224
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XIL SEPT. 19, IGOS.
learned the word from the second stanza of
Burns's 'Cotter's Saturday Night,' where it
rimes to " pleugh,"and he did not necessarily
know that Burns, in all likelihood, pronounced
"pleugh" gutturally, as the Scottish plough-
man does in some places at the present day.
Translating * yKneid,' vi. 704, Gavin Douglas renders mrgulta sonantia silvis by " sowchand bewis," i.e., rustling boughs, and he gives " ilk swouch of wynd " as the equivalent for omnes aurce in ii. 728. Douglas's version of ' /Kneid,' ii. 304-8, where yEneas is described as hearing from the roof the sounds of approaching con- flict, includes both "soucht" and "plewch," the early spelling of " plough": A sownd or soucht I hard thair at the last, Lyke quhen the fyre, be felloun vvyndis blast, Is drevin amyd the flate of cornys rank ; Or quhen the burne on spait hurlis doun the bank, Othir throw a water brek, or spait of fluide, Ry vand wp reid erd as it war wouide, Downe dingand cornys, all the plewch labour at
anis, And drivis on swiftlie stoikis, treis and stams.
Allan Ramsay uses the word variously, applying it both to the whizzing sound of a flying arrow and to the steady breathing characteristic of deep sleep. " Soucht a' night balillilow " is his suggestive expression when describing a thoroughly refreshing experience. Burns has both " sugh, as already indicated, and " sough," employing the two forms with practically the same signification. In his 'Address to the Deil ' he depicts that alarm- ing personage as having presented himself to the view in the likeness of " a rass-buss," i.e., of a bush of rushes, standing portentously " wi' waving sugh." The rime in this passage, it may be noted, is with "lough," the poet's equivalent for "loch, "which is directly sug- gestive of the guttural pronunciation over- looked by Wordsworth in his adaptation of the word. In 'The Brigs of Ayr,' st. 4, Burns admirably makes the sound echo the sense in this line:
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard. In his 'Verses on the Destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig ' the poet has the verb " soughs ; ' (which some editors give as "sughs"), where he represents the god of the Nith as looking from the river and utter- ing a heavy sigh, "as soughs the boding wind amang his caves." In ' The Battle of Sherra- muir ' one of the interlocutors, recalling the terrible scene, declares that his " heart, for fear, gaed sough for sough," which is an extremely graphic description of absorbing excitement.
From its use in direct physical description the word is readily adapted to figurative pur- poses. The whining tone of the Presbyterian
chaplains, for instance, is significantly in-
dicated in 'The Antiquary ' by the statement
that they " sough out a sermon on the morn-
ing of every birthday." Annie Winnie, m the
' Bride of Lammermoor,' hints at the whisper-
ing insinuations of rumour when she says,
" I hae heard a sough as if Lady Ashton was
nae canny body." Principal Shairp, in ' The
Bush aboon Traquair,' suggestively recalls
the haunting melody that floated into the
structure of his lyric when he writes :
Owre my cradle its sweet chime
Cam' sughin' frae auld time. The expression " keep a calm sough," familiar to readers of the Waverley Novels, indicates the necessity for a modest demeanour and the propriety of reserving one's opinion. " Hout tout, man," says Jasper in ' The Monas- tery,' " keep a calm sough ; better to fleech a fool than fight with him." This sage injunc- tion, conveyed in the same terms, may still be heard in provincial Scotland where the native speech prevails. THOMAS BAYNE.
MEMORY. This is a subject regarding which a good deal of nonsense is habitually talked. We often hear people say that they have a good memory for certain things, but a bad one for other things. This I believe to be a delusion. A man's memory may be good or it may be bad, but it cannot well be good for one thing and bad for another thing. It might as well be said that a bottle was good for holding brandy, but bad for holding whisky. In the case of a feeble intellect all its faculties will be feeble memory, judgment, and all the rest but they will not be feeble for one purpose and vigorous for another purpose. The fact is that our memory is in itself equally powerful or feeble for all purposes, but we remember best those things which interest us most, and so we say that we have good memories for such things ; while we forget those things which do not interest us, and we say, accord- ingly, that we have bad memories for those things.
Horace Walpole used to s&y that his memory was all-retentive as to the names of persons and of places, but that it was absolutely impotent in regard to dates. It has been "said of him by Macaulay, I think that he could tell you the name of the grand-aunt of King Ethelwald, but that he could not tell you whether she lived in the year 500 or in the year 1500. The truth was that he took an interest in names and genealogies, but none in dates. Similarly, in his introduction to 'Anne of Geierstein,' Scott aptly says :
