Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/302

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246


NOTES AND QUERIES. tii s. v. MAK. so, 1912.


javelin-throwing. Discus-throwing is repre- sented by the Game of the Intellect. In this the writers upheld the sublimity of lyric poetry in Pindaric Odes by seeing who could throw furthest with his brains. Next came the " transformations," sonnets in which the poet imagines himself transformed into some inferior object, and thus shows man's superiority over the rest of creation. They answer to wrestling, because man must wrestle with vice, which degrades his higher nature to that of the lower animals. The

  • ' garlands " are the fifth and last game

short odes celebrating the virtues of various nymphs and offering them chaplets of flowers. But these "nymphse" are merely virtues personified, we are told. Odes to mortal maidens would have shocked both the wisdom and the morality of these arti- ficial shepherds and their guardian.

Crowns of laurel and myrtle the first as the fitting reward of singers, the second to show that there was no real rivalry at these games were apparently awarded to all competitors alike. So impressed was King John of Portugal with the Olympic Games held in his honour in 1726 that he presented the Academy with the piece of ground on the Janiculum which became the Bosco Parrasio, the centre of all Arcadia. The skill displayed by the members in flattering their patron of the moment richly deserved some such substantial reward, for it far surpassed the best efforts of Lady Miller's admirers.

Surely it is of these games that Horace Walpole is thinking when he writes to Mason, on the death of the husband of Mrs. Montagu, the Queen of the Blues, that " her hand will be given to a champion at some Olympic Games, and were I she, I would sooner marry you than Pindar."

LACY COLLISON-MORLEY.

JELLICOE SURNAME. Bardsley, in his ' Dictionary of Surnames,' says that " the old nickname Gentilcors (handsome body) naturally arises to one's mind." This might have something to do with Jellicorse, which he quotes from Crockford, though this suggests rather Jolicors, but it could hardly give Jellicoe. In the accounts of the Earl of Derby's expeditions (1390-93), edited by Miss Toulmin Smith for the Camden Society (1894), occurs the name of Jenico (or Janico) Dartache, scutifer, who was one of the earl's following. His sur- name appears to be French, and may stand for D'Artois, Old Fr. D'Arteis ; and I take


Jenico to be Fr. Janicot, one of the innumer- able diminutives of Jean, and corresponding more or less to our Jenkin. The English name Jennico still exists, I fancy ; at any rate, I have met with it in a novel. The change from n to Us quite common in English, especially in the case of words of French origin. We have it in the names Bullivant, from bon enfant ; Hamlet for Hamnet, from Hamonet; Phillimore, from fin amour, &c.' Bardsley himself gives Jellison as a variant of Jennison. ERNEST WEEKLEY.

' THE SUFFOLK LITERARY CHRONICLE.' I picked up at a second-hand bookseller's a volume called The Suffolk Literary Chro- nicle, bearing on the fly-leaf the following note by the well-known Ipswich antiquary Mr. W. S. Fitch, dated 10 Nov., 1844 :

"This is a volume of exceeding rarity, and the only one I have been able to obtain after upwards of three years' enquiry. Neither the Editor or Publisher have perfect copies, and from the limited number printed (250) I much question whether two perfect copies are to be found in the Kingdom. The Editor is Mr. John Wodder- spoon of Ipswich author of ' The Historic Sites of Suffolk,* &c. &c. &c.

" WM. STEVENSON FITCH.

" Ipswich, Nov. 10, 1844."

This copy consists of fourteen monthly parts bound in one, Sept., 1837-Nov., 1838, inclusive, with an Index for Vol. I. (first twelve parts), size 8xll, each part con- sisting of sixteen pages, price 4c?. : " Printed and Published by John King, County Press, Tavern Street, Ipswich."

I have witnessed with the deepest sorrow the rise and gradual decay of so many ephe- meral local productions of this description, that I trust ' N. & Q.' will permit the name at least of The Suffolk Literary Chronicle to live in its own immortal pages ; also, it would be interesting to know if the above copy contains all the parts published.

H. A. HARRIS.

Thorndon, Suffolk.

" PSYCHOLOGICAL." The earliest example for this word in the ' Oxford English Dic- tionary ' is 1794. In 1776 there appeared an anonymous book entitled ' A Theological Survey of the Human Understanding, Intended as an Antidote to Modern Deism ' ("Salisbury, printed for the author, by J. Hodson ; and sold by Wallis and Stonehouse, in Ludgate-street, London, MDCCLXXVI."). This was written by Robert Applegarth, and the last section (pp. 245-76) is called 'A Psychological Stricture.'

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.