9* s. v. MAY 12, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
383
" Were it not for the bone in the leg all th
world would turn carpenters." To have "
bone in the leg," or arm, is a jocular form o
excuse for laziness. We often hear a paren
say to a troublesome child, "I can't carr
you ; I Ve a bone in my arm." So one migh
say, "But for a dislike for taking troub
everybody would be industrious," a carpente
being a fair type of a plodding workman.
HERBERT B. CLAYTON.
39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.
Perhaps some may be explained as follows
" The German's wit is in his fingers." Bot are clumsy.
"After the house is finished, leave it Leave well alone.
14 Diseases of the eye are to be cured wit the elbow." The eye is too delicate to b rubbed, and it would be difficult to rub i with the elbow.
" The eye arid religion can bear no jesting. As the eye is too delicate to be rubbed, so i religion too holy to be spoken of in a sneer ing manner.
He wrongs not an old man that steals hi Cupper from him." Too heavy meals are likely to give an old man indigestion, as he has no longer the strength and activity of youth when plenty of food is needed. M. N. G.
[An explanation of " Diseases of the eye," &c. will be found in 3 rd S. xii. 490.]
" PUTREM ": ' 7ENEID,' yra. 596 (9 th S. v. 248) In employing his epithet here the poet probably thought more of the dust raised by the galloping of the cavalry than of the crumbling, rotten character of the woodlanr soil on which the movement is taking place In the edition of Virgil prepared "ad usum Serenissimi Delphini " the annotation on the word is " Putrem, in pulverem facile solu- bilem." Gavin Douglas, who anticipated this view, translates thus :
The horny hovyt horsis wyth foure feyt Stampand and trotand on the dusty streyt. Dry den, in the free treatment characteristic of his version, uses the phrase " solid ground." William Morris comes close to Douglas in these terms :
With shout and serried band The clattering hooves of four-foot things shake down the dusty land.
Interpreting the expression as it occurs in
- ^Eneid,' xi. 875,
Quadruped unique putrem cursu quatit ungula canipum,
Douglas has the strong, resonant line,
Wyth swift renkis dyndillit the dusty ground. Here Dryden uses the conventional equiva-
lent "rotten," while William Morris ('^Eneids
of Virgil,' p. 343) reproduces his previous
version with three interesting variations :
The horny hoofs of four- foot things shake down the
dusty mead.
In the Globe ' Virgil ' Messrs. Lonsdale and Lee give "crumbling plain " as their inter- pretation in both passages.
THOMAS BAYNE.
MR. THORNTON will easily see on con- sideration that putrem here is a secondary or complementary predicate, expressing the result of the charger's trampling. From the action of his hoofs the ground is crumbled or reduced to powder.
A. SMYTHE PALMER, D.D.
S. Woodford.
The meaning of putrem in this line seems obvious enough. The soil, whatever its degree of hardness, is turned into dust by the trampling of horses ; whether hard or soft, it becomes putris, crumbling. Of the commen- tators that I know, Heyrie is the only one that notices the word ; his comment, both here and in * ^En.,' xi. 875, agrees with the above.
D. H.
Putrem, besides having the meaning of foul, crumbling, arid rotten soil, would also apply to the hard, friable, dusty surface of a field or road. Statius, ' Th.,' iv. 728, speaks of
Tellus sole et pulvere putris. Surely a dry, dusty road, or even dry arable or pasture land, would reverberate more than when in a moist condition. I have always taken this to be the force of the adjective without a second thought.
NE QUID NIMIS.
ARTHUR PLANTAGENET, VISCOUNT LTsLE (9 th S. v. 269). Does MRS. POOLE know R.
Bell Calton's 'Annals and Legends of Calais,' 1 852 ? There are many lists of names in it,
)oth of householders, "spears," and other dwellers in the town. In 1533 the garrison consisted of a regiment, called Le Vynteyne, of some two hundred men. No names of servants of Lord L'Isle are given, but the
' spears " in attendance on the council were
lichard Lee, Richard Carew, Richard Cole, and Thos. Massingberd. Probably the names of Lord L'Isle's retinue, at the time he met Anne of Cleves (December, 1539), would be mentioned in the State Papers of the time. B. FLORENCE SCARLETT.
NORMAN GIZER (9 th S. iii. 486 ; iv. 112, 545 ; 115). In reply to the REV. J. B. WILSON t the last reference I have pleasure in stating lat the outside cover of Commander Willcox's little book bears the short title
