194
NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 s. i. MAR. *, me.
epigrams were selected from two thousand or more. In the same way the title-page of Caspar von Earth's 'Scioppius Excellens,' published in 1612, under the pseudonym of Tarræus Hebius (Robert Burton quotes from it under that name), informs us that these three books of epigrams are selections from various parts of thirty books. Barth, however, did not spare his readers, and next year appeared the ' Amphitheatrum seriorum jocorum, Libris XXX. Epigrammatum cons true turn,' in which there are frequent attacks on the epigrammatist John Owen. Edward Bensly.
"Blighty" (12 S. i. 151). The genesis
of "Blighty" is as follows. From Arabic
walá (=possess, dominate) come wáli,
"governor," and wiláyat, "government or
province of a wáli." In India wiláyat has
acquired the meaning "country" in general,
and "foreign country" in particular. Now
the foreign country which has most affected
India in these latter days is Europe ; so in
common Indian parlance wildyat 1 Europe,"
and especially " England." From wildyat is
regularly formed the adjective wildyati ; in
Hindu patois, owing to its preference of
b to w, wildyati has become bildti, and the
British soldier has found " Blighty " more
easy to pronounce than this last. Voild
tout! JST. POWLETT, Col.
" Blighty " is the Hindustani beldti, as
pronounced m
Dials. (Conf.
the latest dialect of Seven
lidy" and " biby," for
" lady " and " baby.") Beldti is the ad-
jectival of beldt (a broad, as in "art")
which is a form popular among many
Indians of wildyat, a word originally Arabic
and adopted into that composite tongue, th<
Urdu or Hindustani. The meaning o
wildyat is " a foreign country," and wildyat
/its adjective) means " foreign." In common
Indian parlance they are particularly appliec
to England, and thus, when not otherwise
qualified, they are accepted as synonymous
with " England " and " English." It
scarcely needs saying that our brave boys at
the front have picked up these words, beldt
and beldti, from their gallant Indian com-
rades.
The permutation of 6 and w or v is, of course, common to many languages ; e.g., the Greek digamma vau became v in Latin, as vis for is and cevum for aidn. In the Romance languages the Latin 6 became v, as the French avoir and the Italian avere for the
As to the strange language at the front of
he Western seat of war Tommy Atkins
las a most happy knack of converting
oreign names of all sorts, not French only,
nto English phonetic equivalents ; e.g.,
lug Street, for the Flemish Ploegstraete.
H. D. ELLIS. Conservative Club, St. James's Street, S.W.
A military friend of mine, who has been good deal in India, tells me that " Blighty "
s an Anglicized corruption of a Hindustani word Viliety, signifying Europe. Natives all refer to Europe, and England especially, as Viliety. Anything European is so called ;
r or example, Viliety pani means " soda- water." So it came about that soldiers in
tndia spoke of going home as " going back to Blighty " for many years past.
WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
An old soldier recently told me that this
word was in current use by our regular army
in India many years ago. I believe that
" B. B." is the regular, though unofficial
description of any non-fatal wound serious
enough to send its victim back to a base
hospital Blighty Boy.
PRIVATE BRADSTOW.
[MR. J. E. DALLAS thanked for reply.l
HEART BURIAL : WILLIAM KING, LL.D.jl PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY HALL, OXFORD (11 S. x. 431 ; 12 S. i. 73, 132, and earlier references). Having been directly invited, by MR. PIERPOINT to discover " whether thci silver case or vase," supposed to contain Dr. King's heart, " still exists," I wrote tci the Provost of Oriel, and subjoin his reply, the publication of which he kindly permits :
Oriel, Feb. 15, 1916. 1
MY DEAR PROVOST, Re Dr. King's heart. I have never seen a " silver case or vase," but certainly there stood in the north wall of thj cha tra
Latin habere.
Ac.
The Slav Vasili is our Basil,
ipel of St. Mary Hall a marble vase, which, if
_dition is to be believed, contained the heartr--
it stood over a marble tablet on which a Latin
inscription, from Dr. King's own pen, described
his character in pleasing terms. After the union
with Oriel in 1896 the monuments in the chapsg
were all moved into Oriel, and are now in thf?
ante-chapel there.
As to the heart, let me add a reminiscence. It was always held that so restless and so turbulent was King's life that after his death the heart went
. . .j XT '4. ~^ I. .,,..., .^ ,,,! f-'Urtf'.
Now it so happened that
I Tive~d in St. Mary Hall the head of my
on beating in its vase
when
bed abutted on the wall in a recess in which the
va.se stood. Barely, if ever, did I go to bed
without hearing a sound as of tapping on the
wall, the origin of which I could find nothing W
