10 s. x. JULY 25,
NOTES AND QUERIES.
75
of Dining,' published anonymously in 1852
by John Murray (is the author A. Hay ward
A.C. ?) :
Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Unwonted softness to the salad give.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon ;
Distrust the condiment which bites so soon ;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt.
Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And once with vinegar procured from town.
The flavour needs it, and your poet begs,
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole ;
And lastly, on the flavoured compound toss
A magic tea spoon of anchovy sauce.
Then though green turtle fail, though venison's
tough,
And ham and turkey are not boiled enough, Serenely full the epicure may say, Fate cannot harm me I have dined to-day !
Dublin.
L. A. W.
I ' The Art of Dining ' is by Abraham Hay ward.
Many other correspondents are thanked for
replies.]
" FEMMER " (10 S. x. 9). This is a dialect word used chiefly in the North of England, and meaning " weak, frail, slender, slightly made, used both of persons and things." So writes Prof. Wright in the 'English Dialect Dictionary,' published in six volumes, 1896-1905. The range of the word is through Northumberland, Durham, Cumber- land, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. Prof. Wright finds the same word in the Swedish dialect, meaning active, light ; in Norwegian dialect as fim, quick ; in Old Norse as fimr, nimble. From it, he adds, come " femmer- some," adj., stiff, not supple, "femoral" and ^femmerous," adj., slender, slight, frail, used in North Yorkshire and Lancashire. In 1 Northumberland Words ' Mr. R. O. Heslop defines " femmer " as " weak, slight, frail, cranky, tender." I do not find the word in Jamieson's ' Scottish Dictionary.'
RICHARD WELFORD. Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Femmer " is in use here as opposed to
strong, though I think it is not applied to
persons, but to objects. A chair is said to
be " femmer " when it is rickety or cheaply
put together. I was not aware the word
was in use in Scotland. R. B R.
South Shields.
SINGLE TOOTH (10 S. ix. 326). It may be interesting, as bearing upon the story of Pyrrhus (which Prof. Mahaffy takes to mean only that his teeth were very close-set),
to mention that several members in two
generations of a certain Connecticut family
had no teeth proper. <. The gums were re-
placed by an undivided ring of tooth sub-
stance, prolonged upward to the height
of ordinary teeth, and were used in all
respects as such. FORREST MORGAN.
Hartford, Conn.
HAIR BECOMING SUDDENLY WHITE
THROUGH FEAR (10 S. ix. 445 ; x. 33). MR. PEET quotes an instance, from ' Cameos from English History,' in which the hair of a good Catholic is turned white on hearing that Henry of Navarre had become king. As a pendant to this it may be recalled that Henry himself asserted that on hearing of the Edict of Nemours (18 July, 1585), by which it was enacted that all Huguenots had either to go to Mass or leave the king- dom within six months, his moustaches suddenly turned white on that side of his face which was supported by his hand. See 'Memoirs of Sully/ vol. i. p. 114, note (London, Wm. Miller, 1810) ; also Motley's 'United Netherlands,' vol. i. p. 132 (John Murray, 1868). T. F. D.
"Among others whose acquaintance Montaigne made in the bath-room [at Plombieres] was Seigneur d' Andelot, formerly in the service of Charles V . and governor for him of St. Queiitin. One side of his beard and one eyebrow were white ; and he related that this change came to him in an instant one day as he was sitting at home, with his head leaning on his hand, in profound grief at the loss of a brother, executed by the Duke of Alba as accomplice of Counts Egmont and Home. When he looked up and uncovered the part which he had clutched in his agony, the people present thought that flour had been sprinkled over him." Bay le St. John, * Mon- taigne the Essayist,' vol. ii. p. 137.
A. O. V. P.
Dr. Guy in his ' Forensic Medicine,' 1844, writes thus :
'The effect of sudden and violent emotion in producing a change in the colour of the hair is well known. The same change has also been produced by disease, as in the following; case, related by Dr. Gfordon Smith. A lady, ' when about the age of thirteen, went to bed one night, and about three in bhe morning was conscious of a sensation like faint- ing. She got up early, and found that the whole of ler hair had become grey.' "
This change was not confined to the hair of the head. E. YARDLEY.
It should be noted that this subject has on more than one occasion been previously dealt with in ' N. & Q.' See 5 S. i. 444 ; 6 S. vi. 85, 134, 329 ; vii. 37 ; viii. 97 ; ix. 378 ; 7 S. ii. 6, 93, 150, 238, 298, 404, 412, 518 ; iii. 95 ; iv. 195, 415 ; vii. 344.
