- > s. in. FEB. *, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.
95
1 eights of its spires as they at present staiu
] ew churches have undergone more perils o
c estruction and of restoration, and we ma
1 e thankful for the piety and perseveranc
A 'Inch have preserved a beautiful monumen
t hrpugh all the chances and changes of cen
furies. L'Abbe' L. V. Dumaine in ' La Cathe
( rale de Sees, Coup d'CEil sur son Histoire e
ses Beautes,' speaks, I think, as if the tw
spires now existing were of equal height :
"Deux clochers tres sveltes et tres gracieu ach&vent de donner a la facade son coup d'cei monumental. Primitivement, les deux fleche ii'elaient pas completement semblables: celle d nord, seule a jour, e"tait plus elevee que celle d midi ; disposition d'ailleurs assez ordinaire au travaux de cet age, ou 1'on semble eviter pa svsteme la symetrie et le parallelisme des lignes/'- JT . 58.
Possibly, though I hardly like to suggest sue! a thing, this irregularity at the west end of ; church may have been intended, like th unfinished fa9ades of Spanish cathedrals, tc avert the "evil eye." It is, however, quite reasonable to believe that, as at Rouen anc Chartres, the clochers were often due tc different architects, and to more than one century, at a stage of culture when originality rather than careful imitation was expected o: an artist. ST. SWITHIN.
PEAS, PEASE, AND PEASEN (9 th S. iii. 25). Please let me correct the etymology of this word. I give the derivation from A.-S. pisa
El. pisan ; not a true E. word, but borrowec
- om Lt&t.pisum. This etymology (which has
been copied by others) is obviously impos- sible. Even if the A.-S. i had become I, it would not have given pease, but pise. And it is obviously not from the O.Fr. pois ; then whence is it ?
The answer is that A.F. always has ei for O.F. oi ; whence convey for convoy. The A.F. word was peis orpeys, riming to mod. E. raise ; whence M.E. pese, pi. peses and pesen ; see the examples in my ' Dictionary.' This became pease or peas in the sixteenth century, quite regularly; and the rest of the story is known. Still, I dare say the A.-S. pi. pisan suggested the pi. in -en. WALTER W. SKEAT.
Is not this heading an instance of the cart before the horse ? I do not know when the form peas first appears in English, but I fancy pease preceded it, and was originally the singular form, peason (not peasen) being the plural. Spenser has " nought worth a pease " (' Shepheard's Calendar,' Oct.), and Lyly, in the 'Epistle Dedicatory' to 'Euphues and his England,' "as lyke as one pease is to an other." Lyte uses pease andpeasan indifferently, head-
ing his chapter on them "Of Pease or Peason";
but he also occasionally seems to use pease in
the singular, as in this of ciches : " The ciche-
ling, or flat pease, hath flat and crested
stalkes." In the 'Sinonoma Bartholomei
(fourteenth century), s. v. ' Orobus,' I find
" sive orobum et pisa agrestis, s. muspese."
Gerard, like Lyte, uses pease and peason in-
differently, but ne also has pease in the
singular. Neither in Lyte nor in Gerard can
I find either pea or peas. C. C. B.
Am I not right in supposing that a distinc- tion probably of recent origin is now made between the single seeds (peas) and the crop or plant in the abstract (pease)? A York- shireman, writing about 1700, gives pease ( Yorksh. Arch. Jour., vii. 62) ; the same form occurs in the ' Trial of Christopher Atkinson,' 1783 (p. 66); see Earle's 'Philology of the English Tongue ' (third edition, p.
' N. & Q.,' 4^ s> vi> 71| 138j 262>
356) :
> C. B.
MAJOR JOHN ANDRE : COL. WILLIAMS (9 th S.
ii. 528; iii. 58). Noticing in your issue of
31 December, 1898, the query of MR. ABBATT
concerning the Andre family, I beg to say
in reply to it that several members are
living in this country who belong to the same
branch of the family as the Major's. The
father of Major Andre had a younger brother
'John Lewis), and, like him, settled in Eng-
'and. He had two sons John Lewis, the
Ider, arid James Peter. Both had families, Dut I can say nothing with respect to that of John Lewis, except that I believe members of t are living. James Peter had two sons the elder also named James Peter, and William. The last named had no sons, but the former md one, James Lewis, the present writer, who has two sons, James Edward Felix and Vlichael Wilfrid. Considering that my father and grandfather were the executors of the ast surviving sister of Major Andre, and her -esiduary legatees, it is remarkable how few elics of my unfortunate relative have come nto my possession. J. LEWIS ANDRE.
Horshani.
I distinctly remember the Andre mentioned t the second reference. He was the billiard- marker at Prince's Rackets and Tennis Club, lans Place, Chelsea; and a very decent ellow. Many a game he marked for me in ormer days.
I remember also his illness perfectly, and e trouble which some of us took in the ttempt to persuade him to go into a hospital. /[y impression is that we succeeded, for a ery brief time ; but I am not sure. Of ourse, it js quite possible that a grancl-
