260
NOTES AND QUERIES, [10* s. n. SEPT. 24, 190*.
a few years ago to Dr. Furnivall. Concerning the
achievements of Mr. King the book tells us little.
Personal inquiry establishes that he was a geologist,
and the author of a work entitled ' Mountaineering
in the Sierra Nevada.' He wrote also ' The Helmet
of Mambrino,' a sketch -in Don Quixote land, more
saturated with local colour than any opuscule we
can recall. This, which first appeared in the Cen-
tury Magazine for May, 1886, is reprinted in the
front of the volume, the remainder of which is
occupied with reminiscences and appreciations by
the King Memorial Committee of the Century
Association. A very gratifying tribute is thus
afforded to a man of a singularly amiable and
sociable disposition and of fine and cultivated
tastes. Portraits of Mr. King and his associates
enrich a volume which may be read with pleasure
and interest by those who were not privileged to
know its hero. Mr. James D. Hague, the chairman
of the committee, and, apparently, the editor of the
volume, claims for King that he perpetrated a
literary hoax having reference to the quotation
^'Though lost to sight to memory dear," which has
been frequently discussed in our columns. A full
account of this, in which the line is said to have
been by one Ruthven Jenkyns, and to have appeared
in the Greenwich Magazine for Marines in 1707, is
given on pp. 65-71. Mr. King's death took place at
Phcenix, Arizona, on 29 December, 1901. Among
those taking part in the tribute are Messrs. John
Hay, W. D. Howells, and E. C. Stedman, and many
other "Centurions." English readers who chance
on this volume will do well to acquire it. 'The
Helmet of Mambrino ' is a gem, as good, in a
different line, as a story of Guy de Maupassant.
Old HendriUs Tales. By Capt. A. O. Vaughan.
(Longmans & Co.)
THESE stories, something in the line of 'Brer Rabbit,' are supposedly told by a Hottentot servant to some English or Dutch little children. They .deal principally with the exaltation of the jackal, chiefly at the expense of the wolf, and are an agreeable addition to our knowledge of negro folk- lore. Some difficulty is offered to English readers by the dialect, and we should be thankful for a short glossary explaining the meaning of words such as pampoene, byivoner, anjd many others, con- cerning the significance of which we are in doubt. Many of the stories such as 'Old Jackal and Young Baboon,' and k Why Little Hare has such a Short Tail' are decidedly humorous. Mr. J. A. 'Shepherd supplies some characteristic illustrations.
The Folk and their Word-Lore. By A. Smythe
Palmer, D.D. (Routledge & Sons.) OVER the domain of folk-etymology Dr. Smythe Palmer reigns supreme, and his dictionary is at once the best work on the subject we possess and one of the most entertaining of volumes for the scholar and the general reader. The present work seeks to popularize the subject, and bring it within universal ken. We are glad, for many reasons, to commend it to general perusal, one of the reasons being that familiarity with it will relieve greatly pur congested columns. A marvellous amount of information is compressed into something less than two hundred eminently readable pages. Herein the reader will find not only such whimsical derivations as the Jerusalem artichoke and its outcome Palestine soup; such popular delusions as the sirloin of beef and its companion the
baron ; and such attempts at sentimentality as
the folk's-glove for the foxglove, but the reason
why ignorance changes into rhyme a word correctly
spelt rime ; why orlocl, an altered form of oar-lock,
developes into rowlock, as though it were " the
rowing contrivance" ; why beef-eater is taken for
an alteration of buffetier; why Spenser, and others
after him, altered eclogues into aeglogues ; why
hocus pocus is fantastically derived from hoc est
corpus ; why Jew is supposed to be crystallized in
jewellery and Moses in mosaic; and why Ruskin,
even, theorizes that play is the pleasing thing (il
plait\ Not a dull page is there in a little book
that is filled to overflowing with- instruction and
edification. The index might with great gain be
amplified.
MR. HENRY FROWDE is about to publish in two volumes, of which only 240 copies will be offered for sale, an exact facsimile of the original English edition of the ' German Popular Stories ' collected by the Brothers Grimm. All the illustrations by Cruikshank which appeared in the First and Second Series of the 'Stories,' issued in 1823 and 1826 respectively, will be reproduced, and these will be printed from the original plates. Ruskin in his ' Elements of Drawing ' declared that the etchings in these two volumes were " the finest things, next to Rembrandt's, that, as far as I know, have been done since etching was invented,"
ijtotkea ia
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W. F. (" Books"). The books you mention seem of slight value. Quarto Elzevirs are in small finan- cial estimation; but consult a second-hand book- seller.
D. A. ("Her mother she sells laces fine "). The next line is " To all who choose to buy them," and forms part of ' Sally in our Alley.'
D. M., Philadelphia ("Rebecca"). Anticipated by another American correspondent, ante, p. 193.
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