Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853

Clyst St. George.

Curious Fact in Natural Philosophy (Vol. vii., p. 206.).—In reply to Elginensis I send you a quotation from Dr. Golding Bird's Natural Philosophy in explanation of this well-known phenomenon:

"One very remarkable phenomenon connected with the escape of a current of air under considerable pressure, must not be passed over silently. M. Clement Desormes (Ann. de Phys. et Chim., xxxvi. p. 69.) has observed, that when an opening, about an inch in diameter, is made in the side of a reservoir of compressed air, the latter rushes out violently; and if a plate of metal or wood, seven inches in diameter, be pressed towards the opening, it will, after the first repulsive action of the current of air is overcome, be apparently attracted, rapidly oscillating within a short distance of the opening, out of which the air continues to emit with considerable force. This curious circumstance is explained on the supposition, that the current of air, on escaping through the opening, expands itself into a thin disc, to escape between the plate of wood or metal, and side of the reservoir; and on reaching the circumference of the plate, draws after it a current of atmospheric air from the opposite side.... The plate thus balanced between these currents remains near the aperture, and apparently attracted by the current of air to which it is opposed."

Dr. G. B. then describes the experiment quoted by Elginensis as "a similar phenomenon, and apparently explicable on similar principles." (Bird's Nat. Phil., p. 118.)

    Cokely.

Lowbell (Vol. vii., p. 272.).—I may add to the explanation of this word given by M. H., that low, derived from the Saxon lœg, is still commonly used in Scotland for a flame; hence the derivation of lowbell, for a mode of birdcatching by night, by which the birds, being awakened by the bell, are lured by the light into nets held by the fowlers. In the ballad of St. George for England, we have the following lines:

"As timorous larks amazed are
With light and with a lowbell."

The term lowbelling may therefore, from the noise, be fitly applied to the rustic charivari described by H. T. W. (Vol. vii., p. 181.) as practised in Northamptonshire.

    J. S. C.

Life and Correspondence of S. T. Coleridge (Vol. vii., p. 282.).—There can be but one opinion and feeling as to the want which exists for a really good biography of this intellectual giant; but there will be many dissentients as to the proposed biographer, whose life of Hartley Coleridge cannot be regarded as a happy example of this class of composition. A life from the pen of Judge Coleridge, the friend of Arnold and Whateley, is, we think, far more to be desired.

    Θ.

Coniger, &c. (Vol. vii., pp. 182. 241.).—At one extremity, the picturesque range of hills which forms the noble background of Dunster Castle, co. Somerset, is terminated by a striking conical eminence, well-wooded, and surmounted by an embattled tower, erected as an object from the castle windows. This eminence bears the name of The Coniger, and is now a pheasant preserve. Mr. Hamper, in an excellent notice of Dunster and its antiquities, in the Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1808, p. 873., says:

"The Conygre, or rabbit-ground, was a common appendage to manor-houses."

Savage, however, in his History of the Hundred of Carhampton, p. 440., is of opinion that

"Coneygar seems to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon Cyning, King; and the Mœso-Gothic Garas, the same as the Latin Domus, a house, that is, the king's house or residence. Mr. Hamper has some notion that Conygre means a rabbit-ground, &c., but Mr. H. does not go high enough for his etymology; besides, how does it appear that a rabbit-ground was at any time an appendage to manor-houses? There is no authority for the assertion."

I give you this criticism on Mr. Hamper valeat quantum, but am disposed to think he is right. At all events there are no vestiges of any building on the Coniger except the tower aforesaid, which was erected by the present Mr. Luttrell's grandfather.

    Balliolensis.

In the Irish language, Cuinicear, pronounced "Keenèkar," is a rabbit-warren. Cuinin is the diminutive of cu, a dog of any sort; and from the Celtic cu, the Greeks took their word κυων, a dog. I am of opinion that the origin of rabbit is in the Celtic word rap, i. e. a creature that digs and burrows in the ground.

    Fras. Crossley.

Cupid crying (Vol. i., p. 172.).—I had no means (for reasons I need not now specify) of referring to my 1st Vol. of "N. & Q." until yesterday, for the pretty epigram given in an English dress by Rufus and as the writer in the Athenæum, whose communication you quote on the same subject (Vol. i., p. 308.), observes "that the translator has taken some liberties with his text," I make no apology for sending you a much closer rendering, which hits off with great happiness the point and quaintness of the original, by a septuagenarian, whose lucubrations have already been immortalised in "N. & Q."

