Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/168

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL FEB. IG, 1907.


colours which was much admired in the exhibition room at Somerset House some years past."' This tablet is on one of the walls in the chapel, but so high up as to be illegible from the floor. The full inscription is given in

  • Antiente Epitaphes ' by Thomas F. Raven-

shaw, 1878, p. 184. As to Mrs. Molony's pictures I inquired in 1901 from Mr. Bernard Quaritch, in one of whose catalogues ap- peared a set of the Royal Academy cata- logues from the beginning to a (then) very recent date. I gave her successive names, viz., Shee, Stuart, Jackson, and Molony. The reply contained the following :

"The pictures could not have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, as I cannot find any trace of them."

Perhaps there were other exhibitions of pictures at Somerset House.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

[Mrs. Jane Malouy does not appear under any of her names in Mr. Graves's great dictionary of ex- hibitors at the Royal Academy.]

PICTURES AT TEDDINGTON (10 S. vii. 88). These pictures are those of eight of the twelve Sibyls, often found decorating medi- seval churches, books of hours, and so on. As to the Sibyls generally, MR. LE WETT will find an account in ' The Penny Cyclo- paedia,' Smith's ' Diet, of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,' and ' The Encyclopaedic Diet.' under the word. The last named compiles its short note from the late Prof. Ramsay's dissertation, which may be read in his ' Selections from Ovid.' Among the authorities there given is Pausanias an author who should be read in Mr. Frazer's excellent, but expensive edition. Here are collected not only the loci classici of the ancient writers, but also the later folk-lore derived partly there- from and partly from the Sibyls of early Christian art. A good introduction to what I may call the Christian Sibyls will be found in the numerous notes on the Sibyl pictures at Cheyney Court, Herefordshire, in 4 S. v., and, if accessible, in Mr. W. Marsh's ' Icono- graphy of the Sibyls.'

The peculiarity of the Teddington pictures fceems to be the unusual generic name ("Silvia" for "Sibylla"); the second name is, as usual, the local or geographical one, except No. 5 in MR. LE WETT'S list. This is most commonly called Sibylla Agrippa (or with one p only). The Tedding- ton variation is interesting, as it may possibly furnish a key to " Silvia." Rhea Silvia was the mother of Romulus and Remus, and was seventh in direct descenl from Agrippa, king of Alba Longa (see Livy


I. iii., with Seeley's note).


Were it not for

the " Silvia," I should feel inclined to look on " Agrippina " as a truer form than the usual " Agrippa," and as preserving the


German " by the figure freely used by classical


symmetry of the series in its " local " nomen- clature, for " Agrippina " ( = Cologne) might well stand for " "

Synecdoche, so

versifiers. There was a real German pro- phetic maiden, Veleda, well known to the Roman world in the time of Tacitus ; while there are hardly any Sibyl traits in Rhea Silvia. If the inscriptions on the Tedding - ton pictures can be traced back to the- fifteenth century the form " Silvia " may perhaps have been the origin of " sylph." For No. 2 on the list I venture to suggest


^thiopica (=^Egyptia)


J. P. OWEN.


Surely MR. LE WETT should read " Sibylla" for " Silvia," and then we at once have, easily recognizable, the titles of paintings of the Samian Sibyl, Erythrean Sibyl, Persian Sibyl, Phrygian Sibyl, and the Sibyl of Tivoli. Probably some one else can complete the list. ROWLAND THURNAM.

[Further replies next week.]

  • POPJOY " (10 S. vii. 88). Was not the-

invention of this word probably suggested o the writer by " popinjay," sometimes- spelt " papejay," as if it had some associa- ion with the verb " to enjoy," hence tc disport oneself ?

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

" Popjoy " is probably a nickname. In one of the early numbers of Bell's ' Gallery of Comicalities ' one Cockney sportsman asks- another angler, " Had a bite, Popjoy ? " An answer in the negative is returned.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

"ANON" (10 S. i. 246, 337 ; v. 274, 454, 496). Is not the use of this word in the following sentence as strange as that in Thackeray ?

'Its driving would anon be like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi. and anon like unto that of one who holds slack reigns in palsied hands. W. G. Edwards Rees, 'The Parson's Outlook '"


T. NlCKLIN.


(Longmans, 1900), p. 212. Rossall, Lanes.

CALIFORNIAN ENGLISH : AMERICAN COIN- NAMES (10 S. vi. 381 ; vii. 36). The sug- gestion that ticky is derived from tizzy seems unlikely on account of the difference^ in sense. Ticky is threepence, tizzy is six- pence. In the Zulu language a threepenny piece is called tiki. I imagine that this is- their corruption of its English name, and that we borrowed it back from them as