s. ii. DEC. 17, loo*.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
491
I have heard it used with a most ludicrous
emphasis. It is worthy of notice that not
only at the beginning of words was the h
omitted, but it was usually wanting in
composition th being generally replaced by
d, and sometimes sh by s or z. Nowadays
these latter peculiarities have disappeared,
but the initial aspirate is often dropped.
E. E. STREET. Chichester.
In Northumberland and on Tyneside generally the h is never misused. A few years ago a pupil - teacher at one of the schools in this town, not a native, dropped his A's, the consequence being that the chil- dren under him adopted the objectionable habit. A bookseller who supplied school- books could always distinguish the children from that special school when they came to his shop. R. B E.
South Shields.
There is one thing with reference to h which puzzles me greatly. As in many English dialects it has been dropped for centuries, it is only natural that all those who, owing to their station in life, speak them, should omit the aspirate. So, if cockneys too did it, there were nothing to wonder at. It would not even be astonishing if, in ^heir struggle to imitate the well- educated, they should promiscuously drop their A's, and put them where there ought to be none. But which is the mysterious SaipovLov that enables them to add, with the greatest surety, an h to words beginning with a vowel ? The case stands thus : In the mouth of a cockney, who is generally reputed to drop the A.'s, this sound is as common as in that of any well-bred English person, only in the wrong place, but without confusion. To me it is a riddle. G. KRUEGER.
Berlin.
" FORTUNE FAVOURS FOOLS " (10 th S. ii. 365). The following quotations seem apposite :
- t ' Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. ' No, sir,' quoth he ;
- Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune. '
' As You Like It,' Act II. sc. vii.
"'Alluding to the common sayhig [which may be traced up to classical antiquity] that fools are Fortune* favourites' (Malone)." Dyce's ' Shake- speare' (3rd ed.), ix. 169.
The brackets, with the matter which they enclose, are not mine, but Dyce's.
Malone's * Shakespeare ' (edition of 1821), vi. 401, gives the following further note on the passage :
" Fortuna favet fatuis is, as Mr. Upton observes, the saying here alluded to ; or, as in Publius Syrus : Fortuna, nimium quern fovet, stultum facit. So, in the prologue to the * Alchemist ' :
Fortune, that favours fooles, these t\vo short houres
We wish away.
Again, in * Every Man out of his Humour,' Act I. sc. iii. :
Sog. Why, who am I, sir ?
Mac. One of those that fortune favours.
Car. The periphrasis of a foole. Reed."
In Gifford's 'Ben Jonson ' (1816), ii. 38, the note on " the periphrasis of a fool " is :
"According to the Latin adage, Fortuna favet fatuis. So in ' Wily Beguiled,'
Sir, you may see that fortune is your friend.
But fortune favours fools. Whal."
"Fortuna favet fatuis " is apparently not given in Harbottle's ' Dictionary of Quota- tions (Classical),' 1897, but I find there :
"Fortuna nimium quern fovet stultum facit. Publilius Syrus, 167.
" Fortune makes him a fool, whom she makes her darling. -Bacon." P. 73.
- ' Stultum facit fortuna quern vult perdere. Pub-
lilius Syrus, 479." P. 279.
The proverb under discussion does not occur in Bacon's essay * Of Fortune ' (Essay xl.), but Bacon couples folly with fortune twice :
" Faber quisque fortunce siue, saith the poet.* And the most frequent of external causes is, that the folly of one man is the fortune of another."
" And certainly there be not two more fortunate properties, than to have a little of the fool, and nob too much of the honest."
H. C.
In the second edition of Ray's ' Proverbs,' 1678, p. 141, is :
" Fortune favours fools, or fools have the best luck. Fortuna favet fatuis. It 's but equall, Nature having not that Fortune should do so."
w. s.
FLYING BRIDGE (10 th S. ii. 406). There is a ferry on the system described at the above reference in daily use on the river Elbe, not far from Dresden, which takes passengers to and from the railway station of Rathen and the path leading up to Bastei on the other side of the river. The cable or wire rope in this instance is buoyed in two or three places between the spot where it is anchored in mid-stream and the boat.
E. A. FRY.
A flying bridge answering exactly to the description quoted by L. L. K. from Voyle's ' Military Dictionary ' has been in operation for very many years at Neuwied on the Rhine. ALAN STEWART.
LUDOVICO (10 th S. ii. 288, 377). Giorgio Vasari, in his ' Lives of the Painters, Sculp-
- Appius, in 'Sail. deRepubl. Ordin.,' 1 (Haver*
camp's'Sallu8t,'1742, ii. 156).
