Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/60

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54


NOTES AND QUERIES.


[12 S. V. FEB., 1I9


The name Ninian is still less easy to recognize when d is substituted for the initial n. That has occurred in such names as Chipperdingan in Wigtownshire, meaning the well (tiobar) of Ninian, and that is the form given by Geoff ery Gaimar's ' Estorie des Engles ' (twelfth century):

A Witernen [Whithorn gist Saint Dinan,

Long tens vint devant Columban.

The adhesion of the final t in " Saint " to the name which follows is of frequent occurrence, as J. T. F. observes ; but some- times the reverse process takes effect. Passengers travelling to Glasgow by the Midland Railway from St. Pancras are landed at St. Enoch station. Most people who speculate on the subject at all connect the name with Enoch "seventh from Adam," the father of Methuselah ; but none of the four Enochs who figure in the Old Testament was eligible for canonization, which postulates Christian baptism. A clue to the true name occurs in the city records of Glasgow in the sixteenth century, wherein mention is made of " San Theneuke's Kirk," which appears later as St. Tennoch's, and ultimately as St. Enoch's. The dedication was to the mother of St. Kentigern, whose name is variously written in early MSS. as Thenew, Tenaw, Thaney, and Thennat.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

Monreith.

Arch. Cant., vol. xvii., contains an inventory (1485) of vestments at St. An- drew's, Canterbury, from which I make the following extracts :

" Item ij laten candelstykez for Seint Tronyon auter." P. 150.

[Footnote. St. Tron. He founded an abbey .at Liege, called St. Tron's or St. Truyen's He died A.D. 693. Butler, * Lives of the Saints, sub die Nov. 23.]

" These parcellys folowyng pertayne to Senl Tronyons Auter." P. 151.

" Item an auter clothe with curten wyngis to hang above the auter with Sent Tronyon yn the myddys and a curten of the same worke." P. 152.

R. J. FYNMORE.

COL. COLQUHOUN GRANT (12 S. iv. 326). C. McG. will find useful information in vol. viii. of the 'Diet. Nat. Biog.,' p. 382 et seq. (1908). E. F. B.

RUTTER FAMILY NAME (12 S. v. 7). The whole of chap. xvi. of Mr. Ernes Weekley's ' The Romance of Names ' (pub lished by John Murray in 1914) is taken u with this subject ; see also ' Surnames (same author and publisher, 1916) at p. 240 JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.


JOSEPH BROWN (12 S. iv. 331). A short iography of him will be found in ' D.N.B.' nd Boase's * Modern English Biography.'

He was the seventh son of George Brown f North Shields, and was born there in eptember, 1784 (not 1781, as stated).

He was attached to Wellington's staff in the 'eninsular War ; was medical officer at underland, and Mayor there in 1840 ; and ied at Villiers Street in that town on tfov. 19, 1868. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.


The Tragedy of Tragedies ; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. By Henry Fielding. Edited by James T. Hillhouse. (Yale, Uni- versity Press ; London, Milford, 12s. Qd.) PHIS book in format is a companion volume to VIr. Jensen's edition of Fielding's Covent Garden Journal, which emanated from the Yale Press in 1915, and in literary execution displays a similar ppreciation of the great master, and a like scholarly industry in elaborating his productions. Of Fielding's twenty-six comic plays the two cleverest, consonant with his satirical vein, were ' tragedies " ' The Covent Garden Tragedy ' and ' The Tragedy of Tragedies ' both, para- doxical though it sound, being burlesques.

As Fielding's dramatic works (save his adapta- tions of Moliere) seldom claim attention at the sresent day, and as he was only 23 when ' Tom Thumb ' was put forth, and consequently of an age when contemporary notices of him are rare, t was a courageous adventure on Dr. Hillhouse's part to present Fielding as a dramatist worthy of perusal, and to embark on a research that should revivify his rising popularity in the theatrical world of 1730. The result is a volume worthy of the labour bestowed upon it.

Whether Fielding at this time realized the full force of his literary powers may be debated, but he was more than subconscious that the ludicrous irresistibly appealed to him. Addressing his London lady-love from the village of Upton Gray in Hampshire in 1728, complaining of his isolation from the pleasures of the metropolis, he had observed : I've thought (so strong with me burlesque

prevails) This place design'd to ridicule Versailles.

Consequently when two years later, being already the author of three acted plays, he bethought him of soliciting the patronage of the town by composing a cento reflecting the absur- dities of the heroic drama from Dryden to James Thomson, he brought to the task much natural aptitude therefor, and also, as results proved, a remarkable equipment of dramatic lore and learning.

It was at the Haymarket Theatre (which stood on the site of the present Pall Mall Restaurant) that Fielding produced ' Tom Thumb, a Tragedy/ in April, 1730. It appeared simultaneously in book-form, and the original text, with the in- teresting and little-known preface to the second edition, is reprinted in the present volume. As in Buckingham's ' Rehearsal ' of 1671, " the