second element of the compound beginning with a consonant.
This phenomenon is, of course, to be explained by the influence of the following nasal; compare, for instance, the pronunciation of the Romance words chamber, cambric, angel. A. L. Mayhew.
Oxford.
John Droeshout, Engraver.—No particulars of his life are recorded. As “John Droushout of the parish of St. Brides in ffleetstreete, London, Ingraver, being very sicke and weake in body but of sound and perfect minde and memory,” he made his will January 12, 1651/2, and it was proved in the Prerogative Court by his widow Elizabeth on the following March 18. He there mentions his nephew Martin Droeshout, his son-in-law Isaac Daniell, and another son-in-law, Thomas Alferd. L. I. L. A.
Leaden Font.—In ‘N. & Q.,’ 5th S. xii. 443, a correspondent has published a list of baptismal fonts made of lead. Those who are interested in this subject may like to know that in Dawson Turner’s ‘Tour in Normandy,’ vol. ii. p. 97, there is an engraving of a leaden font which exists (or did exist in 1818) at Bourg-Achard, in Normandy. It seems to be of twelfth century date. Anon.
The Star of Bethlehem.—It is, perhaps’ worth while to “make a note” of the recent craze about the reappearance of the Star of the Magi. Persons completely ignorant of astronomy (and it is melancholy to find how many there still are of these) have apparently taken the planet Venus at her recent season of greatest brilliancy for a new or unusual star. Mr. Hyde Clarke’s informants, however (7th S. iv. 506), were wrong in supposing that it could be seen even in November so early as one o’clock in the morning.
A writer in Nature for Dec. 22 has suggested that though Venus is not the Star of Bethlehem, the Star of Bethlehem was Venus; in other words, that the Magi were attracted by a very briliant appearance of that planet in the morning, similar to that which we have had recently. Surely in this he does not give them sufficient credit for the knowledge of planetary appearances which they, in all probability, possessed, making them aware that there was nothing particularly unusual in the phenomenon. Moreover, is it possible to conceive that they, accustomed as they were to watch the heavens, would be so surprised to catch sight of the planet again after leaving Jerusalem as to rejoice “with exceeding great joy”? It may be added that Venus was not at greatest morning brilliancy in any part of the autumn or winter of B.C. 5, when the Nativity probably took place.
But if this writer attributes too little knowledge of astronomy to the Magi, one in the Standard newspaper of Dec. 23 gives them a great deal too much. He suggests that the two appearances of the luminous object called a “star,” seen by them first in their own country, and afterwards on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, was a comet seen before and after perihelion passage. He may set his mind at rest on that point. Before Newton had indicated the laws of cometary motion, it was impossible to identify a comet seen in those two positions as the same body. W. T. Lynn.
Blackheath.
The Gurgoyles.—In creating, as he has done, an imaginary society of Gargoyles, Mr. Punch has unwittingly committed an act of lése majestè against the real society of that name, which flourished at Lincoln’s Inn and the Temple between the years 1855 and 1875, and which has never been formally dissolved. This company of Gurgoyles, affectionately termed “The Gurgs,” was a revival of the old Cambridge Shakespeare Society, and it consisted mainly of Oxford and Cambridge men, with one brilliant member of the London University—the Right Hon. Henry Matthews, and one foreigner, an accomplished and energetic Neapolitan. Nearly all the Gurgs have belonged to their brotherhood from the first, and in more than thirty years there have been only two death vacancies. Taking the names as they now stand, they include one Secretary of State, as aforesaid; one of Her Majesty’s judges—Mr. Justice Mathew; one colonial judge, who was also an “Essayist and Reviewer”; two thriving Queen’s Counsel, and several other more or less successful barristers; one university professor, an Oxford man; one eminent Russian scholar; two fellows (one of them a distinguished fellow) of the Society of Antiquaries; two able editors of London journals; one clever and original artist; and at least one full-grown specimen of the genus irritabile. Besides all these, a certain popular novelist (I could not mention his name without pain) did earnestly desire to be enrolled among the brethren, and was enrolled accordingly; but showed his animus soon afterwards by describing them, and describing them inaccurately, in his very next novel.
Mr. Punch will observe that a society of this kind is not to be parodied with impunity; and he should further note that the Gurgoyles still occasionally affirm their existence, subject to the claims of matrimony and politics, by that truly British sacrament which is familiar to him—the sacrament of dinner. A. J. M.
The Devil’s Passing-Bell.—A very interesting custom obtains observance in this district every Christmas Eve, or rather morning, for so soon as the last stroke of twelve has sounded, the age of the year—as 1887, 1888—is tolled, as on the death of any person. This is termed “The Old Lad’s, or the Devil’s, passing-bell.” I do not know date of
