10 s. vin. JULY 20, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
55
language was ever regarded in so degraded
and humiliating an aspect. If any verbal
resemblances are anywhere possible, at
once our unfortunate tongue is assumed to
be the greedy borrower. I wish it were
possible to put Dutch or German into the
position of the language which thus needs
to be explained from abroad. But there
is no such hope. WALTER W. SKEAT.
Two OLD PROVERBS (10 S. vii. 407, 457).
For " Toujours perdrix " compare novel 5,
first day, in the ' Decameron ' of Boccaccio.
That carries the story back to an earlier age.
FRED. C. FROST, F.S.I.
Among La Fontaine's ' Contes et Nou- velles ' is a variant of " Toujours perdrix," entitled ' Pate d'Anguille ' (ed. 1796, vol. i. pp. 158-63). SILO.
To tell tales out of (formerly " forth of ") school : " We have some news at Cam- bridge, but it is too long to relate ; besides, I must not tell tales forth of school " (' Court and Times of Charles I.,' ii. 65). At this period, therefore, the phrase evidently meant that confidential matters must not be Mazed forth or abroad from the quarters whence a knowledge of them was acquired ; that is, if they are to be revealed at all, secrets must be transmitted circumspectly.
J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.
ROOD-LOFTS (10 S. vii. 482). A deeply interesting series of articles on ' Rood Lofts and Screens ' (by F.S.A.) has recently ap- peared in The Church Times. The articles, six in number, are contained in the issues from 15 February to 22 March last.
JOHN T. PAGE. Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
"TINNERS" IN MILITARY MUSTERS (10 8. vii. 428). Tinners are specifically men- tioned in 1572 in the passage cited, as, not being subject to the ordinary laws, they would not in the usual course appear in the Sheriff's returns. The liberties and privileges of tinners are set forth in Camden's ' Bri- tannia.' The Lord Warden of the Stan- naries, he states, appoints stewards who minister justice
4 ' in Causes Personal between Tinner and Foreiner, except in Causes of Land, Life or Member, from whence there lieth an Appeal to the Lord Warden, from him to the Duke, and from him to the King in matters of moment."
The liberties granted to the tinners by Edward I. are enumerated by Sir John Pettus (' Fodinse Regales,' London, 1670, p. 12). BENNETT H. BROUGH.
PAYNE AT THE MEWS GATE (10 S. vii. 409,
492). I am very much obliged to MR. A. L.
HUMPHREYS for his interesting reply, but
the identification of this famous bookseller's
parlour as a " Literary coffee-house " still
perplexes me. Was the expression simply
used to indicate a resort of the literati ?
Mr. Austin Dobson's ' The Two Paynes '
I am familiar with. ALECK ABRAHAMS.
39, Hillmarton Road, N.
"BLATHER": "BLADDER" (10 S. vi. 406, 456). The use of the word " blather " for " bladder " is not limited to the North Country. It is well known in Dorset, and is given in Barnes's ' Glossary of the Dorset Dialect' (1863), and occurs in one of the Dorset poet's best-known lyrics, ' The Settle and the Girt Wood Vire ' :
An' roun' the walls wer hearbs a-stowed In peapern bags an' blathers blowed.
In this reference " blathers blowed " seem almost tautological, considering that the word is derived from the A.-S. blceddre=& blister or bladder, from the Teutonic stem blce=to blow. See Bosworth's ' Compendi- ous Anglo-Saxon Dictionary ' (1901) and Skeat's ' Concise Etymological Dictionary ' (1901).
But in the references given by your correspondents, where the word is used as equivalent to stagnant water, it would seem to be derived from the A.-S. &Zed<5=slow or sluggish. See Bosworth. And the two might almost be said to have a common origin in the fact that a millhead is always more or less stagnant, and so are the liquid contents of a bladder.
J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.
Antigua, W.I.
SARD ANA (10 S. vii. 509). I think Sardana must be an abbreviation for Sar- danapalus. Arrian ('Anab.,' ii. 5) states that a tomb of Sardanapalus was extant at Anchiale as late as the date of Alexander the Great, and he had access to writers contemporary with the latter monarch. This tomb connects him with the foundation not only of Anchiale, but also of Tarsus. Were Anchiale and Tarsus ever part of " the realm of the Cretans " ? Sir A. H. Layard states that Sardanapalus, the last king of Assyria, was not the only Ninevite monarch whose name would be thus rendered in Greek.
As for the spinning habits of the last Assyrian king, our extant authority is Diodorus Siculus (ii. 23), who bases his account on the entirely untrustworthy
