518
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. DEC. 20, 1903.
their search, the mob burnt down the nunnery.
The nun was never afterwards heard of. In
a recent book on life in America the destruc-
tion of the nunnery is described at great
length, but not a word is said about the
escape, capture, and disappearance ot the
nun. There must still be living persons who
remember this event. In the Middle Ages
heretics were burnt alive, and it does not
seem improbable that escaped nuns were
buried alive. M. N. G.
FICTITIOUS LATIN PLURALS (9 th S. xii. 345). These false words are very amusing. I wish I had made notes of more of them. Here are. however, a few.
A writer in the Zoologist of 1855, when recording something about the lava-case of an insect, said, "Its queer black look and pistol-shape is often wondered at byignorami " (First Series, vol. xiii. p. 4892).
Otte, in his translation of Quatretagess
- Rambles of a Naturalist,' 1857, uses the word
minibuses. He says, "A tolerably good road now joins Biarritz to Bayonne. Various omnibuses and minibuses, decorated with the name of diligences, now carry on an active traffic (vol. ii- p. 143).
Joseph Hume seems to have employed omnibi seriously. See Athenceum, 23 Novem- ber, 1901, p. 693. It occurs also in 'The Letters of Edward FitzGerald.' "To post about in omnibi between Lincoln's Inn and Bayswater" (vol. i. p. 214), are his words, but he was evidently jesting. ASTAETE.
A good many years ago I was asked to solve an acrostic which, I think, was given by the World. One of the "lights" had to begin with an i and end with an i.
I wrote to the lady who was interested in the matter, saying that the word for that light was probably indocti, and that I thought that a trap had been laid for those who would give if/norami. When the solution appeared in print ignorami was the acrostic editor's word, though indocti was allowed !
ROBERT PIERPOINT.
St. Austin's, Warrington.
Five-and- twenty years ago I heard one of the speakers at a Lancashire clerical society's meeting lament the hiati that he had made. He was a graduate, too, of Trinity College, Dublin. W. 0. B.
I have noted the two following amusing instances : Candelabras. Macaulay's essay on John Bunyan, Dec., 1831 : "The cande- labras of Pandsemonium " (near the beginning of the essay). Gnoma. " He understood the Sanskrit upon the faces of the dials, and the
meaning of the gnoma and pointers "
(Rudyard Kipling, 'From Sea to Sea,' vol. i.;:
ch. v. of ' Letters of Marque,' not far from
the end). I fear it is meant for gnomones, but
it may be for gnpmai, the sententious in-
scriptions on sundials. H. K. ST. J. S.
KIMPTON FAMILY (9 th S. xii. 207). John William Kimpton, surgeon, of Stadhampton, Oxon, born at Ware, 1809, died at Lee, Kent, 1884 ; his uncle was of. Bardolph's Farm,. Watton, Herts. Book-plate : Crest, a goat's head. Motto, " Nee timeo nee sperno."
R. J. FYNMORE.
Sandgate, Kent.
EPITAPH AT GRAVESEND, KENT (9 th S. xii. 409). This is a manifest corruption of some- lines in Pope's * Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady' : So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, What once had beauty, titles, wealth and fame. How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot : A heap of dust alone remains of thee ; 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be.
Pope in tho last two lines seems to have- remembered Horace :
Nos ubi decidimus
Quo pater ./Eneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, Pulvis et umbra sumus.
E. YARDLEY.
THOMSON : THOMPSON (9 th S. xii. 408). Your correspondent might find it worth while to look at the accounts of theHonywood family, of Charing, in the Topographer and Genea- logist, vols. i. and ii. W. C. B.
"To MUG" (9 th S. xii. 5, 57, 136, 231). To- the illustrations of the stage use of this word already given, I would add that in 'The Small- Part Lady,' a story of theatrical life by Mr. George R. Sims (" Dagpnet "), it is remarked : " The low comedian at that moment was ' mugging ' after the manner of his kind," the word obviously indicat- ing, from the context, that the actor was clowning in dumb show while other per- formers were speaking.
ALFRED F. ROBBINS.
When I was young, I heard a scientific lecturer (whose name I have forgotten) explain that a face was in slang " a mug,"" because the Anglo-Saxons used to fashion faces on their earthen drinking vessels.
N. N.
" FIRST CATCH YOUR HARE " (9 th S. xii. 125). Apparently the French phrase " Pour faire un civet, prenez un lievre," is, like the Eng- lish one, taken from a cookery-book, and
