S. II. Nov. 5, '98.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
377
"BAULK": "BALK" (9 th S. ii. 308). Your cor-
respondent really ought to consult the 'H.E.D.
for himself. A quotation dated 1652 gives
the spelling baulk for the substantive ; and
the spelling baulk for the verb occurs in
Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night,' III. ii. 26,
dated 1601.
It approaches . the comic to quote from Johnson's 'Dictionary ' such a derivation as that from " Ital. valicare" which means " to ford a river," and is a mere variant of varcare, being related to the Latin varus and various, and to the Eng. varicose. Since Johnson's time the letter v has left off turning into b initially in Teutonic words, in its former accommodating manner. It is also worth saying that the E. balk is not borrowed from W. bale, for the reason that the borrowing has been in the opposite direction. Welsh abounds with words borrowed from Middle English, and even contains words taken from Anglo-French.
As to the spelling, the question is a most interesting one ; but the answer involves modes of phonetic spelling, and cannot suit- ably be discussed except in a tedious and technical manner. Perhaps it may suffice to say that the use of au for a before Ik refers to the peculiar sound of the a in that position ; it is very different from the sound of a in can or in path. The original a was short, as in the G. Balken, but was gradually lengthened and " lowered," with a tendency for the I to disappear. The spelling bank means that the speller did not pronounce the I at all, and had the courage to say so.
The 'H.E.D.' gives chaulk, cliauke, and chawke as variants of chalk. The development of that word was precisely parallel to that of balk. The verb to caulk was formerly also spelt kalk or calk, with the variants kaiik and catvk ; and so on in other cases.
Dr. Johnson's etymologies were taken from Skinner, and Skinner never ought to be seriously quoted for Anglo-Saxon origins. In the present instance he actually gives the A.-S. form as bale, as if it belonged to the strong declension ; but the right form is balca, because it was a weak masculine, with the genitive balcan, not balces.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
BATHOE (9 th S. ii. 308). YDOLTOKEC will find a catalogue of the collection of Charles I. in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.
ROBERT DE HAPSBURG.
The manuscripts of the catalogues which Bathoe printed described the works of art in the collections of Charles I., Charles II., and James II. The first of these, being the work
of Vander Doort, the king's keeper of those
examples, was formerly in the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford ; since 1863 it has been in
the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The second
and third of these catalogues were bought by
G. Vertue at the Earl of Oxford's sale, and
at the latter's sale bought by G. Bathoe
himself. F. G. S.
"RINGING-OUT" (9 th S. ii. 127, 230, 313). 'Ringing-out" is a term applied" to the adjustment of contracts in " Futures " trans- actions. It is a method of the Clearing House for closing contracts, when possible, between brokers. A by-law of the Liver- pool Cotton Association runs to this effect :-
" Purchases from and sales to the same member of the same "quantity and months shall be deemed ' closed contracts,' and shall be ' rung out ' at each settlement, and only the balance of bales, if any, shall be carried forward to the next account."
For example, A buys 500 bales from B, and sells B 700 bales (same month). Settlement day comes, and the difference in price on the 500 bales is paid. The 500 bales are thus closed, or " rung out," and the 200 bales are carried forward. The derivation would seem to be from ring in the form of a circle and in the sense of completeness. No such term as " ringing-in " is known in this connexion. My last communication was wrong in that respect. ARTHUR MAYALL.
FUSIL (9 th S. ii. 244). Since writing this note I have inspected the Dingley monu- ments in the church of Cropthorne, near Pershore. On one of them I find the Hoby arms painted in a manner more in accord- ance with Mr. Dingley's description, i. e., spindles are shown passing perpendicularly through the balls of thread. But the coat is otherwise unlike, for it is Gules, three fusils argent, two and one, whereas the older form is Argent, three fusils in fess gules.
W. C. B.
THE JUDGE AND THE TREADWHEEL (9 th S. ii. 288). Another instance of a celebrity in involuntary confinement occurs in M. C. M. Simpson's ' Many Memories of Many People,' 1898, p. 21:
"He [Lord St. Leonards] told me of an amusing story of his being shut up in the great lunatic asylum near Dublin when he was Irish Chancellor. All went well till he tried to get out, when the officials strenuously opposed his departure. ' But I am the Lord Chancellor,' he said. 'Ah, I dare say,' was the answer ; ' we have a many Lord Chan- cellors here.'"
ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.
ACORUS CALAMUS (9 th S. ii. 305). My friend V!R. JOHN HEBB and his Worcestershire corre
