Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853

I now wish to call Sir Emerson's attention to a coincidence that may be worthy his notice in connexion with his forthcoming work on Ceylon.

If he will take the trouble to examine the model of the Parthenon, in the Elgin Marble room of the British Museum, he cannot fail, to be struck with its resemblance to the beautiful building he visited at Polonaroowa, called the Jaitoowanarama. The dimensions of the respective buildings I cannot at present ascertain; but the ground-plans are precisely similar, and each was roofless. But the most striking resemblance is in the position and altitude of the statues: that of the gigantic Bhoodho is precisely similar, even in the posture of the right arm and hand, to that of Minerva, the masterpiece of Phidias. On consulting his notes, he may find the height of the statues to correspond. That of Phidias was thirty-nine feet.

    Ol. Mem. Ju.

Glen Tulchan.

Thomas Watson, Bishop of St. David's, 1687-99 (Vol. vii., p. 234.).—This harshly-treated prelate died at Great Wilbraham, near Cambridge, on June 3, 1717, æt. eighty years; and, from a private letter written at the time, seems to have been buried in haste in the chancel of that church, "but without any service," which may perhaps imply that there was not a funeral sermon, and the ordinary ceremony at a prelate's burial. It is, however intimated that he died excommunicated. In Paulson's History of Holderness is a notice of Bishop Watson, and of his relatives the Medleys, who are connected with my family by marriage; but the statement that the bishop "died in the Tower" is incorrect (vol. i. Part II. p. 283.; vol. ii. Part I. p. 47.; Part II. p. 542., 4to., 1840-1).

    F. R. R.

Milnrow Parsonage.

He died in retirement at Wilburgham, or Wilbraham, in the county of Cambridge, June 3, 1717, ætat. eighty.—See Gough's Camden, vol. ii. p. 140., and Gentleman's Magazine, vols. lix. and lx.

Bishop Gobat was born in 1799, at Cremine, in the perish of Grandval, in Switzerland. His name is not to be found in the list of graduates of either Oxford or Cambridge. His degree of D. D. was probably bestowed on him by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

    Tyro.

Dublin.

Etymology of Fuss (Vol. vii., p. 180.).—

"Fuss, n. s., a low, cant word, Dr. Johnson says. It is, however, a regularly-descended northern word: Sax. Ƒuſ, prompt, eager; Su. Goth. and Cimbr. f u s, the same; hence the Sax. Ƒẏſan, to hasten, and the Su. Goth. f y s a, the same."—Todd's Johnson.

Richardson gives the same etymology, referring to Somner. Webster says, "allied, perhaps, to Gr. φυσαω, to blow or puff."

    Zeus.

A reference to the word in Todd's Johnson's Dictionary will show, and I think satisfactorily, that its origin is fus (Anglo-Saxon), prompt or eager; hence fysan, to hasten. The quotation given is from Swift.

    C. I. R.

Palindromical Lines (Vol. vii., p. 178.).—The sotadic inscription,

"ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ,"

is stated (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xl. p. 617.) to be on a font at Sandbach in Cheshire, and (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxiii. p. 441.) to be on the font at Dulwich in Surrey, and also on the font at Harlow in Essex.

    Zeus.

Nugget (Vol. vi., pp. 171. 281.; Vol. vii., pp. 143. 272.).—Furvus is persuaded that the word nugget is of home growth, and has sprung from a root existing under various forms throughout the dialects at present in use. The radical appears to be snag, knag, or nag (Knoge, Cordylus, cf. Knuckle), a protuberance, knot, lump; being a term chiefly applied to knots in trees, rough pieces of wood, &c., and in its derivatives strongly expressive of (so to speak) misshapen lumpiness.

Every one resident in the midland counties must be acquainted with the word nog, applied to the wooden ball used in the game of "shinney," the corresponding term of which, nacket, holds in parts of Scotland, where also a short, corpulent person is called a nuget.

So, in Essex, nig signifies a piece; a snag is a well-known word across the Atlantic; nogs are ninepins in the north of England; a noggin of bread is equivalent to a hunch in the midland counties; and in the neighbourhood of the Parret and Exe the word becomes nug, bearing (besides its usual acceptation) the meaning of knot, lump.

