90
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. MARCH,
quite clear what is meant by " medallion " ;
but the statits quo should be preserved,
whether lodge-jewels or banner be indicated.
A P.M.
The coat of arms should certainly not be altered if, as stated, it was correctly blazoned at the time when the medallion was engraved.
As regards the final remark of CURIOSUS II., I should say that the arms in question were used, not as the bearing of a corporate body, but as the sign or memorial of the individual who presented the regalia.
ST. SWITHIN.
AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (12 S. iv. 50).
2. Still the race of hero-spirits, &c. C. Kingsley, ' The World's Age.'
3. Were every hand a scribe by trade.
The following rime was current in Evangelical circles, and was often framed and hung up in rooms :
Could I with ink the ocean fill,
Were the whole heavens of parchment made, Were every blade of grass a quill,
Were every man a scribe by trade ; To write the love of God above Would drain that ocean dry, Xor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from earth to sky.
G. W. E. RUSSELL. 18 Wilton Street, S.W.
Like almost everything else which vexes the souls of people who " want to know, you know," lines to which this phrase is attached have been often aforetime submitted to the omniscience of ' N. & Q.' The quest began in the First Series, and I daresay it will be active in the last. I be- lieve it was somewhere declared that the verse was from a hymn written in Chaldee by Rabbi Mayer Isaac. Who he was I do not know. I came on the lines in a seventeenth - century letter written by one of my ancestors.
ST. SWITHIN.
4. When prodigals return great things are done. These lines occur in ' The Siliad ' (Beeton's Christmas Annual, 1873), written, I have always understood, by the late A. A. Dowty, who was also the author of ' The Coming K - ,' which appeared in that Annual for the previous year.
WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
5. " Unholy is the voice," &c., is a translation of Odyssey xxii. 412 :
ew*
" It is not right to exult over slain men." The
translation " thanksgiving " is wrong.
A. MILL.
John Bright quoted these words " from an ancient and renowned poet " in his speech on America, June 29, 1867. G. W. E. RUSSELL.
[Several correspondents are thanked for the line from Homer.]
on !800ks,
A Neic English Dictionary. (Vol. IX. First Half
Si-Si.) 'Siillation-Stratum. By Henry Bradley.
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 5s. net.)
THIS section of the great Oxford Dictionary. edited by the masterly hand of Dr. Bradley, is full of interest of a varied kind. It includes several common words with a host of different meanings requiring those acute powers of analysis for which the work is justly celebrated ; deriva- tions which revise previous views and clear up some confusions ; a number of important words from the Latin ; and an up-to-date piece of slang from the German. The quotations given in the Dictionary usually end about the nineties, though we notice " a straight-out policy " cited from The Morning Post of 1915 : but Dr. Bradley has not been able to resist the claims of the one German word which has become current among the crowd during the War. " strafe." It is " from the German phrase Gott strafe England, ' God punish England,' a common salutation in Germany in 1914 and the following years."
The " Delenda est Carthago " of our enemies was first taken by our soldiers and used with a slightly contemptuous and humorous connotation to indicate a German attack or bombardment. Then it became used both abroad and at home for " punish " or " heap imprecations on," generally, however, at home, we think, in a way which means more bark than bite. A woman threatens to " strafe " her child, and a man his horse. In a similar way another serious evidence of German feeling, ' The Hymn of Hate,' has led to the word " hate " being used as a substantive for the actual results of that sentiment among our enemies, in the shape of bombardment on the battle front, or bombs in London. As a whole, we are a humorous nation, and the Ger- mans are not.
The substantive " stock " begins near the bottom of p. 988. and extends as far as the third column of p. 994. It includes some curious phrases and special usages. The first sonse given is the trunk of a tree, or a log, which leads to the meaning of " senseless person," seen probably in such compounds as " laughing-stock." Stock = " close-fitting neckcloth " is regarded as used " now only in the army," but we fancy we could point to a few supporters of the old fashion in civil life. " Straight " is another long article. This word is really a past participle of the verb " to stretch," and is popularly confused with "strait." which means "narrow," owing to the "strait" gate of Matthew vii. 13. The two words, indeed, get pretty near one another in some of their usages. Certainly the" straightener" who took the place of a doctor in ' Erewhon ' (see the beginning of chap, x.) should have been included. He is defined by Butler as " one who bendeth back the crooked " in a case of im- morality.
In etymology there are some notable pointe. " Stipulation " is no longer connected, as in Trench ' On the Study of Words,' with the breaking of a stipula. Latin for " straw," in a. mutual engagement. The " story " or " storey " of a house is now discovered to be probably
