366
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. NOV. 7, 1003.
repeated, but the printer has shortened it
thus "Rule, &c" In the last verse the chorus
is repeated in full, but here the printer has
mechanically repeated the comma he put to
the abbreviation. I think it is quite wrong.
The comma is not put in "Alfred the Great,
a Drama for Music new-composed by Mr.
Arne, 1753," p. 32. RALPH THOMAS.
[MR. THOMAS is in opposition to the general practice of good printing-offices. It is the custom to put a comma before the name of a person addressed when the name does not begin the sentence. The Bible and the Prayer Book afford innumerable examples of this practice ; and the fact that an old edition of an anonymous masque omits the comma in one instance, while inserting it in a repetition of the same words, is hardly sufficient reason for departing from a practice that commends itself to the great majority of printers. The omission of the comma conveys the idea that some one is called upon to rule both Britannia and the waves.]
MADAME DU DEFFAND'S LETTERS. On the dispersal of Horace Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill, a cedar box containing the whole of Madame du Deffand's letters to Walpole, to the number of some eight hun- dred, with letters to her from Voltaire, Hume, Montesquieu, and others, and a diary written or dictated by her, was sold to Mr. Dyce Sombre, and, in spite of efforts to recover them, this interesting collection is said to have entirely disappeared.
Mr. Dyce Sombre was the adopted son and heir of the Begurn Sombre of Bhppal, whose possessions were seized by the Indian Govern- ment on her death in 1836. Her adopted son came to England to endeavour to obtain pos- session of the Begum's property, but without success, and died a lunatic. JOHN HEBB.
[A query as to the whereabouts of Madame du Deffand's papers appeared 7 th S. x. 288, but without eliciting a reply. In the AthencKum of 13 Julv 1901, however, was printed a long letter from Mrs.' Helen Toynbee giving the story of the discovery of Madame du Deffand's letters (830 in all) to Walpole, and stating that she had undertaken to edit them for the Clarendon Press, as a supplement to her edition of Horace Walpole's letters.]
"LOADBERRY." I cannot find this word in the 'N.E.D.' It occurs in the report of the case of Smith v. the Trustees of the Port and Harbour of Lerwick, decided in the Court of Session on 17 March last (Fraser vol. v. p. 680). Lord Kincairney, in his Interlocutor (p. 686), says, "What are called loadbemes, which are kinds of stores are very frequent in Shetland." It appears from the evidence that the word was in common use in the year 1819. I make a present of the word to Dr. Murray for his supple- mentary volume. J. B. DOUGLAS.
WE must request correspondents desiring infor-
mation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that the answers may be addressed to them
direct.
" GROUND IVY." Can any one tell me where this term occurs as applied contemptuously to commonplace, unenterprising people? I fancied I had met with it in an essay of Froude, or in the notes to an edition of Plato's 'Republic.' An early answer will greatly oblige, since I have taken 'Ground Ivy,' used in this sense, as the title of a forth- coming novel. (Miss) MYRA SWAN.
Upsall Hall, Nunthorpe R.8.O., Yorks.
" PALEFACE." The earliest references we have for this are to J. Fenimore Cooper's ' Last of the Mohicans ' (1826), in which it is frequently used. Does the term go farther back, and, if so, where does it appear ? Is it known to be the translation of a genuine Indian appellation, or has it merely been attributed to the "Redrnen" by novelists? J. A. H. MURRAY.
RALEIGH : ITS PRONUNCIATION. (See ante, pp. 105, 250.) According to MR. ADRIAN WHEELER, "the pronunciation of Raleigh seems to be Rawley." Whether this only means "seems now to be " is to be surmised. The question is, What was the pronunciation at the period indicated ? And surely that is much a matter of surmise also. " When Sir Walter Raleigh's name was told ('Ralegh'), said the king, ' On my soule, mon, I have heard rawly of thee ' : ' (not rawley\ The conjecture presumably must be that King James, with a laboured joke founded on the sound then given to Ralegh (or Rawly), meant "I have heard really" with the rale sound that the Irish still give to the word real; or rarely, with the meaning "I have heard rare things of thee " ; or the same word with its present meaning, "I have heard seldom of thee (of late)." The assumption that King James must have sounded the letters taw as we now do surely requires some proof. Now, in old Northern records one may find the name Maitland (and even Maytland) spelt also Mautland. It is conceivable to the present writer that the men who wrote Mautland may have pro- nounced the word Mautland, but it is incon- ceivable to him that the men who wrote Maitland (and Maytland) could have sounded the name Mortland, for that is what our modern tongues have brought the au and the aio to, as to sound.
