298
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ID* s. m. APBIL 15, 1905.
refell that slander which some cast on Lecture-
Preachers." In the sense to cast doubt upon, Chap-
man says, in the ' Iliad ' :
As thou then didst refell My valour first of all the hoast. In Child's ' Ballads ' we have also
The tanners bold they fought right well
But Robin [Hood] did them both refell. The word lasted till the time of Bentley and North. Among the words in re which are not compounds of Latin re Mr. Craigie draws special attention to regal and its derivatives, to regent, regiment, region, and regular. All these words, some of the senses of which are obsolete, may be studied with advantage. In the sense (No. 3) of magnificent, as befitting a king, regal is illustrated from Words- worth Shelley, Lytton, Stanley, Lamb, and Smiles, the last-named using it in a sense scarcely defen- sible. Regalia is first used in 1540, after which it disappears for a century. Regent, in the sense of one who reigns on behalf of another, is first found in 1425 when it appears in the Parliamentary Rolls. Under this heading we would fain have seen Mickle's
The moon, sweet regent of the sky. Of the various scholastic senses of the word ample illustrations are given. Have we not heard in some English translation of the regimen of Salerne? This is a propos of the word regimen. Or is the word regiment, sense 5? The earliest use of region in English shows association with regere, in the sense of to rule. Caxton says, " There was a kyng
which whan he departed fro Troye came in
to the regyon of fraunce." It seems to be in this sense that Hamlet speaks of the " region kites.' Regular troops, as constituting the standing army, are naturally not heard of until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Deeply interesting is all that is said concerning reed, in its early form en- countered so early as circa 725. As a dart or arrow it is met with in'l377. As a musical instrument, a pipe, Us use is virtually confined to the poets, from Chaucer and Gower to Scott and Burns. Mrs. Browning's ' A Musical Instrument,' which we do not see, uses the word with much significance. The special combinations cited are remarkable. The connexion of reef with rib is curious. Reef as a verb is first found in Davenant [D'Avenant] and Dryden. Reel is employed in the piscatorial sense in 'The Gentleman Angler,' and the cur- rent phrase "Off the reel" is first traced to Dickens, then to his pupil Sala. A couple of pages are occupied with the various senses of the word. The words mentioned, and others such as reeve, referee, register, are naturally far more instructive than combinations such as re-edify or re-establish. Of reeve, an old English official, it is said that it is not in any way related to the continental forms cited under Graf and Grave. Refection was first used of refreshment received through some spiritual or intellectual influence. Referee as a verb has, as might be expected, nothing but journalistic sup- port, and is a contemptible word. Refrain, in the sense of burden, chorus, is employed by Chaucer and Lydgate, but is said to be not in very common use before the nineteenth century. Many meanings assigned refrain, in the sense of abstain, have little difference. Under one of these Milton's " When Godsends a cheerful hour refrains" is judiciously quoted. Refreit was an accepted substitute for refrain in the first sense so late as the seventeentl
letitury. The connexion of the various forms of
efuse, sb., is shown. Regicide is met with so early
as 1548, when it is connected with prince-quellers.
Evelyn is the first to use it of the judges of
Charles I.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, M.A., F.R.S. Edited, with Additions, by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A. Vols. VII. and VIII. (Bell & Sons.) WITH the appearance of these two volumes the eminently desirable reprint of Mr. Wheatley'a superlative edition of the diary is completed, the volume of Pepysiana not being included in the scheme, and the index, which in the first editioa
- orms a volume apart, being now given in two
mndred pages (315-514) of vol. viii. No reduction is permissible in that admirable feature of the work, and the facilities of reference remain the same as before. The old feeling of sadness steals over one on reading Pepys's characteristic final utterance, dated 31 May, 1669, when, after speak- ing of his amours with Deb. as " past," and of his eyes hindering him in almost all other pleasures, tie indicates the manner in which the diary is to be continued, and concludes : " And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave : for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me." Of the new edition we can only say that its possession is one of the most covetable of gifts, furnishing a guarantee against dulness, since it may be taken up at any time and opened at any moment with the certainty of entertainment and the probability of delight.
The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio. Faithfully
translated by J. M. Rigg. (Routledge & Sons.) The Heptameron ; or, Tales and Novels of Mar- guerite, Queen of Navarre. Translated by Arthur Machen. (Same publishers.)
THAT the editor of " Routledge's Library of Early Novelists," Mr. E. A. Baker, M.A., is undaunted in the prosecution of his task is shown by the publication of the ' Decameron ' and the ' Hepta- meron' in well-known translations well known, that is, to the scholar. The appearance of two previous volumes of the same series, Amory's 'Life and Opinions of John Buncle' and Wieland's 'Adventures of Don Sylvio de Rosalva,' we chro- nicled 10 th S. ii. 438, speaking with pleasurable anticipation of the continuance of the series. A question we raised as to the integrity of the text now issued has been satisfactorily answered, and our suggestion as to the inclusion of Picaresque novels has, we are told, been anticipated. As the series progresses we may have further counsel to supply. Had the present volumes appeared first, with the names appended of the translators, we should have had no cause to inquire into the- accuracy of the text.
In his rendering of the 'Decameron' Mr. Rigg has been, like his predecessors, compelled to leave- in the original Italian the story of 'Alibech and Rustico.' This he did in the first issue of his trans- lation. With the ' Decameron ' is given Addington Symonds's important essay on Boccaccio as man and author. From Mr. A. W. Pollard's 'Italian Book Illustrations' are reproduced the frontispiece to the first illustrated edition of the ' Decamerone,' Venice, 1492, the 'Procession to the Garden,' the ' Telling of the Stories,' and ' Griselda surprised by the Marquis.' These things accompany Mr. Baker's.
