514
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. JUNE 28 , 1013.
Provencal, much older French than that
of the Francimans, brings Fr. vertevelle
back to vertuello, bartavello, the ring of a
bolt or of a pintle, and Fr. verveux to
-vcrvou, vertou, vertoul ; this trap -net is in
Italian bertovello.
In verteu, vertel, the perforated bob screwed on to the lower end of a spindle to give it weight and make it spin, We have almost exactly the English " vardle." It happens that I have just, quite casually, come across the word in Rabelais, whose language and style is so very "Lenga- docian " : Articuler Us verloilz (' Pantagruel,' 3, xxviii.), to unfix the bobs of the Fates' spindle.
How was the word pronounced ? I need <hardly say that the modern sound of oi dates from about 1700, and is not usually that with which French words containing it passed into English ; but Rabelais gives the pronunciation, still preserved in some words, when he writes foye (liver), soye (silk), phonetically faye, saye. So vertoil -was pronounced vertayl or vartayl, very lose to our " furdall " or " vardle." The words under consideration mean some- thing forming an eye, a ring, a hoop, and they come from L. vertertf
EDWARD NICHOLSON.
Cros de Cagnes, near Nice.
SlNTBAM AND VEBENA (11 S. Vli. 449).
Sintram is the hero and Verena the hero's mother in Friedrich Baron de la Motte Fouque's ' Sintram und seine Gefahrten,' a story inspired by Diirer's engraving of ' The Knight, Death, and the Devil.' There are several English translations. That by J. C. Hare was published in 1820.
EDWARD BENSLY.
[SUSANNA CORNER, Miss G. DE CASSEL FOLKARD, MR. R. A. POTTS, B. B. S., and several other corre- spondents also thanked for replies.]
INK-HORNS AND INK-GLASSES (11 S. vii. 425). I do not suppose that ink-horns are now in use anywhere, but sixty years ago the rate-collector and rent-collector went about their work with a goose quill behind the ear, and an ink-horn slung at the coat buttonhole ; and several clerkly agents were decorated in the same fashion. This was at a village a few miles out of Derby. The ink-horns were fashioned either out of oalves' or sheep's horns. This was before I saw a glass " pocket ink." I have an old brownware inkstand, with five penholes, with a name round the body, and bearing the date 1769. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
DE FOE AND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
(11 S. vii. 405). In 'The History of the
Devil,' in two parts, 1793, and on p. 106,
the quotation referred to appears, but after
" King Nimrod the First " reads " to his
most Christian Majesty Louis XIV, and
many a mighty monarch between."
ALFRED CHAS. JONAS, F. S.A.Scot.
' A LONDONER'S LONDON ' : TEMPLE BAB (11 S. vii. 378, 415). My late grandfather was a unit in the crowd in the London streets on the night of 10 March, 1863. While the illuminations were in progress the crush was terrific, and he used to tell how in his progress along the streets he was carried beneath the central arch of Temple Bar without his feet once touching the ground.
SIB JOHN MOOBE (US. vii. 344, 414). My all too short and terse reference to Sir John Moore's grave was based on two accounts of a journalistic visit paid to Galicia in 1910 by Alderman Evans, the
E resent Mayor of Warwick, and Councillor . S. Campion of Northampton. The former states :
" We proceeded in a body to the ramparts on which his tomb is situated not the outer ramparts where he was actually ' buried at dead of night,' but the spot to which the body was removed by order of the British Government eleven years after, in 1820."
Mr. Campion describes the tomb as being " in the Gardens of Sah Carlos," and, after giving details and copies of inscriptions, adds :
" The present condition of the tomb, which is enclosed in a granite wall surmounted by iron spikes, and its surroundings, is due to the generous spirit of a Spanish general, who raised a public subscription with which he repaired the tomb and laid out the surrounding land as a public garden."
Some interesting notes on the burial of Sir John Moore, in which reference is made to ' N. & Q.,' appeared in The Illustrated London News of 6 Sept. and 6 Dec., 1856, and 11 April, 1857. JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
With some allowances, perhaps, the Latin lines at the latter reference might be ren- dered in the following strain :
On this fair pile bestow no praise,
At whioh men groan'd stone walls to raise.
The beautiful is no great art
When cruel fetters claim a part.
Behold a fort without a flaw :
A wretched monster of the law
And lasting monument to Croix.
LEO C,