This supposed derivation is by no means weakened by the fact, that miners and others have gone to the "diggins" from parts at no great distance from the last-mentioned district; and we may therefore, although the radical is pretty generally diffused over the kingdom, attribute its better known application to them.

It is no objection that the word, in many of its forms, is used of rough pieces of wood, as instances show that it merely refers to a rudis indigestaque moles characteristic of any article in question.

    Furvus.

St. James's.

Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores (Vol. vii., p. 260.).—This, which is no doubt the proper form, will be found in Southey's Naval History of England, vol. iv. p. 104., applied to "those of old English race who, having adopted the manners of the land, had become more Irish than the Irishry." The expression originally was applied to these persons in some proclamation or act of parliament, which I think is quoted in the History of England in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia: but that work has so bad an index as to make it very difficult to find any passage one may want. Probably Southey would mention the source whence he had it, in his collections for his Naval History in his Commonplace Book.

    E. G. R.

The Passame Sares (mel. Passamezzo) Galliard (Vol. vi., pp. 311. 446.; Vol. vii., p. 216.).—Will you allow me to correct a mistake into which both the correspondents who have kindly answered my questions respecting this galliard seem to have fallen, perhaps misled by an ambiguity in my expression?

My inquiry was not intended to refer to galliards in general, the tunes of which, I am well aware, must have been very various, but to this one galliard in particular; and was made with the view of ascertaining whether the air is ever played at the present day during the representation of the Second Part of King Henry IV.

    C. Forbes.

Temple.

Swedish Words current in England (Vol. ii., p. 231.).—I beg to inform your correspondent that the following words, which occur in his list, are pure Anglo-Saxon, bearing almost the same meaning which he has attributed to them:—wÿrm; by, bya, to inhabit, becc; dioful; dobl, equivalent to doalig: gœpung, a heap; lacan; loppe; nebb; smiting, contagion; stæth, a fixed basis.

Eldon is Icelandic, from elldr, fire: hence we have "At slá elld úr tinnu," to strike fire from flint; which approaches very near to a tinder-box. Ling, Icel., the heath or heather plant: ljung I take to be the same word. Gat, Icel. for way or opening; hence strand-gata, the opening of the strand or creek. Tjarn, tiorn, Icel., well exemplified in Malham Tarn in Craven.

    C. I. R.

Gotch (Vol. vi., p. 400.).—The gotch cup, described by W. R., must have been known in England before the coming of the present royal family, as it is given in Bailey's Dictionary (1730) as a south country word: it is not likely to have become provincial in so short a time, nor its origin, if German, to have escaped the notice of old Φιλὁλογος. The A.-S. verb geotan seems to have had the sense of to cast metals, as giessen has in German. In Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary is leadgota, a plumber. In modern Dutch this is lootgieter. Thus, from geotan is derived ingot (Germ. einguss), as well as the following words in Halliwell's Dictionary: yete, to cast metals (Pr. Parv.), belleyetere and bellyatere, a bell-founder (Pr. Parv.); geat, the hole through which melted metal runs into a mould; and yote, to pour in. Grose has yoted, watered, a west country word.

    E. G. R.

Passage in Thomson: "Steaming" (Vol. vii., pp. 87. 248.).—This word, and not streaming, is clearly the true reading (as is remarked by the former correspondents), and is so printed in the editions to which I am able to refer. The object of my Note is to point out a parallel passage in Milton, and to suggest that steaming would there also be the proper reading:

"Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise,
From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author, rise."

    Paradise Lost, Book v.

    Cuthbert Bede, B.A.

[The reading is steaming in the 1st edition of Paradise Lost, 1667.—Ed.]

The Word "Party" (Vol. vii., pp. 177. 247.).—The use of this word for a particular person is earlier than Shakspeare's time. It no doubt occurs in most of our earliest writers; for it is to be found in Herbert's Life of Henry VIII., in his translation of the "Centum Gravamina" presented to Pope Adrian in 1521, the 55th running thus:

"That, if one of the marryed couple take a journey either to the warres, or to perform a vow, to a farre countrey, they permit the party remaining at home, if the other stay long away, upon a summe of money payd, to cohabite with another, not examining sufficiently whether the absent party were dead."

It may also be found in Exodus xxii. 9., where, though it occurs in the plural, it refers to two individuals:

"For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour."

    H. T. Ellacombe.