498
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. JUNE is, 1910.
' Report from the Select Committee on
Westminster Hall Restoration,* 1885. Wil-
liam Capon's collections were sold by South-
gate, May, 1828, but only his valuable
drawings of the existing buildings were
offered. ALECK ABRAHAMS.
"WIMPLE" AS APPLIED TO RUNNING WATER (11 S. i. 202). The word is so used by W. E. Aytoun in ' The Refusal of Charon,' printed in ' Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, and other Poems,' first published in 1848 :
O Charon ! halt, we pray thee,
By ycnder little town, Or near that sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down !
W. B. H.
Whatever the etymology of this word may be, the radical idea is that of rapid movement to and fro, whirling about, wind- ing round, as in I. R. Drake's ' Culprit Fay ' :
She wimpled about to the pale moonbeam
Like a feather that floats on a wind-tossed stream.
"Wimpling" as applied to running water does not specially refer to surface effects caused by air currents, or other surface movements owing to the meandering stream, but rather characterizes particularly the action of the water itself as it courses on- ward. A good illustration of this is given in J. Wilson's ' Trees ? : " The little waterfall of the wimpling burnie " ; here the attribute is most expressive in its signification.
TOM JONES.
JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY : ' THE SIEGE OF TROY ' (11 S. i. 403). In my note at the above reference I wrote ' ' for more than three centuries ' The Siege of Troy l re- mained in the library at Markeaton Hall." This is an error. Sir John Mundy acquired it in 1504, and presumably it passed to Adrian Mundy of Quorndon on the death of his father in 1650. PERCY D. MUNDY.
" YON n : ITS USE BY SCOTSMEN (11 S. i' 43, 131, 254). The word is commonly used among the working classes of North Lincolnshire. It is to be regretted that elegant English rejects it. ST. S WITHIN says that Spanish " has a limitation to corre- spond." I have been informed that in the speech of Madagascar seven degrees of distance are expressed. T. D.
The distinction between aquel and esc, "that, ?l is not confined to the Spanish lan- guage, Italian also possessing two words of the same difference in meaning : quello, the positive demonstrative, and codesto or
cotesto, which denotes an object equally
distant from both speakers, or situated
between, them, or even that which is un-
seen. N. W. HILL.
New York.
Although it is hardly relevant to the subject under consideration, I may perhaps be allowed to say that the lines given by ST. SWITHIN were repeated in childhood's days to me as follows :
Miss and Master went to town,
They saw a poor boy coming down,
Hags and tatters, pale and wan,
Miss saw him first and thus began :
" Here, little boy, without your hat,
Take yon this ha'penny and likewise that,
For we don't want it and yon do."
" Thank you, little Miss and Master too."
JOHN T. PAGE.
" HAND YMAN" = SAILOR (11 S. i. 448). I remember that in the fifties of last century a man who had served in the Royal Navy and was then in the Coast Guard Service at St. Aldheim's Head in the Isle of Purbeck, was spoken of as a " handyman. * l
JOHN PAKENHAM STILWELL.
I think that this phrase was first applied to sailors by Mr. Harold Begbie when the horses turned restive at Queen Victoria's funeral, and the sailors came to the rescue and carried the coffin into St. George's Chapel. P. C.
[First popularized, we should prefer to say, in the song which Mr. Begbie called ' The Handy Man.']
COLONIAL OFFICE ADMINISTRATION (US. i. 426). No doubt the articles sought are 'The Colonial Office From Within,' by Sir John Bramston (Empire Review, April, 1901) and 'The Colonial Office and the Crown Colonies,' by Sir Augustus Hemming (Empire Review, July, 1906).
J. F. HOGAN.
Royal Colonial Institute,
Northumberland Avenue.
"BANG-BEGGAR^ (11 S. i. 246, 393). Perhaps in former days only men of excep- tionally strong physique were chosen as beadles. An undergraduate was once brought before Bentley on the charge of atheism. The culprit was a very small man, and Bentley said, " Is that an atheist ? I always thought an atheist would be as big as Burroughs the beadle.' 1 In Catholic places of worship on the Continent the Suisse is generally very tall and strong. Only men of muscle are to be found in the English police. M. N. G.