"De Cupidine.

Cur natum cædit Venus? arcum perdidit, arcum
Nunc quis habet? Tusco Flavia nata solo:
Qui factum? petit hæc, dedit hic, nam lumine formæ
Deceptus, matri se dari crediderat."

"Cupid Crying.

Wherefore does Venus beat her boy?
He has mislaid or lost his bow:—
And who retains the missing toy?
Th' Etrurian Flavia. How so?
She ask'd: he gave it; for the child,
Not e'en suspecting any other,
By beauty's dazzling light beguil'd,
Thought he had given it to his mother."

    F. T. J. B.
Westminster Assembly of Divines (Vol. vii., p. 260.).—Dr. Lightfoot's interesting and valuable "Journal of the Assembly of Divines," from January 1, 1643, to December 31, 1644, will be found in the last volume of the edition of his Works, edited by Pitman, and published at London, 1825, in 13 vols. 8vo. I believe a few copies of the 13th volume were printed to be sold separately.

The MS. Journal in three thick folio volumes, preserved in Dr. Williams's library, Redcross Street, London, is attributed to Dr. Thomas Goodwin.

A MS. Journal, by Geo. Gillespie, from Feb. 2, 1644, to Oct. 25, 1644, in 2 vols., is in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.

The Rev. W. M. Hetherington published a tolerably impartial History of the Westminster Assembly, Edinburgh, 1843, 12mo.

The most important work, as throwing light upon the proceedings of the Assembly, is the Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie. The only complete edition of these interesting documents is that edited by David Laing, Esq., and published in 3 vols. royal 8vo., 1841-2.

    John I. Dredge.

Mr. Stansbury will find the "Journal of the Assembly of Divines," by Lightfoot, in the new edition of his Works, vol. xiii. pp. 5. et seq. Some further light is thrown upon the subject by a parliamentary paper, printed "for the service of both Houses and the Assembly of Divines." A copy of it is preserved in our University library (Ff. xiv. 25.). I have referred to both these documents in A History of the Articles, &c., pp. 208-9.

    C. Hardwick.

St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge.

The Journal kept by Lightfoot will be found in the 13th volume of his Works, as edited by the Rev. J. R. Pitman: London, 1825, 8vo. It should be studied by all those who desire to see a revived Convocation.

    S. R. M.

Epigrams (Vol. vii., pp. 175. 270.).—"Suum cuique" being a principle which holds good with regard to literary property as well as to property of every other description, I can inform your correspondent Balliolensis that the epigram on Dr. Toe, which he says was "represented to have proceeded from the pen of Thomas Dunbar, of Brasenose," was in reality the production of my respected neighbour, the Rev. William Bradford, M.A., rector of Storrington, Sussex. It was written by that gentleman when he was an undergraduate of St. John's College, Oxford. Balliolensis may rely upon the accuracy of this information, as I had it from Mr. Bradford's own lips only yesterday. The correct version of the epigram is that given by Scrapiana, p. 270.

    R. Blakiston.

Ashington, Sussex.

"God and the world" (Vol. vii., pp. 134. 297.).—These lines are found, as quoted by W. H., in Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, p. 87., ed. 1831. Coleridge gives them as the words of a sage poet of the preceding generation (meaning, I suppose, the generation preceding that of Archbishop Leighton, a passage from whose works he has introduced as an aphorism just before). I have often wondered who this poet was, and whether the last line were really a quotation from Macbeth, or whether Shakspeare and the unknown poet had both but borrowed a popular saying. I also had my suspicions that Coleridge himself might have patched the verses a little; and the communication of your correspondent Rt., tracing the lines in their original form to the works of Fulke Greville Lord Brooke, now verifies his conjecture. It may be worth while to point out another instance of this kind of manufacture by the same skilful hand. In the first volume of The Friend (p. 215., ed. 1818), Coleridge places at the head of an essay a quotation of two stanzas from Daniel's Musophilus. The second, which precedes in the original that which Coleridge places first, is thus given by him:

"Since writings are the veins, the arteries,
And undecaying life-strings of those hearts,
That still shall pant and still shall exercise
Their mightiest powers when Nature none imparts;
And the strong constitution of their praise
Wear out the infection of distemper'd days."

Daniel wrote as follows (vol. ii. p. 373., ed. 1718):