Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/364

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. OCT. 12, 1912.


him the General Indexes of the Ninth and Tent Series attest, as they attest also the immens range of his information. His last contribution which reached us but a few days ago, is the not on " Hyke " which appears on p. 288 of this issue The labours of the little band of men Furiuval Morris, Ellis, Sweet with whom Skeat wa associated have revolutionized the study of Eng lish. Of them all, Skeat is the one whose worl has spread furthest, whose name has most trulj become a household word. Not for nothing was hi a mathematician ; his utterances had the nervoui energy, the freshness, the freedom from super fluity which are apt to go with mathematica faculty. Combined with his enthusiasm for hi? subject, they made it possible for him to hold th attention both of readers and auditors for a long as he chose and to good purpose. Again in spite of its superficial appearance of " dryness,' he had in philology especially on its etymologies side a subject of endless interest, on which knowledge is widely desired, and by the unlearnec fairly easily apprehended. And, as readers o ' N. & Q.' well know, he might chide the unlearnec for not having learnt more and better, but he die not refuse them his aid.

It is good to think that he lived to see the fruil of his labours, and that he died in the midst ol them.


BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES. OCTOBER.

MESSRS. HENRY R. HILL in their Catalogue 113 have a wide range of books, and we noticed that classical works and books on Oriental study occupied a larger space than of late they have done in the booksellers' lists we have examined. Tnere are the seventeenth - century translation -of Plutarch's ' Morals," " conferred with the Latine Translations and the French, by Philemon Holland, Doctor of Physicke," 31. '3s. ; and a Bekker's ' Aristotle,' 5 vols., 1831-5-70, 31. 10s. Of other works we may mention Capt. Harris's

  • Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of

Southern Africa,' 1840, 181. 10s. ; the " Alhambra : Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details from drawings taken on the spot in 1831 by Jules Goury, and in 18347 by Owen Jones, with a complete Translation of the Arabic Inscriptions and an Historical Notice of the Kings of Granada by Don Pasqual de Gayangos," 1842, 121. 12*.;

"* Plays written by the late ingenious Mrs. Aphra Behn,' third edition, with portrait, 1724, 51. 15s. ; 53 vols. of Pickering's Aldine Edition of British poets, a complete set, 183152, 251. ; ' Dr. Syntax's Life of Napoleon,' with the C'ruikshank illustrations, 101. ; ' Typographical Antiquities,' by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin a history of printing in the United Kingdom, with memoirs -of the old printers and a list of their works, 1810, SI. 8s. ; Heine's ' Sammtliche Werke,' 22 vols., original complete edition, 1861-9, 31. 3s. ; Hey- wood's ' Gunaikeon ; or, Nine Books of Various History concerning Women,' a first edition, 1624, 4?. ; Husenbeth's ' Emblems of the Saints,' edited by Dr. Jessopp, 1882, 21. Is. 6d. ; Loggan's " Oxonia Illustrata," 1675, with the rarer ' Can- tabrigia Illustrata,' ? 1688, the two in one volume, 221. 10s. ; Ridinger's ' Betrachtung der Wilden Thiere,' with 480 of the Ridinger engravings, 1761, 101. 10s. ; and a first edition of Johnson's

  • English Dictionary,' 1755, 31. 15s.


IN Messrs. Maggs's Catalogue 295 there are three or four items of first-rate interest, among them an original autograph MS. of the end of Part I. of ' Lamia ' a first draft, with nearly a dozen cancelled verses 175?. ; an unpublished MS. of William Morris's ' Some Thoughts on the Orna- mented MSS. of the Middle Ages,' in a volume which contains also a transcript of the MS. on vellum, biographical notes, and a miniature of Morris, 1251. ; a collection of letters to one another by Tennyson and Walt Whitman, from 1875 to 1886, 1851. ; and a volume of souvenirs of Whistler, containing a pen-and-ink sketch of himself and Mrs. Patterson, 125?. An original drawing, having " William Makepiece Quackery " written beneath it, depicting a German bourgeois with his pipe, is offered, with three smaller sketches from Thackeray's pen, for 581. A very interesting item, the price of which is 601., is the marriage contract (1784) between the Comte de Bruyeres and Anne Francoise Bouret d'Erigny, bearing the signatures of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Louis Stanislas Xavier (Louis XVIII.), Madame Elizabeth, and several others of their kin. Another good French item is a letter from Lafayette to Lady Morgan, 1816, 101. 10s. For 38?. is offered the MS. score of a Sonata for Pianoforte and 'Cello by Beethoven, having on the cover of the pianoforte score a dedication " a son ami Mr. Charles Neate " ; and for 121. 12s. a letter from Henry of Navarre, and signed by his hand, to " Moiis. du Pouet, Capt. of Fifty men of Arms of my Ordnance," 1593, to acquaint him with the fact that Henry- had adopted the Catholic religion. We noticed also an interesting memento of James II. : an oval silver plaque, about 3| in. by 3] in., bearing a bust of the King, with the usual inscription and the dates of birth and death. The date is about 1702. The British Museum possesses a specimen in lead.

To return to English literature, we may briefly nention the following items : a letter from Popo

o G. Selwyn, on Selwyn's translation of ' Tully's

Epistles,' 15?. ; a letter of Mary Lamb's to Miss Kelly, 1820, 30Z. ; two letters of Johnson's, the one to Charlotte Lennox, 1781 (11?. 11s.), the other to Elizabeth Lawrence, 1782 (14?. 14s.) ; a letter of Evelyn's to Ralph Thoresby, 1699, 36?. ; the manuscript of a short tale, ' The Liar Jnmasked,' by Patrick Bronte, 26?. ; and two otters of Byron's, of which the more interesting s that addressed to Sir F. Storer in March, 1824, rom Missolonghi, for which 78?. is asked.

[Notices of other Catalogues held over.]


to <0msp0ntonts.

S. C. " Oobid " is Scotch for u-oobut = '- woollv- ear." Vide ' N.E.D.'

WILMOT CORFIELD. The derivation of " tram vay " has been often discussed in ' N. & Q.,' nd one thing comes out clearly, the impossi- ility of deriving it from Outram. The discus- ion in 6 S. ii. and iii. was perhaps the most nteresting. The word turned up again at S. iii. 96, 373. " Dram " or " tram," in Prof, keat's opinion, is of Scandinavian forigin, mean- ng " beam," " shaft of a carriage," ' frame of a arriage."