  Iona.—The ancient name of this celebrated island was I (an island), or I-Columbkille (the island of Columba of the Churches). In all the ancient tombstones still existing in the island, it is called nothing but Hy; and I have no doubt that its modern name of Iona is a corruption, arising from mistaking u for n. In the very ancient copy of Adamnan's Life of St. Columbkille, formerly belonging to the monastery of Reichenau (Augia Dives), and now preserved in the town library of Schaffhausen, which I had an opportunity of examining very carefully last summer, the name is written everywhere, beyond the possibility of doubt, Ioua, which was evidently an attempt to give a power of Latinised declension to the ancient Celtic I. It was pronounced I-wa (i.e. Ee-wa). Who first made the blunder of changing the u into n? Trin. Coll. Dublin. Inscriptions in Parochial Registers.—Very quaint and pithy mottoes are sometimes prefixed to parochial registers. I know not whether any communications on this subject are to be found in your pages. The following are examples, and may perhaps elicit from your readers additional information. Cherry-Hinton, Cambridgeshire: "Hic puer Ætatem, hic Vir sponsalia noscat, Hic decessorum funera quisque sciat." Ruyton of the Eleven Towns, Salop: "No flatt'ry here, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor is all the history: Enough, if virtue fill'd the space between, Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been." Welsh-Hampton, Salop. Lieutenant.—The vulgar pronunciation of this word, leftenant, probably arose from the old practice of confounding u and v. It is spelt leivtenant in the Colonial Records of New York. The changes may have been lievtenant, levtenant, leftenant. Philadelphia. "Prigging Tooth" or "Pugging Tooth."—Mr. Collier, in his new book on Shakspeare, containing early manuscript corrections of the folio of 1632, says at page 191., in enumerating those of the Winter's Tale, that the emendator substitutes (Act IV. Sc. 2.) "prigging tooth" for the "pugging tooth" of the old copies. Now this, I believe, has been the generally received interpretation, but it is quite wrong. Prigging, that is stealing, tooth, would be nonsense; pugging is the correct word, and is most expressive. Antolycus means his molar—his grinding tooth is set on edge. A pugging-mill (sometimes abbreviated and called pug-mill) is a machine for crushing and tempering lime, consisting of two heavy rollers or wheels in a circular trough; the wheels are hung loose upon the ends of a bar of iron or axle-tree, which is fastened by the centre either to the top or bottom of an upright spindle, moved by a horse or other power, as the case may be, thus causing the wheels in their circuit to revolve from their friction upon the trough, and so to bruise the nuts of lime, which together with the sand and water are fed by a labourer, who removes the mortar when made. The machine is of course variously constructed for the kind of work it has to do: there is a pugging-mill used in the making of bricks that is fitted with projecting knives to cut and knead the clay. Emendator has doubtless restored the sense to many puzzling passages in Shakspeare, but he certainly is mistaken here in reading prigging for pugging. Carlisle. London.—Is the following, which was copied October 11, 1811, from a MS. pasted on Spitalfields Church at that time, worth preserving in the pages of "N. & Q."? Could any of your numerous correspondents furnish me with the author's name? "London. "Houses, churches, mixt together; Streets cramm'd full in ev'ry weather; Prisons, palaces, contiguous; Sinners sad and saints religious; Gaudy things enough to tempt ye; Outsides showy, insides empty; Baubles, beasts, mechanics, arts, Coaches, wheelbarrows, and carts; Warrants, bailiffs, bills unpaid, Lords of laundresses afraid; Rogues that nightly prowl and shoot men; Hangmen, aldermen, and footmen; Lawyers, poets, priests, physicians, Noble, simple, all conditions; Worth beneath a threadbare cover, Villainy bedaubed all over; Women, black, fair, red, and gray, Women that can play and pay; Handsome, ugly, witty, still, Some that will not, some that will; Many a beau without a shilling, Many a widow not unwilling, Many a bargain, if you strike it,— This is London, if you like it." Woolwich. Note from the Cathedral at Seville.—
Riddles for the Post Office.—The following ludicrous direction to a letter was copied verbatim from the original and interesting document: "too dad Tomas The letter found the gentleman at "The Old Oak Orchard, Tenbury." I saw another letter, where the writer, after a severe struggle to express "Scotland," succeeded at length to his satisfaction, and wrote it thus, "stockling." A third letter was sent by a woman to a son who had settled in Tennessee, which the old lady had thus expressed with all phonetic simplicity, "10 S C." |
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