224
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. SEPT. 17, UXHL
' B. C.,' iii. 53 ; Val. Max., iii. 2, 23 ; Florus
,11. 13 (iv. 2), 40 ; Appian, ' B. C.,' ii. 60.
P. 59, 25; 30, 27, "as Constantine anc
Licinius." At the battle of Cibalis, A.D. 314.
See Zosimus, ii. 18, 4, and cf. Gibbon, ch. xiv
P. 59, n. 6; 30, n. * (2 d ), "Erasmus de
bello." See 'Adagia,' "Dulce bellum inex-
pertis," p. 296, col. 1, 1. 2 (1629). To this
belongs " How many nature expostulate with
.mankind, Ego te divinum animal Jinxi."
EDWARD BENSLY.
The University, Adelaide, South Australia. (To be continued.)
"SAUNTER." In a reply (ante, p. 192) the
word saunter was adduced as being one of the
words which contain a reference to the word
saint, with which it has no connexion what-
ever. (And, by the way, samphire was not
.mentioned at all.) I also read, at the same
reference, that in my 'Concise Dictionary
we are told that the origin of saunter is
^unknown. But that must refer to one of
the old editions; the work was completely
rewritten in 1901 ; and I beg leave to refer
Dreaders to the rewritten work rather than to
the former editions. This is an age in which
we learn and go forward.
Bailey's derivation of saunter from sancte terre, an error for F. sainte terre, was a very fair one for his day. He forgot to tell us why the French form is a substantive without any derived verb, whilst the English one is a verb without any corresponding English substan- tive. And of course he gave no reference for the use of an E. saunter in the sense of "holy land," or for any old French verb saunterrer in the sense of " to go a pilgrimage." However, the thing is impossible, owing to a fatal flaw in the history of the phonetic development. The E. -aun- can only come from a Norman -an-, and the Norman for " saint" was not sant, but seint. Conversely, the Norman -ein- may become -an-, as in sanfoin (also sainfoin), sangreal, and samphire (for *san-pire), but it cannot become -aun-. And there is an end of that guess at once.
I have not found saunter in very early use, but it occurs in the * York Plays.' The material fact is that it answers letter for letter to the Anglo-French sauntrer, to adventure put, -answering to a Latin type exadventurare, just as the Middle English auntren, to adventure, answers to a Latin type adventurdre. I have already given the reference for this A.-F. word twice, viz., once in my 'Concise Dic- tionary' (1901), and once in my 'Notes on English Etymology,' p. 256. And the refer- ences to the 'York Plays' for the forms sauntering and saunteryng, with the sense of
" venturesomeness," are given in the supple-
ment to my larger dictionary, p. 826.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
"AGIME ZIPHRES." In recently looking over the Early English Text Society edition of * Select Works of Robert Crowley,' by Mr. J. M. Cowper, I noticed "Agime Ziphres" was given in the glossary without explana- tion, but with a 1 T' appended. The passage where the words occur reads as follows :
To shote, to bowle, or cast the barre, To play tenise, or tosse the ball,
Or to rene base, like men of war, Shal hurt thy study naught at al. For all these things do recreate The minds, if thou canst holde the mean ;
But if thou be affectionate, Then dost thou lose thy studye cleane.
And at the last thou shalt be founde To occupy a place only
As do in Agime ziphres rounde, And to hinder learnyng greatlye.
The explanation seems so simple, and so readily suggests itself, that I have wondered why the entry and query were made. Dr. Murray, in the ' Oxford Eng. Diet.' (published afterwards), notes Agrime as a variant of ' Algorism,' and under ' Cipher ' notes ziphre as a variant of that word. Although this citation does not occur among those given by him, there are many that show the poor estimation in which the cipher was held, which idea fits exactly with the sense required here. A few of these citations are :
1593, Peele, 'Edw. I.' "Neither one, two, nor three, but a poor cypher in agrum."
1399, Langl., ' Rich. Redeles,' iv. 53. " Than satte summe, as siphre doth in awgrym, That noteth a place, and no thing availith."
1547, J. Harrison, 'Exhort. Scottes,' 229.
' Our presidentes doo serue but as cyphers
in algorisme, to fill the place."
F. STURGES ALLEN.
New York.
DR. EDMOND HALLEY. (See 9 th S. x. 361 ; xi. 85, 205, 366. 463, 496 ; xii. 125, 185, 266, 464.)
I. LIFE AND WORK.
' Alumni Oxonienses,' arranged by Joseph Foster, vol. ii. Early Series, p. 635 (Oxford, 1891).
' A Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collection )f Books and Papers written by or belonging
- o Sir Isaac Newton, the Scientific Portion
of which has been presented by the Earl of ^ortsmouth to the University of Cambridge ' Cambridge, 1888).
'Familiar Science Studies,' article 'Our Astronomers Royal' (Richard A. Proctor), 386-8 (New York, 1882),
