Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/18

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9> s. x. JULY 5, 1902.


teenth century New England colonists laic out their villages on the pattern of an English manor. There were misteds with dwelling- houses thereon, lying side by side in the village street, and uplands. Even the olc custom of making the frame of a house before it was set up was followed (see Way's 'Prompt. Parv.,' p. 176). And when we are told of misteds granted in court, and forfeited for want of building, the English manorial system, or village community, seems to appear before our eyes. For what was a misted that had been built on but a mesuagium cedificatum, and what was a vacant misted but a mesua- gium vastum ?

If such a word as merestead exists in Eng- lish documents I think it has yet to be dis- covered. Is it not a clerical error in the original record ? And is there any evidence to show that in the American colonies it meant a farm ? S. O. ADDY.

Is there any means of ascertaining the name and origin of the clerk of the Plymouth, Mass., board ? From what part of England did Governor W. Bradford come? The sud- den cessation of the word meadstead in the records suggests that some official to whom the word was natural was succeeded by one who was unacquainted with it in ordinary life. Can MR. MATTHEWS tell us what word took its place in the records in question after 1641 ? Q. V.

"HOPEFUL": "SANGUINE" (9 th S. ix. 467). I take it that hopeful = cheerful expect- ancy and sanguine = ardent expectancy. There is really, as Trench has pointed put, no such thing as a synonym. The meanings of these words are almost the same, but in the latter word there is a subaudition of superior force and strength, as its derivation indicates. ST. SWITHIN is right, it seems to me, as to the variation in the meanings of similar and alike. The latter = exact resem- blance, while the former = correspondence in shape without regard to size.

GREVILLE WALPOLE, M.A., LL.D.

Kensington, W.

Surely one can be hopeful without being sanguine. To be sanguine about a thing means to have more confidence, more assur- ance, than mere hopefulness has. We may even "hope against hope" (a curious phrase, by the way), and we often hope for things we scarcely dare to expect. In such a case we are certainly not sanguine. C. C. B.

Surely Mr. Chamberlain is right in making a difference between these words. I have looked up the word sanguine in several dic-


tionaries, all of which give the word " confi- dent" as one of its synonyms. To hope for something and to be confident of it are two very different attitudes of mind. One con- stantly comes across some such expression as "He was hopeful, but by no means sanguine." CHARLES HIATT.

POPULAR NICKNAMES FOR COLONIES (9 th S. i. 109, 137, 491). The following extract from the Manchester Guardian of 23 April, describ- ing a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute by Mr. H. A. Broome on 'Civil Progress in the Orange River Colony,' is of interest in connexion with the question raised :

" To judge from Mr. Broome's paper, there is a flanger that the Orange River Colony will come generally to be called ' Orangia.' This is an ugly word, but Mr. Broome used it over and over again. Plainly he was used to it and was accustomed to hear others use it. We cannot check the demand for brevity; but cannot this particular name be stopped ? Whenever a new official name is given to a place the givers ought really to foresee the inevit- able abbreviations and to provide against them as far as possible in their original choice. ' The Free State ' was a good abbreviation, and ' The Trans- vaal,' which will no doubt be the abbreviation for ' The Transvaal Colony,' will remain as good as it used to be in the old days. Orangia is altogether bad, but who can suggest a better name as brief or nearly as brief?"

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

BARRAS (9 th S. viii. 202, 228, 267, 473 ; ix. 15, 133). There is "Barras Bridge" at New- castle-on-Tyne. ST. SWITHIN.

AlNS WORTH THE NOVELIST (9 th S. IX. 409).

If I am not mistaken, nearly all the novels and short tales by this author have been republished by John Dicks, 313, Strand, either in sixpenny volumes or in "Dicks's English Library," with reproductions from the "original illustrations." In his later years Ainsworth was closely identified with Bow Sells, to which his last novels were con- tributed, the illustrations being supplied by Fred Gilbert, Friston, Huttula, and others of the clever artistic Bow Bells staff. I do not know for certain if Dicks's reprints of Ains- worth are " still in print." W. H. Ainsworth was, I fear, somewhat vain, and instead of sticking to Cruikshank and .Phiz, he pre- 'erred to have a different artist to illustrate lis stories each time, which now and then ed him into strange company, as, for jxample, when he employed Buss to do the

tchings for 'James the Second.' The only

other artist whom I can recall (beyond those named by R. D.) as having illustrated Ains- worth was a Frenchman, Ed. Morin clever, but too " scribbly "who, in 1854, sketched