wafted over, and were by king John's appointment to have a settled habitation in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.7

Thokish;-thoke, as on-sadde (sad meant firm) fysh, humorosus, insolidus, Prompt. applied to boggy land.-Blk.- -Slothful: sluggish. This is Ray's interpretation, and may be right for ought we know.— Forby.The sense suggested by Mr. Black I believe to be the

true one.

66

is

poenas dare." It totally extinct. It -Let us, in such

Bide-owe-interpreted by Ray (Pr. to N. C.) may be so. It is impossible to assent or gainsay, as it is one of Sir Thomas Browne's words.-Forby. failure of authorities, hazard a conjecture; that it means “wait a while,"-bide a wee.

“Paxwax ;-synewe," Prompt. It is still used dialectically for our pathwax or packwax.-Blk.- -The strong tendon in the neck of animals. It is a word which has no proper claim to admission here, for it is quite general; yet must be admitted, because it is on Sir Thomas Browne's list. It must certainly have been in use in his time. And it is very strange he should not have heard it till he came into Norfolk. Ray, in the preface to N. C., makes no remark to this effect, but takes this as he finds it with the other words. Yet he had himself used it in his great work on the Creation, and to all appearance as a word well known. He spells it pack-wax, indeed, but that can surely make no difference. He not only gives no derivation, but declines giving one, at the same time declaring his own knowledge of the very extensive, if not general, use of the word. The fact is, that it is not even confined to the English language. It is used by Linnæus, somewhere in the Upsal Amoenitates Academicæ. A friend, who undertook the search, has not been able to find the passage; but it is not likely that anything explanatory would be found. Indeed, it is a sort of crux etymologorum. They, very reasonably, do not care to come near it. And they might all frankly avow, as Ray does, that they "have nothing to say to it." BR. has fix-fax.-Forby.

7 the Danish language, &c.] I do not see the Danish original of most of the Norfolk words here given; but there are several which can be traced to no other, and I have found several which are, I suspect, peculiar to the coast :

Hefty-stormy. Dan. heftig, angry.

Swale;-shade.

Dan. or Ice. svala, cold.

Willock;-a guillemot, or any sea bird of the awk or diver kind.
Roke;-fog or sea haze.- -Rak, wet, Ice. "With cloudy gum and

rak ouerquhelmst the are."-Gawin Douglas.

"The

To shrepe-used by the fishermen in the sense of "to clear." fog begins to shrepe yonder." Ice. skreppa. Dilabi, se subducere. Lum-the handle of an oar. Ice. hlummr. In other parts of England, however, it is called the loom of an oar.

Rooms;-the spaces between the thwarts of a boat. Ice. rum, used only in this sense.

To go driving;-to go fishing: chiefly applied to the herring fishers, I think.-G.

But beside your laudable endeavours in the Saxon, you are not like to repent you of your studies in the other European and western languages, for therein are delivered many excellent historical, moral, and philosophical discourses, wherein men merely versed in the learned languages are often at a loss but although you are so well accomplished in the French, you will not surely conceive that you are master of all the languages in France, for to omit the Briton, Britonant or old British, yet retained in some part of Britany, I shall only propose this unto your construction.

:

Chavalisco d'aquestes Boemes chems an freitado lou cap cun taules Jargonades, ero necy chi voluiget bouta sin tens embè aquelles. Anin à lous occells, che dizen tat prou ben en ein voz L'ome nosap comochodochi yen ay jes de plazer, d'ausir la mitat de paraulles, en el mon.

This is a part of that language which Scaliger nameth Idiotismus Tectofagicus or Langue d'oc, counterdistinguishing it unto the Idiotismus Francicus or Langue d'ouy, not understood in a petty corner or between a few mountains, but in parts of early civility in Languedoc, Provence, and Catalonia, which put together will make little less than England.

Without some knowledge herein you cannot exactly understand the works of Rabelais: by this the French themselves

I have added, from a list of Norfolk words furnished me by the same correspondent, the following, which are either new to Forby, or with different derivations :

"Wips and strays," not waifs and strays, but "wipper and straae.” Dan. "heads and straws of corn," odds and ends. I found this expression in a list of provincialisms of the Danish island of Zealand.

To lope;-to stride along. Ger. hlaupen, to run.
Unstowly-applied to children; unruly.

Car;-a low marshy grove. Alder car, osier car. Kior, Ice. marsh. Skep or skip-a basket; toad's skep (not cap, I think.) Skieppe is a Danish half-bushel measure.

Pottens-crutches.

Hobby;-small horse. Dan. hoppe, a mare.

Wunt;-to sit as a hen. Sax. wunian, to abide.

Shacking-In German yechen is to club—and “zur yeche gehen,” literally, "to go to shack," is an expression in use, meaning to take a common share. The essence of our shacking is that the pigs and geese run in common over the fields to pick up the remains of the harvest.-G.

are fain to make out that preserved relique of old French : containing the league between Charles and Lewis, the sons of Ludovicus Pius. Hereby may tolerably be understood the several tracts, written in the Catalonian tongue; and in this is published the Tract of Falconry written by Theodosius and Symmachus; in this is yet conserved the poem Vilhuardine concerning the French expedition in the holy war, and the taking of Constantinople, among the works of Marius Æquicola, an Italian poet. You may find in this language, a pleasant dialogue of love; this, about an hundred years ago, was in high esteem, when many Italian wits flocked into Provence; and the famous Petrarcha wrote many of his poems in Vaucluse in that country.8

8 country.] In the MS. Sloan. 1827, I find the following very odd passage; respecting which, most certainly, the author's assertion is incontrovertible, that "the sense may afford some trouble.” I insert it, not expecting that many readers will take that trouble—but it appeared too characteristic to be omitted.

