Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/236

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230


NOTES AND QUERIES.


[128. IV. AUG., 1918.


JOHNSON'S PENANCE AT UTTOXETEB (12 S. iv. 185). For Johnson's expiatory visit to Uttoxeter see his life by Sir Leslie Stephen in the ' D.N.B.,' where reference is made to Boswell and to B. Warner's ' Tour through the Northern Counties.' " For some slight discrepancies in these state- ments," adds the writer, " see ' N. & Q.,' 6 S. xi. 1, 91, 193."

EDWARD BENSLY. r Aberystwyth.

See Birkbeck Hill's edition 'of Boswell' s

  • Johnson,' vol. iv. p. 373, note 1.

G. F. R. B.

CHILDREN'S STORY OF THE WARS OF THE HOSES (12 S. iv. 187).' The Shepherd Lord ' in ' Magnet Stories,' edited, I believe, by Mrs. S. C. Hall, is the story asked for. Wordsworth used the subject in ' A Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle.'

SUSANNA CORNER.

Lenton Hall. Nottingham.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (12 S. iv. 190).

1. Silence sleeping on a waste of ocean. From ' Rest,' by Percy Somers Payne.

O. S. C.

3. These lines are to be found on p. v of

  • The Story of the Other Wise Man,' by Henry

Van Dyke (Harper & Brothers, 1902). The following is the complete quatrain :

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul May keep the path, but will not reach the goal ; While he who walks in love may wander far, Yet God will bring him where the blessed are.

J. H. L. 11.


on


A New English Dictionary. (Vol. IX. Si Th) Supple Si'-eep. By C. T. Onions. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 5s. net.)

SIR JAMES MURRAY some while since finished T, the sections from Ti to Tz forming part of vol. x. of the great ' Dictionary.' S, a tremendous task, has been divided among several hands, and Mr. Onions, who is responsible for Su- onwards, has now got as far as " sweep."

The present section is well up to the standard of the ' Dictionary,' and particularly good in its analysis of several words in common use for mental operations, such as " suppose," " sur- mise." "surprise," and " suspect," with their cognate forms. There are a multitude of familiar words also of Latin origin, sucb as " supply," " support," " supreme," " survive," and " sus- tain. A number of technical or scientific words are formed from " supra," the oddest of which is

    • Supracreatarian," which is quoted only from


Heylin in 1660, and is even more obscure than " Su pr a lapsarian . ' '

The section illustrates the disappearance of many nouns which have been conquered in the struggle for existence by simpler forms. For instance, besides " support." " supportal " and " supportance " were once current. " Suppliant " Shakespeare uses for " supplementary," but it is, of course, much more familiar as " one who supplicates." Here there is hardly adequate representation of the English which translates Greek usage. " With chaplets twined about your suppliant boughs " occurs at the beginning of Whitelaw's translation of the ' CEdipus Rex ' in his ' Sophocles,' 1882 ; and ' The Suppliants ' is familiar as the English title of a play of JKschylus. " Supposedly," quoted from The Times of 1916, is an instance of an adverb which saves two or more words. Here the ' Dictionary ' is up to date, but for " suppress," meaning withdraw from publication and refrain from disclosing it, stops at 1867 and 1871 respectively. More than one journalist since the War began has written of the " Suppress Bureau." " Sure " is an interesting article which must have taken some time. " Surly " is one of the words which by their spelling conceal their etymology. It should be " sirly," and expresses the und'erdog's view of the manners of nis master. " Surname," on the other hand, has been wrongly spelt " sirname," as if it meant a father's name. Who could guess offhand what " solepers," "sullipers," " shorpells," " syrpeles," and " cirploise " meant? They are all forms of " surplice." " Surrey " and " Sussex " both come in this section, the former being used for an American carriage which is an adaptation of an English pleasure-cart first built in that county. The " sussing " (spitting) of a cat is one of the echoic words invented by Urquhart in his vigorous translation of Rabelais. " Sussy " is a Scotch version of the French souci. Under " swaddler," a cant term for a Methodist, our own columns are referred to for a rival interpretation to that of Charles Wesley.

No one would ever suppose that " swamp " was first applied to rich, moist soil in the North American colonies. " Swank," on the other hand, in the slang sense which flourishes in the twentieth century, is " not, as many suppose, an Americanism," but belongs to English dialect, though not apparently very early. The ety-, mological meaning is declared to be uncertain, while swinging the body is suggested. We had always supposed that the word came from the Scotch " swankie," a strapping young fellow, which is quite early. The " swank " which is schoolboy slang for hard work is different, and easily connected with " swink," familiar in Milton's " swinkt hedger." Much interesting detail is given under " swear " and cognate forms. " Sweat " (noun) in the sense of " impatience, irritation, anxiety," is described as " chiefly Scotch and U.S." It is, or was, familiar schoolboy slang in England, and it is odd to find so natural an expression not common in England. Marcus Aurelius (i. 16) says of his father : " There was no perversity about him, no black looks or fits ; he never forced things, as one says, f^j iSptDros," a phrase which Dr. Rendall in his translation seems rather to overdo with the rendering " past sweating-point." The " swede," we are re-

minded, was introduced into Scotland from

Sweden in 1781-2.