Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/326

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320


NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. APBIL is, wie.


,nd " Tweedledum " are duly chronicled as " two things or parties, the difference between which is held to be insignificant," but Alice's " Tweedledee and Tweedledum " are severely Ignored. The conversion of etui into "tweeze" and the derivation thence of " tweezer " make a very good little group of entries. In

  • ' Come and kiss me sweet and twentie " what does

" sweet and twentie " mean ? The Dictionary seems to take " and twentie " as intensive, which surely spoils the little word-play in it. There are one or two examples of slang, which we confess to having found much older than we had supposed; thus "twig"=to understand, seems to go back as much as a century. 41 Twilight" is good; so is "twin," including

as it does all sorts of curious matters, such as

" seven twin-mountains," and " twin earth- quakes " as a scientific expression. We looked for the " Great Twin Brethren," but, amid many things less worth mention, looked in vain ! It seemed, too, that the mass of folk-lore relating to twins might have been indicated. A curious fact is noted about " twine " that in O.E. it is -only found as a rendering of L. byssus, bissus, probably through association of this with bis, twice. A quaint word which has steady authority is " twink " thus Toldervy (1756) says : " I can tell you in the twink of a bedstaff," which seems its classic idiom. Under " twingle " is an amusing " Hunnish " custom as thus : " Howell

(c. 1645), ' Lett.' II. Iv. ' German mothers put

. . . .into a cup of Rhenish. . . .sometimes a little living Eel, which twingling in the wine while the -child is drinking so scares him that many come to abhor. . . .wine all their lives after.' " "In the twinkling of an eye " would surely have been most impressively illustrated by the famous passage in 1 Cor. xv. " Twinter," a two-year-old cow, ox, horse, or sheep ; " twirler," a curved piece of wood set with small mirrors and turned about by a string as a decoy for larks ; and the many uses and combinations of " twitch," bring us on to the article " two," where we have perhaps the most massive piece of work in the section taking its compounds into consideration.

The Ty- words are largely of foreign derivation and interest. " Tympanum " and its cognates ; -" tyrant," and derived words ; and the numerous offshoots from " type," are the most bulky. By the way, we did not find the rather important phrase " true to type " under the last of these. One of the most interesting words in this part is " typhoon." We suspect that few people can see it without some hasty recollection of the giant Typhon, buried beneath Etna a mistaken association, however, for " typhoon " represents two different words, both of them Oriental, the Hindu tufdn and the Chinese tai fung. It seems odd that " typhus " in the seventeenth century should have been used for " pride, haughtiness," as from rO^os, smoke, vanity. " Tuscan," " Tyrrhenian," "Tzigane," " Tyrian " the quotations do justice to the ample associations of these, though, to be sure, we missed the " grave Tyrian trader, from the sea" ; and we might multiply examples of suggestive words of the kind, "Tyburn" and "Tycoon" occurring to mind as we write. But this notice has already somewhat overrun the space which should be allotted to it ; we can but conclude by congratulating the editors of the Dictionary, as <we have done many times before.


FOB frontispiece the April number of The Burlington Magazine has a reproduction of a picture in the possession of Mr. H. Harris a ' St. Catharine of Alexandria,' somewhat un- attractive at first glance, and attributed by Mr. Roger Fry to Bartolomeo di Giovanni, a minor Florentine painter. Mr. Lionel Cust contributes an account of * A French Artist in Italy in the Eighteenth Century,' being a selection of the critical opinions of Charles Nicholas Cochin, the distinguished engraver and draughtsman, who published notes on his Italian tour in 1758. These extracts illustrate the criticism of a practising artist, and are of interest in regard to several Italian painters (Tintoretto, for example, and Carpaccio) whose fame has , since been more firmly established in this country by Ruskin. Two early woodcuts recently acquired by the British Museum are described and reproduced by Mr. Campbell Dodgson : ' St. Nicholas of Myra ' and ' St. Anna, selb dritt,' the former being of considerable power, the latter of slight value artistically. Mr. E. G. Gundall reproduces the five Turner water-colour drawings of Fonthill Abbey exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1800, and executed from different points of a charmingly varied landscape. These were probably com- missioned by William Beckford, the owner of Fonthill, but have since found their way into various hands. Mr. G. F. Hill in ' Chris tus Imperator ' notices Mrs. Strong's new study of certain aspects of Roman art, and especially her exposition of the r61e played therein by the Divus Augustus, and the influence of that rdle as continued by the central figure of Christian art, namely, that of a central dominating figure in frontal representation. This system Mrs. Strong contrasts with the Greek system. The number also contains a reproduction of the new late -period De Hooch in the National Gallery.


EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries '"Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lishers " at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.

ADMIRAL CHRIST EPITAPH (see ante, p. 280). ME. PENRY LEWIS writes that there is an example in the churchyard of St. Issels, near Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, date 1858.

WAHAB FAMILY (see ante, p. 247). MR. E. E. BARKER suggests that the information required may be obtained from the ' History and Genealogy of the Family of Wauchope,' by James Paterson (Edinburgh, 1858).

FRANCES M. Buss (" And thus 'twill be, nor long the day," &c.). We have received two or three answers giving the reference for this. It is from " The Ingoldsby Legends" ' The Knight and the Lady,' in the second half of the poem.

D. J. O'SuLLiVAN ('Johnnie Armstrong's Last Good Night'). This is Scotch, not Irish. See Scott's ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' vol. i., p. 330 (Blackwood, 1902), or Child's ' English and Scottish Ballads,' 1861 ed., vol. vi. p. 40 (Sampson Low), 1905 ed., p. 415 (Nutt).