66

Now having wearied you with old languages or little understood, I shall put an end unto your trouble in modern French, by a short letter composed by me for your sake, though not concerning yourself; wherein, though the words be plain and genuine, yet the sense may afford some trouble.

"MONSIEUR,-Ne vous laisses plus manger la laine sur le dors. Regardes bien ce gros magot, lequel vous voyez de si bon œil.

Assure

ment il fait le mitou. Monsieur, vous chausses les lunettes de travers, ne voyant point comme il pratique vos dependants. Il s'est desïa queri de mal St. Francois, et bride sa mule a vostre despens. Croyez moi, il ne s'amusera pas a la moutarde; mais, vous ayant miné et massacré vos affaires, au dernier coup il vous rendra Monsieur sans queue.

"Mais pour l'autre goulafie et benueur a tire la rigau, qui vous a si rognement fait la barbe, l'envoyes vous a Pampelune. Mais auparavant, a mon advis, il auroit a miserere jusques a vitulos, et je le ferois un moutton de Berry. En le traittant bellement et de bon conseil, vous assuyes de rompre un anguille sur les genoux. Ne lui fies poynt: il ne rabbaissera le menton, et mourra dans sa peau. Il scait bien que les belles paroles n'escorchent pas la guele, les quelles il payera a sepmaine de deux Jeudies. Chasses le de chez vous a bonne heure, car il a estè a Naples sans passer les monts; et ancore que parle en maistre, est patient de St. Cosme.

"Soucies vous aussi de la garcïonaire, chez vous, qu'elle n'ayst le mal de neuf mois. Assurement elle a le nez tourné a la friandise, et les talons bien courts. Elle jouera voluntiers a l'Home; et si le hault ne defend le bas, avant la venue des cicoignes, lui s'enlevera la juppe.

"Mais, pour le petit Gymnosophiste chez vous, caresses le vous aux bras ouverts. Voyez vous pas comme a toutes les menaces de Fortune

For the word (Dread) in the royal title (Dread sovereign) of which you desire to know the meaning, I return answer unto your question briefly thus.

Most men do vulgarly understand this word dread after the common and English acceptation, as implying fear, awe, or dread.

Others may think to expound it from the French word droit or droyt. For, whereas, in elder times, the presidents and supremes of courts were termed sovereigns, men might conceive this a distinctive title and proper unto the king as eminently and by right the sovereign.

A third exposition may be made from some Saxon original, particularly from Driht, Domine, or Drihten, Dominus, in the Saxon language, the word for Dominus, throughout the Saxon Psalms, and used in the expression of the year of our Lord in the Decretal Epistle of Pope Agatho unto Athelred king of the Mercians, anno 680.

Verstegan would have this term Drihten appropriate unto God. Yet, in the constitutions of Withred king of Kent,* we find the same word used for a lord or master, si in vespera præcedente solem servus ex mandato Domini aliquod opus servile egerit, Dominus (Drihten) 80 solidis luito. However, therefore, though Driht Domine, might be most eminently applied unto the Lord of heaven, yet might it be also transferred unto potentates and gods on earth, unto whom fealty is given or due, according unto the feudist term ligeus, à ligando, unto whom they were bound in fealty. * V. Cl. Spelmanni Concil.

il branle comme la Bastille? Vrayment il est Stoic a vingt-quatre carrats, et de mesme calibre avec les vieux Ascetiques. Alloran' lui vault autant que l'isle de France, et la tour de Cordan 2 lui vault le mesme avec la Louvre.

"Serviteur très-humble,

THOMAS BROUNE."

9 ligeus.]

"Or liege lord."-MS. Sloan. 1827.

1 Note;-"Alloran, Allusama, or Insula Erroris; a small desolate barren island, whereon nothing liveth but coneys, in the Mediterranean sea, between Carthagena and Calo-de-tres-furcus, in Barbary."

2 Note;-"A small island or rock, in the mouth of the river Garonne, with one tower in it, where a man liveth, to take care of lights for such as go to, or come from, Bordeaux."

And therefore from Driht, Domine, dread sovereign, may, probably, owe its original.

I have not time to enlarge upon this subject: pray let this pass, as it is, for a letter and not for a treatise.

I am, yours, &c.

TRACT IX.

OF ARTIFICIAL HILLS, MOUNTS, OR BURROWS, IN MANY PARTS OF ENGLAND: WHAT THEY ARE, TO WHAT END RAISED, AND BY WHAT NATIONS.

My Honoured Friend Mr. W. D.'s1 Query.

IN my last journey through Marshland, Holland, and a great part of the Fens, I observed divers artificial heaps of earth of a very large magnitude, and I hear of many others which are in other parts of those countries, some of them are at least twenty feet in direct height from the level whereon they stand. I would gladly know your opinion of them, and whether you think not that they were raised by the Romans or Saxons, to cover the bones or ashes of some eminent persons?

My Answer.

WORTHY SIR,-Concerning artificial mounts and hills, raised without fortifications attending them, in most parts

1 Mr. W. D.] The initials, in both the preceding editions, are "E. D. :" but it has been clearly ascertained that this is an error. The query was Sir William Dugdale's; and his reply to the present discourse will be found elsewhere. A reference to Dugdale's History of Embanking and Draining, will show that he availed himself of the reply he obtained to his enquiry: for he has transcribed the quotations from Leland and Wormius in illustration of the Saxon and Danish mode of sepulture; and has given almost verbatim the passage referring to Germanicus.