134
NOTES AND QUERIES. ED* s. vn. FEB. IB, woi.
to be played at all, probably because it is a
comparatively unathletic one. In the reign
of Richard II. it was so forbidden, because it
was found that the lower orders neglected
the more manly and useful practice of
archery, a precedent which may perhaps be
cited in favour of a more equable apprecia-
tion of the relative value, in modern times,
of the billiard-room and the rifle club, or of
hooliganism and gymnastics. The " Bowl "
Tavern in St. Giles's, Bloomsbury, is said to
have taken its sign from the custom of pre-
senting a bowl of ale at St. Giles's Hospital
to criminals on their way to execution at
Tyburn (Stow, p. 164) ; but such an un-
pleasant origin is not usual with London
signs. Is it not more probable that it was
adopted to denote the game of bowls, or, more
probably still, to commemorate the revived
legality of the ancient game, after being so
frequently suppressed ? Strutt (' Sports and
Pastimes,' ed. 1810, 4to, Introd., p. xliv)
remembered that in the year 1780 the magis-
trates caused all the skittle-frames to be
taken up, when the devotees of the game
found a subterfuge in the game of "nine-
holes," which they called "bubble the jus-
tice," in the belief that they had hoodwinked
the magistrates. In 1796 one of the frames
used in the old game of skittles is alluded to
by a writer as to be seen utilized as a window
in an old hall at Ribchester, near Blackburn.
It was 2ft. square, made of oak, and "jointed
together very strong," with the general rules
to be observed cut upon it, which were then
very legible. Within the frame were these
lines :
Bowie stronge, hitt the frame without, and misse
the frame within.
The King, Two Lordes, with their attendants, the game will bringe.
A.D. 1486 (Gent. Mag., Aug., 1796, and
Gen. Journ., 1693). J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. Wimbledon Park Road.
WOORE, IN SALOP (9 th S. v. 128, 236 ; vi. 33, 157, 218, 312). PROF. SKEAT'S suggestion (9 th S. vi. 312) that Woore represents Anglo- Saxon ^wor, "which seems to have meant a pool," is not supported by the forms. Woore is unmistakably Wavre in 'Domesday,' which also records three other Wavre, a Wavretone, and a Wavretren. I think it impossible that these forms can have any reference to WOT. That word is in itself unsatisfactory ; Toller- Bos worth omits it altogether, and Sweet ('Anglo-Saxon Dictionary') gives the word without any meaning, except in compound, and then it seems to point to a "moor." I think the credit of interpreting Woore is due
to MR. HENRY HARRISON (9 th S. vi. 33), who
suggests that Wavre refers to the aspen or
wavering poplar, also to quaking or waver-
ing grass ; and this seems to be the construc-
tion adopted by continental philologists,
Waver being as common a place-name in
France and Belgium as it is here. Wasfre
(the Anglo-Saxon form of Waver) only
appears in the dictionaries as an adjective,
meaning wavering, quivering, but all Anglo-
Saxon dictionaries are necessarily imperfect.
The use of the word as a substantive, and its
application to a tree or plants of wavering
habits, seem very likely
PROF. SKEAT writes (v. Harrison's 'Place- Names of the Liverpool District,' s. 'Waver- tree '), "Chaucer has wipple-tree for the cornel-tree, meaning waving tree, and the Anglo-Saxon wcefer = always on the move, vibrating ; waver-tree would be a splendid word for an aspen." Waver seems to have survived in a dialectic form, as the word is still applied to young timber-lings left stand- ing in a fallen wood (Halli well's 'Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,' s. 'Waver'). Having been drawn up, and being thin, they naturally roll about with the wind ; hence the name. The change from "w aver "to "war" or " woore " I should attribute to the fact that after the Conquest u was commonly written for v between vowels or before re. The ' Domesday ' Wavre being written Waure, the spelling ultimately prevailed.
W. H. DUIGNAN.
Walsall.
" THACKERAY'S BED BOOKS " (9 th S. vii. 29). Does this refer to the opening sentences of the second of the ' Roundabout Papers,' that on ' Two Children in Mask ' 1
" Montaigne and Howell's fc Letters' are my bed- side books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them."
G. L. APPERSON.
SIR WILLIAM F. CARROLL (9 th S. vii. 27). Sir William Fairbrother Carroll was the son of David Carroll, Esq., barrister-at-law, of Uskane, co. Tipperary, born 28 January, 1784, at Glencarig, co. Wicklow. He married, 3 August, 1813, Martha Milligen, eldest daughter of Vice -Admiral Sir Richard Dacres and Martha Phillips Milligen his wife, son of Richard Dacres, secretary to the garrison of Gibraltar, descended from the family of Dacres of Leatherhead, in Surrey, supposed to be a branch of the line of Dacre of the North. Issue was two sons and seven
