about whom infor- mation is desired, because he does not appear to have published anything except a small Welsh pamphlet, and the spelling of this was so uncouth that few people can have- taken the trouble to read it.
Dr. Price called himself the Archdruicl of Wales, and dressed himself for the part in green trousers and shawl, scarlet vest, and foxskin cap. He died at the age of 90 on 23 Jan., 1893. By his own directions hi* body was burnt in one of his fields on the summit of a hill. Vast crowds watched the cremation. DAVID SALMON.
Swansea.
[Further particulars of Dr. William Price will bfr found at 11 S. iv. 273-4 ]
PRZEMYSL : LANGUAGE OF GALICIA ( 1 1 S. x. 410). MR. BOBERT PIERPOINT will be^ sorry to know that we British cannot get our tongue to fashion to pronounce aright this word. I consulted lately a Bohemian, who tried vainly (and smilingly) to make me pronounce the r, which apparently is- something like tch, so that the whole word runs nearly P'tchz'irisl. Galician, Polish, Russian, and Bohemian are all allied phonetically, and are all Slav.
H. H. JOHNSON.
68, Abbey Road, Torquay.
The Polish compound consonant rz corre- sponds to the Bohemian r (rzh, or trilled r), la grammatical lists the sound is described as that of French g in logis, and the letter has the same sound. Premysl was the first legendary Bohemian prince, and Premysl Ottakar one of the greatest kings. Ety- mologically, the name would appear to mean forethought.
FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.
Streatham.
