60
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. JULY IB,
peculiar to American speech. Various shades of
meaning are conveyed by intonation, prolongation,
or abbreviation. To tell your mother " to chain ugly
up " as though a bad-tempered man was a dog, is,
or was, frequent advice in the West Riding. Uncle
Sam, for America, though believed to belong to
1812, is first traced in 1835. " Uncouth, unkind,
is a quaint phrase, reaching back to Thomas Hey-
wood. Dickens is first cited for the use of unmen-
tionables, the Globe for that of unwhisperables in the
same sense. He "up with" his staff is found in
'Gamelyn' and "He ups and tels him" in 1608.
Uppish appears in 1704, and upper ten in 1835. A
suit of velveteens is much older than 1885. Under
u-ag should be quoted Garrick's " The wag of all
wags is a Warwickshire wag," i.e., Shakespeare.
We might proceed indefinitely, for there is scarcely
a page that does not supply matter for conjecture
or comment. For the present we must content
ourselves with congratulating the surviving editor
on the conclusion of his work, and the public on the
possession of a dictionary of slang quite up to date,
and such as no other country can boast.
The Defence of Guenevere, and other Poems. By William Morris. Edited by Robert Steele. (Fisher Unwin.)
IN the opinion of some lovers of poetry, Morris's
- Defence of Guenevere ' the true story of which has
not yet been told, and will probably now remain buried has, in spite of occasional crudities, a larger measure of inspiration than any of its author's sub- sequent work. It has appeared in more than one pretty and desirable shape, and notably in the first edition, which we are glad to see on our shelves. We are not likely to forget our introduction to the volume by Mr. Swinburne, who read aloud in inimitable fashion * Rapunzel ' and other poems. Mr. Steele's notes are more to our taste than his introduction.
Old Clocks and Watches and^ their Makers. By F. J. Britten. Second Edition, much enlarged. (Batsford.)
DURING the five years in which it has been before the public Mr. Britten's ' Old Clocks and Watches ' has attained a high position, and is now of un- disputed authority in regard to the subject with which it is concerned. On the appearance of the iirst edition we dealt at some length with the nature and the value of the task Mr. Britten had Undertaken and on his qualifications for it (see 9 th tS. iii. 479)- Since then the work has been close to our hands upon our shelves, and there has been time after time when it -ha>-nabled us to answer directly a query sent for insertion. Not without justification is the work put forward as much enlarged. The 500 pages of the original edition are now swollen out to 835, the number of illustrations is increased from 371 to 704, while the number of illustrations by photography is increased from 117 to nearly 400. Two thousand names have been added to the eight thousand first given. Consider- able portions of the volume have been rewritten, notably the portion dealing with French clocks, eighty-seven choice illustrations having been added, many of them from the collection at Windsor Castle. A serious contribution to the utility of the volume is its division into chapters. The Soltykoff and the Schloss collections, as well as the Wallace collection at Hertford House, have been open to the author, the result being a large increase of value and
interest. As regards the general character of the
work little is to be added to what has previously
been said. There is no finality in human effort.
So far as the science and practice of horology have
progressed nothing seems capable of being added to
what is before us. If the book reaches, as almost
certainly it will, a third and a fourth edition, some-
thing more might be said concerning sundials,
although that subject is fully treated in the latest
edition of Mrs. Gatty's work, edited by Eden and
Lloyd. Few people are probably aware how many
worthless modern dials are in the market. We
congratulate Mr. Britten upon the task he has
accomplished afresh, and place the new book on
our shelves for constant reference.
MR. PERCY LINDLEY has supplied his annual Tourist-Guide to the Continent. It contains much information as to the points easily reached by the Great Eastern route, and is abundantly and happily illustrated.
No. 35 of the "Homeland Handbooks" gives a pleasantly illustrated guide to the Quantock Hills : their Combes and Villages. It is agreeably written by Beatrix F. Cresswell, and contains an essay on the 'Folk of the Quantocks' we are glad to possess, and an essay on 'Stag-Hunting and Sport' with which we would gladly dispense. The work, which is accompanied by a map, is issued by Messrs. George's Sons, of Bristol.
WE hear with regret of the death on 8 July, at 230, Evering Road, N.E., in his eighty-second year, of Mr. Benjamin Harris Cowper, editor of the Journal of Sacred Literature, and author of a work on the Apocryphal Gospels, &c. Under the initials B. H. C. Mr. Cowper was a contributor to our columns.
to
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Eut in parentheses, immediately after the exact eading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication " Duplicate."
C. E. HEWITT. We have lost all trace of the gentleman you name.
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