228
NOTES AND QUERIES. HO* 8. I. MARCH 1 9) 1904.
LEAP YEAR. Will some reader refer me to
some book in which the astronomical reason
for this, connected with the revolution of the
earth round the sun, is clearly explained ?
I find this hardly (or at least not intelligibly
to the ordinary reader) explained either in
Dr. Brewer's excellent ' Dictionary of Phrase
and Fable ' or in ' Words, Facts, and Phrases,'
by Eliezer Edwards. E. P. W.
[See 'Astronomical Notes' in the Leisure Hour for January, from the pen of our valued contributor ME. VV. T. LYNN.]
FIELD-NAMES, BRIGHTWALTON, BERKS. Will MR. PEACOCK or some other corre- spondent kindly elucidate the following field and street names found in this parish 1
Sparrowbill. (There is a Sparrabills in or near Wolverton, Hants.)
Pilowth.
Deed's Hill, Duts Hill, or Dutsil.
Wedding Close.
Pudding Lane.
Halistreet Lane, 1738. (We now have Holly Street Lane here.)
In neighbouring parishes are to be found California and Egypt.
GEORGE C. PEACHEY. Bright walton, Wantage.
[California is explained ante, p. 156.]
" FLOWERS ARE THE ALPHABET OF ANGELS." Who wrote, and in what book,
Flowers are the alphabet of angels, whereby They write on hills and fields mysterious truths ?
JOHN A. RANDOLPH. DICKENS QUERIES.
1. " ' Beg your pardon, sir,' said Mr. Jingle, 'bottle stands pass it round way of the sun through the button-hole no heel-taps.'" 'Pick- wick,' chap. ii.
Will some one explain, or direct me to an explanation of, the phrase "through the button-hole " 1
" an old woman whose name was reported to
be Taniaroo. The boarders had appropriated the word from an English ballad, in wnicn it is sup- posed to express the bold and fiery nature of a certain hackney-coachman." ' Martin Chuzzlewit,' chap, xxxii.
Is this ballad authentic, or pure invention on Dickens's part ? If authentic, where could I see it ?
'Mr. Dombey had little taste for music, and no
knowledge of the strain she played but perhaps
he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less inexorable." ' Dombey and Son,' chap. xxi. (near the end).
What is the meaning of the last portion? "Monster of the iron road " suggests a loco- motive ; but what is it doing in this galley ?
H. K. ST. J. S.
l PERIODICALS FOR WOMEN. I should be
- very grateful for any information concerning
periodical publications intended especially for feminine readers, which were brought j out prior to the nineteenth century. The Lady's Magazine, I believe, first appeared in 1770. Had it an earlier prototype? During, the first year of its long career it did not contain the plates illustrating the fashions of the day which are found in later volumes. The fashionable Magazine ; or, Lady's and Gentleman's Monthly Recm^der of New Fashions, claims in the preface to its first number (June, 1786) to be the first magazine to publish such costume plates "to catch the evanescent modes of dress, and portray them with fidelity and exactitude," are its own words. Is this assertion correct 1
TORFRIDA.
"MUSTLAR": " MUSKYLL." What is the ineaning of these words, which occur in the wills of former parishioners of Whitstable (Eent)t-
"To the light Mustlar, 4d." Richard Aleyn (1473).
" To a light in the church of Whitstaple called the Muskyll tapers." Alice Gentill (1497).
The 'Century Dictionary' gives "muskylle"" as an obsolete form of mussel.
ARTHUR HUSSEY.
Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.
TIDESWELL AND TIDESLCW.
(9 th S. xii. 341, 517; 10 th S. i. 52, 91, 190.)
THERE are several points in which I believe
the remarks at the last reference to be wholly
misleading. I seem to gather that the
presence of -s- is regarded as being the sole
evidence of the use of a name in the genitive
case ! But the fact is, of course, that a very
large number of names ended in -a, and were
consequently of the weak declension, with a
genitive in -an, and it is well known that this
suffix -an more often disappears than not.
There was also a feminine genitive in -e, and
a genitive plural in -a ; both of these suffixes
almost invariably disappear. Thus, to take
some examples from my ' Place-names of
Cambridgeshire,' Haddenham is the A.-S.
Hsedanham, i.e., Hseda's home, where the -en
(representing the genitive) happens to be
kept before the h; but Papworth, formerly
Pappen worth, representing Pappa's worth,,
has lost the genitive suffix entirely. Wilburh
was a feminine name, with a genitive in -e ;
hence in Wilburton, i.e., " Wilburh's town,"
there is no sign of the genitive at alL
