266
NOTES AND QUERIES. ui s. vi. OCT. 5, 1912.
Except the library of the Chamber of
Commerce, there is not to-day anything
within the City answering the purpose of
a Mercantile Library.
ALECK ABRAHAMS.
A GREAT BOHEMIAN SCHOLAR. The death
of Jaroslav Vrchlicky (nom de guerre of
Emil Frida) on 9 Sept. at Domazlice (Taus)
in the Bohmerwald removes an industrious
scholar and a poet of wide culture. Born
at Loun in 1853, he took his degree in the
philosophical faculty at Prague, and became
tutor in the family of Count Montecuccoli.
A few years were spent in Italy, and on
his return to Prague Vrchlicky was occupied
as secretary of educational commissions,
and at length became Professor of European
Literatures at the Bohemian University.
The literary interests and output of Vrchlicky were enormous. As a translator he rendered into Cech Byron, Browning, Tennyson, Swinburne, Poe, and other English and American singers ; Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Leopardi, and other Italian classics ; Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, Vigny, and Baudelaire among French authors ; besides Calderon, Camoens, Mickiewics, and some Oriental poets. He was an unwearied original lyric, dramatic, and epic poet, a novelist, essayist, prose translator, and anthologist. The list of his works would occupy several columns. His contemporaries Svatopluk Cech and my late friend Josef Sladek (translator of Shakespeare) shared with Vrchlicky a wide popularity.
Vrchlicky was of plain, but striking appearance, with a Tolstoyan wealth of hair and beard. The writer retains pleasant recollections of meeting him a few years ago, but failing health prevented him from receiving visitors for some time before his death. He holds worthy rank among European savants.
FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.
Streatham Common.
" MOROCCO." We have heard a good deal lately of Marakesh, the important city in Morocco which was entered on 7 Sept. by Col. Mangin with a flying column of 4,000 men. Marakesh (also spelt Marrakesh) has the supreme distinction among the Imperial towns of Morocco of having given to this empire the name by which it is known in Europe. The Arabic name of the sultanate is Maghrib-al-Aqcd, the Extreme West, a name which has nothing to do with Morocco.
An older English spelling of Morocco was
Marocco, a form borrowed directly from
the Italian Marocco. This was the usual
spelling in the seventeenth century; so
Bohun in his ' Geographical Dictionary '
(ed. 1688). The French form is Maroc.
The It. Marocco has lost a final a, which was mistaken for s plural, as may be shown from the Spanish and Portuguese forms Sp. Marruecos, Pt. Marrocos.
Marrdcos is the nearest equivalent to the name of the city Marrakesh. The ordi- nary English spelling, Morocco (with o instead of a), is due to association with the Moors (Lat. Mauri). A. L. MAYHEW.
AN ULSTER ROCK PULPIT. The parish church at Laragh, co. Fermanagh, is re- markable for its pulpit, which is built on a rock projecting from the foundation. Round the pulpit is the inscription " Upon this rock I will build My Church."
WILLIAM MACARTHUR.
SIGNS OF OLD LONDON. (See 11 S. i. 402, 465; ii. 64, 426; iv. 226; v, 4, 77, 286, 416; vi. 167.) I continue my list of signs of clock- and watch-makers (&c.) from the last reference above : White Horse and Black Boy, Great Old Bailey,
1705.
" Diall, Rood Lane," c. 1679. Black Boy, Strand, 1676. Three Cups, Hatton Street, 1690. Golden Ball, Lothbury, c. 1682. Bear, Foster Lane, against Goldsmiths' Hall, 1675. Clock, corner of Warwick Street, Charing Cross,
1705.
Golden Head, Cloak Lane, 1753. Cross Keys, Lothbury, 1699. Dial, Fleet Street ; and " Dial over against the
New Church in the Strand," 1714. Dial and Crown, St. John's Street, near Hicks
Hall, c. 1780. Fox, Lothbury, c. 1670. Mermaid, Lothbury, also Moses Alley, Bankside,
c. 1675.
Three Compasses, Gravel Lane, 1701. Spring Clock, Fvast Smithfield, near Hermitage
Bridge, 1705.
Dial and Crown, Newgate Street, c. 1757. Black Spread Eagle, Ludgate Hill, c. 1698. Dial, Russell Street, Covent Garden, and St.
James's Street, against the Palace Gates,
1714.
Ship, Fleet Street, c. 1672. King's Arms and Dial, Russell Street, Covent
Garden, c. 1730.
Silver Dials, St. Bartholomew Close, 1793. Spring Clock, Broad Street, c. 1760. Sun, Pope's Head Alley, c. 1632. Duke's Head, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1676. Pearl of Venice, St. James's Street, Covent
Garden, 1662.
WILLIAM McMuRRAY,
(To lelconcluded.) }
