[9 th S. II. SKPT. 10, '98.
ye wife of the said cristofre and of all ye children
cristofre John edward geffrey Bychard wijlm thomas
edward Nichas thomas ye sonnes and johane and
johane ye daughters ye which children be decessid
on whois soulis ihu have mercy."
Here we see that in a family of twelve there are two Edwards and two Thomases, while both the daughters bear the name of Johane. The curiosity is probably accounted for by the common practice of calling a newly born child after a deceased brother or sister.
W. R. BARKER.
Devonshire Club.
THACKERAY'S LATIN (9 th S. ii. 27). I would suggest
O matutinse voces aurseque salubres ! It sounds like the first line of a prize-poem address to ' Morning.' An expansion of the thought may be found in Keble's beautiful and familiar lines :
Thou rustling breeze so fresh and gay, That dancest forth at opening day, And, brushing by with joyous wing, Wakenest each little leaf to sing.
C. DEEDES. Brighton.
P.S. More probably the line should read ""O matutini rores." That would only involve two misprints s for r and a for ce. At the same time, if the poet had a free hand, I think he would do better to apostrophize the voices of morning rather than its dews.
GILBERT COOPER (9 th S. ii. 147). For John Gilbert Cooper (1723-1769) see the 'Diction- ary of National Biography.' The lines quoted are from his ' Song to Winif reda.' The poem is printed in Anderson's 'British Poets,' x. 790. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.
Hastings.
For an account of John Gilbert Cooper (1723-1769) see either Gorton's ' Biographical Dictionary' or the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' eighth ed., vii. 344. He was the author ol numerous works in verse and prose. His long poem 'The Tomb of Shakspeare' is included in vol. ii. p. 220 of 'Select Poems, Edinburgh, 1768.
C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.
May I refer S. J. A. F. to a fairly full note of my own on the subject of John Gilberi Cooper and his supposed authorship of the poem ' Winif reda,' in ' N. & Q.,' 5 th S. iv. 416 JONATHAN BOUCHIER.
SHORT A v. ITALIAN A (9 th S. i. 127, 214 258, 430 ; ii. 77). MR. FRANK PENNY says " The lower portions of England were inor largely influenced by the Norman -Frencl pronunciation than the higher portions. Ii
he North the Saxon and Scandinavian flat
ound of the a remained unaffected by 'the
ontinerital use." I will couple with this a
quotation from the Spectator of 22 June,
p. 885 : " The Lowland Scotch are as Saxon
,nd Scandinavian as we are." The upshot is
hat in the higher (or northern) parts of
South Britain, and in the lower (or southern)
parts of North Britain, we mostly have the a
iound as in Rafe, where the first letter (and
/owel) in the English alphabet shapes the
sound of a syllable ; and in the other parts,
where Celtic influences still prevail, or the
continental use has affected the English
- ongue, we generally find the ah sound of
- hat letter increasingly prevalent in fact,
may sometimes find it even changing the a 'nto an o (as to sound), as in Marlborough, cultivated by many into Morlborough. It may not be a question of which is right or which is most elegant, but simply of which is most Saxon and Scandinavian (like the bulk of the English people and the English tongue), and which most continental. Quod rat demonstrandum. W. H N B Y.
RAVENS WORTH (9 th S. ii. 47, 96). CANON TAYLOR may like to know that at Ravens- worth, in the North Riding, which he says was originally Ravens wath, there still is a ford through the tributary to the Swale which flows hard by the village. I have often driven through it or crossed it on stepping-stones. The castle, now ruined, was ouilt by an ancestor of the Fitz-Hughs, and I have sometimes wondered if the raven, Huginn, has affected the name of the place. Hutchinson is a surname of the district, and Hugginson is known near Barnard Castle.
ST. SWITHIN.
"CYCLIST": "BikE" (8 th S. x. 471 ; xii. 151). In these notes I threw doubt on the possi- bility of stamping out the word " bike," so I think it as well to note that it is already practically done in polite society. It seems that 'Arry and 'Arriet took up the word, and thenceforth it became tabooed among their betters. To refer to a "bikist" is now to cast a slur on or ridicule the person indicated.
RALPH THOMAS.
SIR WILLIAM BEAUMARIS RUSH (9 th S. i. 448, 498; ii. 157) came of an old Suffolk and Essex family descended from Sir Thomas Russhe, King's Sergeant temp. Henry "VIII. .Par- ticulars of family will be found in Morant's 'History of Essex,' Manning and Bray's ' Surrey,' ' The History of Northamptonshire,' and Burke's 'Landed Gentry.' Samuel Rush, of Benhall Lodge, Suffolk, died unmarried
