318
or four of the daughters, however
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. APRIL 19, 1902.
en
never have been taken for Welsh if met with ?n England. Most of them married Welsh- men or Welshwomen, and the children of the third generation vary in a similar way. AS my father-in-law was blest with twenty-one sons and daughters (sixteen of whom lived to grow up), and his two eldest daughters with twelve and ten respectively, I have had a fairly wide field of observation on them alone, and I do not suppose that this family differs in these respects from others. But it the case be so with the Welsh, what must it be with us English 1 &
AUTHORS or QUOTATIONS WANTED (9 th S viii. 326). The line should be ,
Each word-catcht M that lives on syllables, and is 1. 166 of Pope's 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuth- not.' Could " Now Sirius rages," the author of which is wanted by the same correspon- dent, be a memory-quotation of " The Dog- star rages ! " in the third line of this poem 1 EDWARD BENSLY.
The University, Adelaide, South Australia.
GEORGES I.-IV. (9 th S. ix. 164). Did not Landor write these lines 1 I find them attri- buted to him, and copied as follows in my commonplace book :
George the First was always reckoned Vile. But viler George the Second ; And what mortal ever heard Any good of George the Third ? When from earth the Fourth descended, Heaven be praised ! the Georges ended.
JOHN T. PAGE.
DEFOE AT TOOTING (9 th S. ix. 207). Then does not seem to be any known evidence t< support the theory that Daniel Defoe was living at Tooting - Graveney about the yeai 1688. He was probably born in the parisi of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in 1661, where hi: father (who bore the surname of Foe only, carried on the trade of a butcher, and attendee the services of Dr. Annesley, the Noncon formist. From 1675 until probably the yea 1680 the son was at Mr. Morton's academ at Newington Green. He tells us that he took part in the rebellion of the Duke of Mon mouth in 1685. In the same year he begai business as a hose-factor (not a shopkeepei he tells us) in Freeman's Court, Cornhill, and except for one or two visits to Spain, hi seems to have remained there until he flee to Bristol from his creditors in 1692. Shortl
f terwards he started a manufactory of bricks
nd pantiles, "near Tilbury Fort in Essex,"
nd carried on those works until he was
mprisoned in Newgate in 1703. There he
emained until August, 1704. In 1707 he
was living in Edinburgh. He soon returned
o London, and, though he paid other visits
o Scotland, we hear, in 1712, of his being
orcibly and with difficulty taken out of his
brtified house at Newington by the officers
f the Court of Queen's Bench. No doubt it
was at Newington that he wrote k Robinson
rusoe' (1719), 'Moll Flanders' (1721), 'Ad-
ventures of Roxana' (1724), &c. About 1724
built himself a large house at Stoke
Newington, with stables and pleasure grounds,
and kept a coach. Mr. Henry Baker, the
naturalist, who in that year set up a school
for the deaf and dumb there, speaks of him as
Mr. Defoe, a gentleman well known by his writings, who had newly built there a very hand- some house, as a retirement from London, and amused his time either in the cultivation of a large and pleasant garden, or in the pursuit of his studies, which he found means of making very profitable."
Henry Baker there met and eventually mar- ried Sophia, one of Defoe's
three lovely daughters, who were admired for their beauty, their education, and their prudent conduct ; and if sometimes Mr. Defoe's disorders made company inconvenient, Mr. Baker was enter- tained by them either singly or together, and that commonly in the garden when the weather was favourable."
In September, 1729, Defoe suddenly fled from his house, and in August, 1730, he was in a hiding-place " about two miles from Green- wich." On 26 April, 1731, he died at a lodging in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields. So it would seem almost certain that Defoe did not live at Tooting-Graveney in 1688 or at any time in his career. RONALD DIXON.
46, Maryborough Avenue, Hull.
" WAGUES " (9 th S. ix. 204, 255). It seems to me that CELER'S proposed etymology for this word is, to say the least, no better than the one he condemns, unless he can support it by something more convincing than his mere statements. Apart from his very far- fetched explanation of the meaning, by what right does he assert that because the g in leagues is hard, therefore the word "must be Norse," and that " the etymology is from [sic] the Icel. vaga '"? If this be so, then doubtless vague, plague, league, &c., must likewise be Norse ! And what' right has CELER to assume that a Norse vaga or vagar would produce a M.E. form with ag (instead of aiv) any more than an O.E. wagian ? Do not Norse agi and lagu produce Engl. awe and law respectively 1
