400
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 a. HI. AUG., 1917.
and from 1890 to 1896 at Ashleigh, Addle-
stone. He was a member of the R.B. A. from
1856 to 1894. Mr. T. Mewburn Crook,
Hon. Sec., has no record of Cobbett's death.
The late Mr. Frederic Boase tried to find a
record of Cobbett's death in the register at
Somerset House, but could not succeed in
doing so. Perhaps the artist died abroad.
Two of his works are in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool : ' The Showman,' or ' The Peepshow,' 29J in. by 39 in. ; and
- A Country Lane,' 16 in. by 20 in. The
latter is inscribed on the back : " Philip Westcott, Esq., with E. J. Cobbett's com- pliments. E. J. Cobbett, July 2, '45."
Cobbett was not a member of the Liverpool Academy. His work is good and pleasant. He is not recorded in the ' D.N.B.' or in Bryan's ' Dictionary of Painters,' but references to him are in Mr. Algernon Graves' s works, ' Royal Academy Exhibitors,' vol. ii. p. 90, and ' British Institution Ex- hibitors,' p. 106 ; Benezit's ' Dictionnaire des Peintres,' vol. i. p. 973 ; ' The Year's Art ' for 1881 ; and Boase's ' Modern English Bio- graphy,' Supplement, vol. i. col. 696.
THOS. WHITE.
Junior Reform Club, Liverpool.
AUSTRALIAN SLANG (12 S. iii. 296). Only the last on the list of so-called Australian slang words is to be found in ' Austral English : a Dictionary of Australian Words,' by Edward E. Morris (Macmillan, 1898) : " Yakka, v., frequently used in Queensland 'foush-towns . . . .It is given by the Rev. W. iRidley, in his ' Kamilaroi and other Aus- tralian Languages,' p. 86, as the Turrubul (Brisbane) term for ' work,' probably cog- nate with yugari, ' make,' same dialect, and yengga, ' make,' Kabi dialect, Queensland."
Imshee, Arabic, probably by now a familiar phrase among Australian troops quartered
- in Egypt,
Mag, "sub., a magpie, v. 6. To tease, worry incessantly, to scold, complain, find fault ; to abuse " (' E.D.D.,' s.v.).
Nark, " v., to annoy, vex, irritate, exasperate ' (' E.D.D.,' s.v.), or Nark, " Romany ndk, nose a police spy, or informer ' (' N.E.D.,' s.v.).
C. W. FlREBRACE.
Boko. I should say this was not peculiar to Australia at any rate, in the sense of " head." There was once a ballad about the Sayers-Heenan fight, which ran somewhat as follows :
Bash him on the boko, dot him on the snitch ! Such a mighty fighter, there never was sich. Jt is possibly riming slang for " cocoa-(nut)."
Bokays. Surely only "bouquets" ?
Imshee. Arabic, I believe.
Nark. Again not Australian. Thieves'
slang for an informer.
J. A. WILLIAMS. National Liberal Club, S.W.
diner, an unmarried girl, is probably derived from the German die Kleine=the little one ; and guyver from the Hebrew f/devah " pride." Both these words have been incorporated into Jiidisch, and subse- quently become slang. Giiyver is not un- common in Cockney slang.
ISRAEL SOLOMONS.
[W. B. S. also thanked for reply.]
LINNAEUS AND THE BLOSSOMING GORSE (12 S. iii. 333). It was the furze on Putney Heath (adjoining Wimbledon Common) which is alleged to have delighted Linnaeus so much that he fell on his knees in a rapture at the sight of it. Sir James E. Smith is the authority for the story, which will be found recorded in Miss BrightwelTs ' A Life of Linnaeus,' p. 87. BENJ. WALKER.
Langstone, Erdington.
In ' Through the Fields with Linnaeus ' (2 vols., Longmans, 1887) Mrs. Florence Caddy relates on p. 329 the anecdote about the gorse. It should be remembered that our common furze is confined to Western Europe, and Linnaeus had possibly never seen it before. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.
That handbook of my youth, Colman's ' Our Woodlands, Heaths, and Hedges,' whispers to my attentive ear :
"It is said that when the famous botanist Dillenius first visited England and saw our commons covered with the brilliant bloom of the furze, which he had been accustomed to look 01 as a choice exotic, he went on his knees in gratefu delight." P. 90.
Miss Anne Pratt also testifies (' Flowering Plants of Great Britain ') :
" The delight of Dillenius on seeing it in pro fusion on the English common, and the rapture of Linnaeus when he knelt on the sod thanking God for its loveliness, can be well understood bi the lover of flowers." Vol. ii. p. 78.
I do not consider this authoritative, but i' is interesting.
' The Encyclopaedia Britannica ' does not mention the gorse story under Dillenius or under Linnaeus. Perhaps it is one of the anecdotes of the latter which it refrains from repeating as being of " very doubtfu authority." ST. SWITHIN.
