500
NOTES AND QUERIES. ii2s.iLDisc.ie.i9i6.
forms as " vassalize " and " vassalate " bear
renewed witness to the industry of the compilers.
We confess ourselves surprised to find that
- ' vast " goes hack no further than to the last
quarter 'of the sixteenth century. " Vat," orii:iii;illy a Southern variant of "fat," sb., is Illustrated first from Mother Juliana a passage about St. John in the boiling oil. "Vatican^' and " Vaudeville." " vault," " vavasour, " Vauxhall " we can but suggest by naming these the attractiveness of the articles concerned.
A word of great interest in which the Dictionary has scotched an old mistake is " veer " in the nautical sense of running out a sheet. This is not to be referred, as often heretofore, to the French virer, the origin of the second sense of the verb " to turn, to change a course " but to the M.Du. vieren, which is found in O.H.G. as fteren. " Vein " is a good piece of work ; the same may be said of '" vellum," " velocipede," and "" velvet." Under " venal " is a curious ex- pression from Prescott's ' Ferdinand and Isa- bella ' : " the venal sale of office." Under " venerable," 4b, we are given examples of the use of that word for " antique " or " ancient " without notice that this is slightly, when not -entirely, ironic. " Veneration " as an ecclesiasti- cal word has a quasi-technical sense which should have been noted. The definition of " ventricle," though better than the curious ineptitude to be found in Skeat's ' Etymological Dictionary ' 4< a part of the heart " leaves something to be desired.
We have marked a large number of articles and quotations which we have not space to mention, but any reader who will run through some of the familiar words which fall alphabetically within the limits of this section may obtain some notion of the wealth here offered. Three thousand, two hundred and two words are recorded, illustrated by quotations numbering 15,684 : the correspond- ing numbers for Johnson's Dictionary being 268 and 713.
WILLIAM HENRY PEET.
ON Sunday, Dec. 3 as we noted with deep regret in our last issue William Henry Peet, one of our oldest and most valued correspondents, passed away, peacefully , we are glad to learn, and without I i,i in', though after a sadly prolonged illness. On Nov. 15, unable to come yet a last time to " the Row," he had sent his old friends and colleagues of the publishing house of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. a letter of goodbye. His connexion with that firm went back to 1878, when he came to them from Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall & Co., whose employment he entered in 1865 as a lad of 16. He was born in 1849 at Barnet, and was educated at the Brighton Grammar School. It is as Mr. Peet of Longmans that ' N. & Q.' knew him, and what is, perhaps, his principal contri- bution to literature first saw the light in our columns. This was ' The Bibliography of Pub- lishing and Bookselling,' which ran through the first volume of the Tenth Series, and was after- wards embodied in Mr. F. A. Mumby's ' Romance of Bookselling.' The earliest article of his that we have traced in ' N. & Q.' appeared in April, 1890 a " Long Note " entitled ' Booksellers' Sales in the Eighteenth Century.'
What he had to say about publishers and book-
, and about the technicalities connected
with the handling of books, had the unmistakable
quality and authority of one who is a master in
his line of work. He had had charge of the pub-
lishing department of Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall
& Co. before he passed on to Longmans, and with
the latter firm his main work was that of head of
the Advertisement Department. He was a Iso, how-
ever, for many years one of their " Readers,"
sub-editor of Longman's Magazine, and editor of
their periodical Notes on Books. Although what
was peculiar to him was his knowledge of the
history and the inner detail of the publishing of
books during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, he had amassed, as many a querist in
our columns has come to know, a great store of
curious learning, and was no inconsiderable stu-
dent of literature. What he possessed he gladly
imparted ; and by those who knew him personally
to any extent, it is not so much the capable man
of business or the accomplished judge of books
that will be chiefly remembered, but rather the
loyal and generous friend. A little brusque and
abrupt in manner, he had the gift of inspiriting ;
and we have heard of the representative of a
newspaper who, when he had a difficult day before
him, generally called on Mr. Peet first not in the
hope of getting anything, but for the sake of the
unfailing cheery word and kindly smile which
would hearten hinvon his way. He had a fund of
delightful conversation relative to the books and
writers of the times just before our own ; and,
besides, was a lover, keen and well-informed, of
gardens and plants.
Mr. Peet married in 1877 Miss Margaret Da vies. Mrs. Peet and two children out of a family of five survive him. He had had his share both of ill-health and bereavement, and there is no doubt that his health was seriously impaired by grief for a sad loss in the present war.
WE are glad to learn from MR. ALECK ABRA- HAMS that our correspondent W. B. H. is in error in writing of Mr. W. Roberts as "the late" (ante, p. 477). MR. ABRAHAMS assures us that Mr. Roberts is very much alive, and that we may expect many more interesting monographs from his pen.
The Athenaeum now appearing monthly, arrange-
ments have been made whereby advertisements of
posts vacant and wanted, which it is desired to
publish weekly, may appear in the intervening
weeks in ' N. & Q.'
tc
OK all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.
MR. M. L. R. BRESLAR. Taura Oeuv tv yotivatri Kelrat occurs several times in Homer twice, for instance, in ' Odyss.' i. (267, 400), and in ' Iliad ' xvii. 514. For ira.8-fina.Ta puO^ara. see Herod, i. 207, and ^Eschyl. ' Agamemnon,' 470.
FOURTEENTH-CENTURY GLASS: EPISCOPAL RING (12 S. i. 267, 335, 375, 457 ; ii- 415). MR. JOHN T. PAGE notes that an article on ' The Episcopal Ring ' appeared in The Church Times of Nov. 21, 1902.
