n s. xii. OCT. is, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
305
WILLETT FAMILY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE
(11 S. xii. 182, 199). The following inscrip-
tion is from a board listing the benefactors
in the church at Burford, Oxon :
" Ralph Willet of Kingham Clerk Gave a Cow for | ye Benefit of ye Poor which was afterwards sold | for 11. 10s., which Summ together with 10s. | added to it by ye Burgesses is Set out | to Interest for ye Benefit of ye Poor."
There are references to other members of the family in Archdeacon Button's ' By Thames and Cotswold,' but unfortunately the book does not possess an index.
JOHN LANE.
The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.
WAB AND THE POETS (US. xii. 158, 227). One is tempted to doubt whether there is any acceptable standard of English pronun- ciation when one finds a correspondent of ' N. & Q.' stating that to his ear war (waur) is a perfect rime with bore, roar, door, more, and all the other words which contain the syllable (oar) in Glossic. Down to the eighteenth century it ranged quite harmoniously as a true homophone with the other words spelt with -ar, such as bar, car, scar, mar, far, star. Peter Levins in his riming dictionary, ' Manipulus Vocabu- lorum,' 1570, groups these together with warre, but keeps that word distinct from for and nor. It was the reflex influence of the initial w that turned the vowel into a diph- thong in the nineteenth century, just as for the same reason warm ceased to rime with harm, and want with pant. The only true rime now left to us for war seems to be abhor. A. SMYTHE PALMER.
Tullagee, Eastbourne.
If law does not rime to war, will the objector kindly tell me the difference in pronuncia- tion of the respective words in such ex- pressions as " Law Office " and " War Office " ? R. C. TEMPLE.
Although I do not pay great respect to the
- dog-letter," I do not think that my r is
particularly vibrant at the end of war. But in poetry more nicety is expected than in speech, and if a man affects to rime, rime he should. M. P.'s Muse has evidently no ear : how can bore and core and door, with the long vowel-sound, chime with the snap of war ? Nobody who pronounces properly talks of the wore. I forgot to offer Thor as a rime, and was only reminded of the use that he might be by Y. T.'s suggestion of thaw, which, of course, stands in the same relation to war as dawn does to morn : a connexion that is deemed Cockney and illegitimate by the critics. - ST. S WITHIN. *
In his reply C. C. B. remarks that the
omission of pronounced final r is the
more puzzling because some South English
speakers, at the centre, put in r where it
should not. But does not the omission of
h and its insertion present a like puzzle, of
which explanations seem to have been
futile ?
Examples : Hanwell was Anwell, St. Ann's Well. While it was Anwell, these speakers said Hanwell ; being now Hanwell, they say Anwell. A Cockney soldier in face of two young mistresses Helen and Ellen. To him they were Miss Elen and Miss Hellen.
The explanation suggested, that nervous- ness about wrongly leaving out makes these speakers wrongly put in, is no explanation at all of the regularity of' their misconduct.
W. STOCKLEY.
Univ. Coll., Cork.
ARMS IN HATHERSAGE CHURCH (11 S. x. 68 ,~ xi. 95). It seems a pity for this query to remain unanswered in ' N. & Q.' Could not TRIN. COLL. CAMS, give information about the shield in question without tracing the different members of the Eyre family who have resided at Hathersage ? I think the identification of the shield would interest readers besides MR. CHARLES DRURY.
LEO C.
'DAME WIGGINS OF LEE' (US. xii. 199,. 249). My copy of this, as a reprint with Ruskin's additional verses, and with Green- away illustrations, was published in 1887 by Field & Tuer, the Leadenhall Press. The copy has an account of all that is known of the history of the booklet, and the two following reprints in the series projected by Mr. Andrew Tuer were ' The Gaping Wide- Mouthed Frog ' and * Deborah Dent and her Donkey,' and I do not think any others of the series were issued.
THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.
" DIE ^EGYPTIACA ' : " HORA ^EGYPTIACA " US. xii. 181, 225). I have read with in- terest the replies at the latter reference. I do not know that the Hebrews have any days specially predetermined as lucky and unlucky ; but they have " fixed periods " during which marriage is not solemnized. During the period known as the " Drei Woolien," or three weeks prior to Pentecost - during the " Neun Tage, or the nine days Drior to the Fast of Ab ; during the ten Penitential Days from New Year's Day till the Day of Atonement all these days are ritually barred to matrimony.
