404
NOTES AND QUERIES. p*8.ix. MAY 24,1902.
out, though it lingers still in certain ural
and more conservative parishes. After
minutely describing the Tottenham boun-
daries the 'Remarks' wind up with the
following interesting disclosure, " After
which we dined at the 'White Hart,'
and the Churchwardens paid all the ex-
penses." This inn was situate on the east
side of the high road, within a short distance
of All Hallows (the old parish church), and
has only recently been demolished. A modern
structure, retaining the original name, so
reminiscent of the sporting and rustic
character of the ancient manor in bygone
days, now occupies the identical site. The
" White Hart " was also very near to Totten-
ham Wood, the latter having been a favourite
hunting-ground of King James. No longer,
however, can it be said,
The morning wakes, the huntsman sounds,
At once rush forth the joyful hounds ;
They seek the wood with eager pace,
Through bush, through briar, explore the chase,
for Tottenham Wood has long since ceased to exist. Unhappily this is not, however, the only cause for regret, so far as the anti- quary is concerned. Alas ! like Goldsmith's "deserted village," the ancient town Hol- licke, with its sylvan wood, has undergone such a marvellous transformation that it reminds one of the prophecy of Lucan re- specting certain towns connected with ancient Rome :
Nor after length of years a stone betray The place where once the very ruins lay.
As regards the derivation and signification of Hollicke (which is also a surname), holl is probably another form of hill, and icke, or eck, a variation of ock. This would, of course, signify a little hill. Assuming, however, the first syllable to be a corruption of the Anglo- Saxon holt, it might be rendered a small woody hill. It is important to bear in mind that Hollicke, or Holleck, was not only built on a slight elevation, but was also located in the vicinity of a wood. J. BASIL BIRCH.
56, Vale Road, Finsbury Park, N.
PROVERBS xxvi. 4-5. One of the least appre-
ciated of a clever band of magazine writers
in the latter part of the Victorian era,
William Kirkus, starts a bright essay on
'Satire' (Longmans) by seeking to reconcile
the seeming hostility of these two passages
in the Book of Proverbs. Let me say broadly
that in respect of all word-problems in the
Hebrew Scriptures one must never forget
that the real difficulty confronting the in-
vestigator is to discover the precise sense
in which any given author applied a given
word on a given occasion. The Hebrew
vocabulary is limited, yet it is notorious for
possessing a disproportionate number of
words representing sometimes a distressingly
large variety of senses. Fortunately, the
words "kesil," "evayless," and "angnah,"
which form the objects and predicates of
these sentences, do not offer a very large
field of selection. Likewise it is not
proved that the Proverbs of Solomon have
come down to us unmutilated and line for
line as they were penned by their royal
author. For aught we know to the con-
trary certain passages have been excised
between verses 4 and 5 : so much so that
the precise objects the moralist had in
mind to castigate were at that time hetero-
geneous, albeit they seem to-day to be
homogeneous as to mode and composition by
reason of accidental juxtaposition. Warranty
for this hypothesis may be drawn from the
Talmudic dictum, " The Rabbins were for
excluding Ecclesiastes from the Canon on
account of inherent inconsistencies." In all
likelihood the larger work found a more
experienced editor, so that the framers of
our Canon were in no such quandary.
At the period under review (circa 800 B.C.) the intellectual condition of the Hebrews may be summarized within three separate categories. There were (1) the "Nebeehim" or prophetical school a distinct class; (2) the " Chachameem " and "Nevouneem" under this heading the literati, the statesmen, and men of professional rank were currently known ; (3) the masses, comprising among others the " Kesilleem " (" upstarts ") and the " Bangareem " (pea- santry). These novi homines or "Kesil- leem " were men aping the manners, ideas, and virtues of the "Nevouneem"; overween- ing idlers, ambitious nobodies, seeking by their impertinent vulgarities to be some- bodies, a despicable class whom moralists from Solomon to Aristophanes, from Juvenal to Pope, have lashed furiously with their wit. Moving serenely along the uneven tenor of their devious ways, they resist reformation, and survive the fusillade of ridicule. A Kesil, derived from kaysel, may have meant to the Hebrew satirist (who saw enough of him dangling about the royal courts) a parasitic person or pompous upstart, half-educated, full of conceit and bland self-assurance, quick enough in the art of fence, skilled in the lower forms of casuistry, obstinate in his pre- judices, a dissolute scoffer, and a dangerous libertine. Hanging on the skirts of the cultured classes (the Chachameem), these parasitic units were just smart enough to
