Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/506

416 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.vm.MAY2i,io2i. Captain Woodes Rogers, and was entitled ' Cruising Voyage Round the World.' The other, by Edward Cooke, was called ' Voyage in the South Sea and Round the World.' It has been commonly supposed that, though Crusoe's island is not in the least like Mas-a-Tierra, Selkirk's adventures in the latter place inspired Defoe's master- piece, which was published a year after Rogers's book went into its second edition. JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT. " HE WILL NEVER SET THE SlEVE ON FlRE " (12 S. viii. 331, 378). On "He'll never set the Thames on fire," Brewer's * Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ' says : The popular explanation is that the word Thames is a pun on the word temse, a corn-sieve ; and that the parallel French locution He will never set the Seine on fire is a pun on seine, a drag-net ; but these solutions are not tenable. There is a Latin saw, Tiberim accendere nequaquam potest, which is probably the fons et origo of other parallel sayings. Then, long before our proverb we had " To set the Rhine on fire " (Den Rhein an- zilnderi), 1630, and Er hat den Rhein und das Meer angez&ndet, 1580. There were numerous similar phrases : as " He will never set the Liffey on fire " ; to " set the Trent on fire," to " set the Humber on fire," &c. Of course it is possible to set water on fire, but the scope of the proverb lies the other way, and it may take its place beside such sayings as "If the sky falls we may catch larks." Where is the " Latin saw " to be found ? What is the precise form of the " French locution " ? I humbly agree with ST. S WITHIN at the last reference, and Brewer, but should like more light on the matter. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. THE THAMES RUNNING DRY (12 S. viii. 332, 376). Toone, ' Chr. Hist.' i., pp. 31, 94, 127, 163, 188, 305, 410, 448, 457, says: (1) that in the year 114 there was a great frost in England, *so that most of the bridges were broken down by it, and the Thames was dry for three days ; (2) that in 1434 there was a ten weeks' frost and that the Thames was frozen below London Bridge to Gravesend; (3) that in Dec., 1541, there was so great a drought that small rivers were dried up, and the Thames was so shallow that the salt water flowed above London Bridge ; (4) that on June 29, 1550, the Thames ebbed and flowed three times in nine hours below the bridge ; (5) that on Sept. 5, 1592, owing to the lowness of the tides and a strong westerly wind the Thames was almost dry ; (6) that from the beginning of Dec., 1683, to Feb. 5, 1684, there was a very hard frost, " insomuch that coaches ran upon the Thames from the Temple to Westminster in Hillary term, an ox was roasted whole, bulls baited, and the like " ; (7) that on Christmas Day, 1709, it began to freeze very hard, and the frost lasted with small remissions about three months, during which the Thames was frozen over, and there were all manners of diversion on the ice ; (8) similarly in the winters of 1715-6 and 1716-7 the Thames was frozen over and there was a fair with all kinds of diversion held thereon. The above facts, if correct, would tend to show that the tidal limit in 1434 was between Gravesend and Tilbury, in 1541 and 1550 at London Bridge, and in 1683 below the Temple. If that is so, it is quite likely that in times of drought the Thames could easily be crossed on foot at Brentford, Isleworth, and Kingston-on-Thames, not to mention places higher up, as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. VENETIAN WINDOW (12 S. viii. 347). The ' N.E.D.' gives quotations for " Venetian windows," 'called also "Venetians" for shortness. One is : 1842, FRANCIS, Diet. Arts, Venetian window, a window in three separate apertures, the two side ones being narrow, and separated from the centre by timber only. They were quite capable of putting such windows into churches in the seventeenth century. Venetian blinds are composed of horizontal slats so fixed on strong tapes as to admit of various amounts of light and air. J. T. F. Winterton, Lines. The ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' defines the so-called Venetian or Palladian window as consisting of a central light with semicircular arch over, carried on an impost consisting of a small en- tablature, under which, and enclosing two other lights, one on each side, are pilasters. It says that the finest example of this window is to be seen in the Basilica Palla- diana at Vicenza, and goes on : In the library at Venice, Sansovino varied the design by substituting columns for the two inner pilasters. The Palladian window was introduced by Inigo Jones in the centre of the garden front at Wilton, by Lord Burlington in the centre of the wings of the Royal Academy, and good examples exist in Holkham House, Norfolk, by Kent, and in Worcester College, Oxford. There