272
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. OCT. 3,
be gauged by his boldness in citing such an
" Anglo-Saxon " form as hova, when he
could easily have ascertained (had he ever
learnt the alphabet) that the symbol v does
not occur in Anglo-Saxon at all, and even
u is rare as a consonant ; the symbol for v
was / /
There is no Angle-Saxon word of the kind except hof, " a house, hall, dwelling, build- ing." There is no adjective of that form ; and the alleged sense of " low-lying " is all unscrupulous fiction. If Hoving-den is real, it is a modern form, like Hoving-ham in Yorkshire ; and it is impossible that such forms could be of adjectival origin.
May we hope that, in the future, words will not be cited as Anglo-Saxon on the authority of guessing etymologists ? We cite as " Latin " no words except such as the dictionaries give us ; and we ought never to believe in an " Anglo-Saxon " form unless it can be found in the dictionaries. The dic- tionaries are those by Somner (1659) : Lye and Manning (1772) ; Bosworth (1838) ; Ettmiiller (1851) ; Grein (1861) ; Bosworth (compendious form), 1868: Leo (1877); Bosworth and Toller (begun in 1882) ; Clark Hall (1894) ; Sweet (1897) ; besides which we have important supplemental glossaries, especially in Sweet's ' Old English Texts ' (1885), Wright-Wiilcker's ' Vocabularies ' (1884), and Napier's 'Old English Glosses' (1900).
None of these would employ such a spelling as hov. Modern " authorities " are often untrustworthy; but it is difficult to find words to express the unscrupulousness of Richard Verstegan, who first set the evil example of inventing Anglo-Saxon forms, and of attaching to them any meaning that could be employed most usefully at the moment. WALTER W. SKEAT.
DOLLS IN MAGIC (10 S. ix. 168; x. 118, 195). MR. A. E. SNODGRASS refers to the description of witchcraft in Longfellow's play ' Giles Corey of the Salem Farms.'
I have before me a work printed by Richard Cotes at the sign of " The Bible " in Green Arbour, 1651 (now, I think, out of print), called ' A Historicall Narration of the First Fourteen Years of- King James.' In it there is an account of the divorce of the Earl and Countess of Essex. Chap. xii. tells how " the Countesse combines with Mris. Turner to bewitch him." The Earl " tells her of her loosenesse, and of the report of the vulgar, and what a strange course of fife she led, contrary to all piety and honesty : which stung the Countesse to the heart, and more incensed her, and augmented her malice towards him, so that in
a great furie she takes her coach, and repairs to her
ancient acquaintance Mris. Turner, who (according
to her old custome) is ready to perform any evill
act ; and there they combine to bewitch the Earle.
Pictures in wax are made, crosses and many
strange uncouth things (for what will the devill leave unattempted) to accomplish their ends ; many attempts failed, and still the Earle stood it out : At last they framed a picture in wax, and got a thorne from a tree that boare leaves, and stuck
upon the said picture, by which means they
accomplished their desire."
A. MASSON.
Rossetti's weird ballad of ' Sister Helen ' deserves to be included, in a list of writings on this subject. A powerful narrative fol- lows the well-managed introduction : " Why did you melt your waxen man,
Sister Helen ?
To-day is the third since you began." " The'time was long, but the time ran, Little brother." O Mother, Mary Mother, Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven !
W. B.
LONGFELLOW'S * PSALM OF LIFE ' (10 S. x 209). The interpretation b is certainly the correct one; that is to say, it is with the second line that the young man finds fault, all that follow being his own remonstrance. When a man dreams, he " slumbers," and this is what the third line declares to be done by only the soul that is dead. " Things are not what they seem " to such a one, but " Life is real." The poet adds, " The grave is not its goal," and even though " our hearts are beating funeral marches " to that very grave, this is shown to be no contradiction, for
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soid.
The grave, then, is not the ultimate goal, but only a " transition," as Longfellow says in a still more beautiful composition.
ALFRED WATTS.
I cannot lay hands on my Longfellow, but if memory may be trusted, the whole tenor of the poem announces in no equivocal form the immortality of the soul, and the realities of existence as disciplinary processes on our road to the goal " beyond the grave." " Life is real," the poet proclaims with orthodox vigour : and howsoever we inter- pret the riddle of the earth, it seems clear to me that lines 3 and 4 are antithetical to lines 1 and 2, and were so intended by the poet. He starts off with an antithesis in a minor key, yet leaves scope for the grand peal
Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal.
M. L. R. BRESLAR.
