312
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. APRIL 21, 1900.
ants of Bucur," being the plural of Bucurescu,
" Bucur's son," and indicates that the city was
founded by Bucur, whom tradition reports
to have been a herd, and that for a time it
was owned by his posterity, hence the plural
form. The only English parallel which I can
recollect is Hastings ; but we have lost the
sense that it is plural. We do not say,
" Hastings are the chief of the Cinque Ports."
JAMES PLATT, Jun.
BAENS ELMS HOUSE. The history of this place is so full of historical and literary associations that 1 think no apology is needed for transcribing the following curious ad- vertisement, quoted verb, et lit., which appears in No. 566 of Mercurius Politicus, Thursday, 5 May, to Thursday, 12 May, 1659 :
"Barn Elmes House in Surry, with Orchards, Garden, Coach-house, Stable grazing for a couple of Geldings or Cows, Spring-water brought to the House in Leaden Pipes, Pleasant Walks by the Thames Side, and other accomodations is to be let, or otherwise may be divided into two convenient dwellings, with 'Garden, Orchard, and water to each of them. Inquire further about this of Mr. Ldivard Marshall a Stone Cutter living in Fetter- lane."
W. B.OBEETS.
LANDO. In the * Notes on Books ' of 'N. & Q.,' 9 th S. iv. 200, you say of Axon's 'Ortensio Lando,' "So far as we know, no similar account of Lando is in existence." There is an excellent monograph on Lando by Signer Ireneo Sanesi, 'II Cinquecentista Ortensio Lando,' Pistoia, Fratelli Bracali, 1893. J. B. FLETCHEE.
Harvard University.
"NE PAS VALOIE LES QUATEE FEES
CHIEN." In vol. ix. col. 450, and again in vol. xxxvi. col. 290, of L'lnterme'diaire the origin and meaning of this expression are asked for by two querists. It is explained in vol. ix. col. 508, and again in vol. xxxvi. col. 704, that the meaning is " of no value at all," because dogs do not wear, like horses, "fers," or, as we should call them in England, "shoes," so that the expression resembles that of the Greek calends. But one of the re pliers (Cz.) at the last reference adds to his explana- tion a somewhat amusing supplement. After- saying that "le fer d'un chien equivaut a une valeur egale a zero," he goes on, " Estimer la valeur morale d'une personne a quatre zeros, cela veut dire en tout pays qu'elle vaut quatre fois moins que rien." It is evident, however, that four or four thousand zeros are only equal to one zero, and that "rien" (nothing) cannot be increased by multiplica- tion. W. T. LYNN.
Blackheath.
A LINK WITH THE PAST. The following,
from the Edinburgh Evening News of 17 Feb.,
is interesting :
" Mrs. Miles, Waverley Cottage, Melrose, died there yesterday, having reached considerably over ninety years of age. She has had a varied history, which is specially interesting at this time. She was born at Woolwich, her father being a gunner in the Royal Artillery. At the close of the Peninsular War she followed with her mother in the baggage train, heard the guns at Quatre Bras, and saw a piper play the Highland Brigade past with ' Hey, Johnnie Cope,' after his legs had been cut off below the knees. When questioned recently by an inter- viewer about Waterloo, she became animated and recited some martial lines. Upon the conclusion of peace Mrs. Miles went forward to Paris with the army of occupation, and when the war was over her father, whose only loss in going through the Peninsular War was to have his knapsack shot off, settled down in Jedburgh."
W. E. WILSON.
Ha wick.
DANTE'S VISION. It may perhaps deserve a brief record that the original title given by Dante himself to his immortal poem, viz., 'Commedia,' to which an admiring posterity added 'Divina' had been changed, during a brief interval, for that of " Visione, Poema di Dante." Bearing this more adequate title, it was printed in 1613 at Vicenza. One later edition onlv, which appeared in 1629 at Padua, still adopted the same title, " La Visione, Poema di Dante." But when the poem was reprinted in the same year, 1629, at Venice, it again received its earlier title, which it had already assumed in one of the first editions of 1473, 'La Divina Corn- media,' and continued to keep it afterwards. The seventeenth century, upon the whole, appears to have been very barren in repro- ducing the text of the * Divine Poem,' only four different editions having been printed during that period, viz., besides the above three, one published at Venice in 1664. (See Colomb de Batines, ' Bibliografia Dantesca,' 2 vols., 4to., Prato, 1845-6.) H. KEEBS.
Oxford.
[In the first Aldine edition, 1502, the title is ' La Terza Rima di Dante.']
WILLIAM SCAFE, WATCHMAKEE. Britten, in his recently published ' Old Clocks and Watches and tneir Makers,' after giving (p. 126) an illustration of a chased outer case of a watch by this eminent London maker, briefly refers to him (p. 464) as
1 at y e sign of the clock in King Street, near^uild
(Ton
on,
A letter from the Hon. Barwick Fairfax, appa- rently to his nephew, Thomas, Lord Fair-
Hall ' ; admitted [to the freedom of the] Clock-
makers' Company by redemption, 1720 ; Master in
1749."
