512
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. DEC. 27, im
wrangler in 1794; Lord Hatherley, also a
wrangler (I forget what place) some thirty
years later ; and Sir George Trevelyan got a
first class in the Classical Tripos of 1861.
D. OSWALD HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B.
' HYMNS ANCIENT AND MODERN ' (9 th S. viii. 101, 230, 388 ; ix. 36 ; x. 432). Will O. O. H. tell us what he means by the "complete edition" published in 1897 ? I have known ' Hymns Ancient and Modern ' (the enlarged and revised edition of 1875, to which was added about 1889 a small volume of ' Supple- mental Hymns ') intimately for over twenty vears, but I never heard of the edition in question. C. HUDSON.
[The supplemental hymns were included in the 1897 edition.]
If a new edition of this book is in course of preparation the editors might be urged, by more powerful influence than is possessed by me, to transcribe all hymns, whether translated from ancient and modern lan- guages or original compositions, in the exact phraseology employed by the translators or composers. F. DE H. L.
"SPICE" (9 th S. x. 449). Coles, in his dic- tionary, published in 1692, gives "raisins and figs "as the meaning of this word. N. Bailey in 1759 explains it to mean "raisins, plums, figs, and such like dried fruits." Halliwell, in his 'Dictionary of Provincial Words,' 1847, says it is "sweetmeats, ginger- bread, cake, or any kind of dried fruit" while Brockett, in his 'North Country Words' (1846), adopts the same meaning, also Wright in his 'Obsolete and Provincial English.' The verse quoted appears in E. F. Northall's | English Folk-Rhymes,' 1892, as being in use in Warwickshire.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.
Children say "spice " instead of "sweets," that is, the various compositions made of sugar boiled and otherwise prepared for the sweet-shops. But all preparations of the kind were called "sweets ' fifty years ago. When we said " spice " the spices were meant, such as ginger, mace, nutmeg, sweet pepper, and so forth. We said :
What are little babs made of?
Why, sugar an' spice,
An' all that 's nice !
That 's what babs is made of !
This shows that in those days sugar and spice were not both "spice."
THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.
This word can scarcely be a synonym for "sweetmeats" in the rime quoted by MR.
ACKERLEY, for the rime is common in places
where the word is never used in that sense.
It is much more likely to refer to the mixed
spice composed of nutmeg, mace, cinnamon,
&c. used for flavouring puddings, " mince,"
and such like delicacies.
Nor is the Latin word species usually applied to drugs in general. It is equivalent to " sorts," and signifies a mixture of dry drugs for some special purpose. There were a good many species in our older dispensatories Species diambrce, species diatragacanthi, &c. but the term is no longer official, and in the shops its use is virtually confined to mixtures of the dry powdered ingredients of two or three different confections. C. C. B.
HUMOROUS FRENCH POETRY (9 th S. x. 288, 390). I have not seen the original reference, but am surprised MR. ARMSTRONG overlooked Boileau, who, in my modest judgment, has a far better claim to be likened to Juvenal than Victor Hugo in his ' Les Chatiments.' I am a great admirer of Victor Hugo, and sometimes have wished that ' Les Chati- ments,' for the sake of his reputation, had never seen the light. As a work of art it is decidedly poor. On the whole, unless I am grossly mistaken, the French language is not excessively rich in humorous verse. In fact, I question whether humour has a dis- tinctive note in French writing, prose or poetical. M. L. R. BRESLAR.
ELIHU YALE'S WIFE (9 th S. x. 385). That MR. PENNY has discovered this lady's parent- age will scarcely be doubted, and the pedigree of Yale which has its best form in 'The New England Historical and Genea- logical Register,' vol. liii., January, 1899 may receive the amendment following :
"Elihu Yale, Governor of Fort St. George, Madras, and later a Governor of The Hon. East India Company, b. 1648, d. 1721=Catherine, widow of Joseph Hynmers, late second in council at Fort St. George, and daughter of Walter Elford of London, by his wife Ann, daughter of Richard Chambers, Alderman, of London. Mrs. Yale died at Latimers, Bucks, 1727, aged 77."
Mrs. Yale interests me as connected with the history of Latimer (Latimers, or Isel- hampsted Latimer), Buckinghamshire, which has had my attention, the place being known to me since youth ; it is now the estate of the gallant Lord Chesham, who very literally did "yeoman service" in the late South African war. Mrs. Yale passed her latter years at Latimer, and her remains rest there. It will afford me satisfaction should I have any- thing to add to MR. PENNY'S information.
The tomb is in the beautiful churchyard of Latimer, close by the south wall of the
