Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/420

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414


NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. NOV. 22, 1913.


scholar [!] " with his forged compound ? Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny have passed on from, the lost work of Pytheas the Massilian (fourth century B.C.) information as to the primitive name of our south-west promontory, namely, Belerion, probably conferred upon it by landsmen. Then came English seamen, who most naturally called it Land's End.

There is a good example in my own neighbourhood of a natural feature named differently by seamen and landsmen. Ailsa Craig is a conspicuous cone of syenite, 1,114ft. high, set in mid-channel of the Firth of Clyde. Opposite to it, on the mainland to the east, stands a similar cone, 869 ft. high, which seamen always call the " False Craig," owing to its deceptive resemblance to the other. Among lands- men, however, this hill retains its Celtic name, Knockdolian.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

Monreith.

Although the name Land's End only now applies to the western part of England, it formerly meant the extremity or furthest projecting point of a country. The ' N.E.D.' quotes from a fifteenth-century work "the Londes end of Irlonde," "a newe cours and tide betwene Englonde and Irlonde and the Lond's end."

Such root-words as land, lann, llan (en- closure, church), or the Cornish Ian, Breton lann, Fr. lande (heath, moor), hardly denote a headland of granite rocks. Land's End was called Bolerium by Ptolemy ; by the British bards Penringhuaed, or the Pro- montory of Blood ; and by the historians Penwith, or the Promontory on the Left.

TOM JONES.

According to Isaac Taylor's ' Handbook of Names and their Histories' (1898), the English name Land's End has replaced the Celtic Pen-with. In Welsh or Cymric it is called Penrhyn-Penwaed i.e., the end- point of the district Penwaed in Cornwall ; cf. John Walters's ' English-Welsh Dic- tionary,' Denbigh, 1828. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of 997 gave it the name Penwith- steort or Penwaedh-steort i.e., the tail of Penwith, adding (as explained by Isaac Taylor, I.e.) to the Cornish name their own word steort (a tail, cape, or tongue of land). The Rev. Charles Plummer in his notes to his excellent revised edition of 1899 of 'Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel,' first edited by John Earle, points out that the hundred of the Land's End is still called Penwith (s., vol. ii. p. 179). H. KREBS.


SONGS IN LAMB'S ' MEMOIRS ' (11 S. viii. 349). ' Water parted from the Sea ' and ' In Infancy ' are in Arne's opera of ' Artaxerxes.' See ' My First Play ' and ' A Chapter on Ears ' in the ' Essays.' Also see MR. J. ROGERS REES'S article, ante, p. 262, and Grove's ' Dictionary of Music,' art.

  • Artaxerxes.' The opera was produced irt

1762, and was performed in Dublin so lately as 1877. WM. H. PEET.

These songs both from Arne's * Arta- xerxes ' may be obtained from White & Son, 2, Great Turnstile, High Holborn.

W. H. CUMMINGS.

' Water parted from the Sea ' was set by

Dr. Arne in his opera ' Artaxerxes.' It can

be found in * British Minstrelsie,' vol. ii.,

published by T. C. & E. C. Jack, Edinburgh.

ETHEL M. TURNER.

[MR. M. H. DODDS and MR. B. A. POTTS also thanked for replies.]

CAPT. C. J. M. MANSFIELD (US. viii. 330). According to a pedigree of the Spong family in my possession, Capt. Mansfield married Anna, daughter of William Spong of Cook- ham Hill, Rochester, and had issue three children : Mary, Seymour, and James (who married Mary Wakeley). In O" Byrne's ' Naval Biography,' 1849, to the name of Commander George Spong is appended a foot-note containing an account of Capt. Mansfield's services. G. D. LUMB.

Leeds.

CHARLES LAMB'S " MRS. S " (11 S. viii- 262, 318, 375). I am unable to say who " Mrs. S " was. MR. CECIL CLARKE sug- gests that I should inform the readers of ' N. & Q.' " as to Dr. Spinks's precise posi- tion in the legal M-orld." In Foster's ' Men at the Bar,' 1885, p. 441, there is a short notice of Serjeant Spinks, and also a short notice of Dr. Spinks, and it is quite clear that " Mrs. S " had nothing to do with either of these men.

John Spinks was a clerk in the Treasurer's office of the Inner Temple from 21 Feb., 1777, until 14 Nov., 1780, when he was appointed Sub-Treasurer. He lived with his wife in a set of chambers adjoining the office. He died in 1801. She died in 1786, and is buried in the Temple Churchyard. Charles Lamb was then in his eleventh year. I cannot find out what her surname was, but the Register of Burials shows that her Christian name was " Mary." Charles Lamb was born in 1775, and it is highly probable that Charles Lamb knew both Spinks and his wife. In a P.S. to his essay ; The Old