Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853. Various
I will enlighten them. But, first, I must say, I am surprised that Dr. Kennedy should (though he has certainly hit on the right meaning) be unable to give a better account of the word than that in Vol. ii., pp. 139. 250. And as to the passage quoted (Vol. ii., p. 200) by Mr. Singer from Sidney's Arcadia, I beg to inform him that the word delight, which occurs therein, is a misprint for daylight!
We find, in the Latin, the substantive deliciæ, delight, pleasure, enjoyment; and the adjective (derived from the same root, and guiding us to the original meaning of the substantive) delicatus, which amongst other meanings, has that of tender, soft, gentle, delicate, dainty.
As the early English scholars were not very particular about the form of the words they introduced from the Latin, or indeed of those which were purely English, for they changed them at their pleasure,—and that this is the case, I presume no one at all versed in the literature of the time of Henry VIII. will dispute,—it requires no great exertion of fancy to believe, that, finding the substantive deliciæ Englished delight, they rendered the adjective delicatus delighted. The fact that they did use the words delight and delicate as synonymous, is proved by a passage in "a boke named the Gouernour deuised by Syr Thomas Elyot, Knyght, Londini, 1557;" in which, at folio 203., p. 1., we find Titus, the son of Vespasian, who was ordinarily termed "the delight of mankind," called "the delicate of the world."
We are therefore to conclude that the words delicate and delighted were used indifferently by writers of the age of Shakspeare, as well as by those previous to him, to express the same thing; and that by the phrase "delighted spirit" in Measure for Measure, "delighted beauty" in Othello, "delighted gifts" in Cymbeline, we are to understand, exquisitely tender, delicate, or precious.
I cannot agree with Dr. Kennedy that deliciæ, delicatus come from deligere rather than delicere; since, if my memory does not deceive me, the former is as often, if not oftener, used by good writers to express to drive away, to upset, to remove from, or detach—as to select or choose—which is the only meaning the word has akin to deliciæ; whereas delicere is actually used by one of the earlier Latin poets for to delight.
The word dainty, I may inform Dr. Kennedy, is from the obsolete French dein or dain, delicate; which probably came from the still older Teut. deinin, minuta (vid. Schilter).
—– Rectory, Hereford.
Minor Notes
Epitaph from Stalbridge.—The following epitaph from the churchyard of Stalbridge, Dorsetshire, may perhaps be thought worthy of preservation, if it be not a hackneyed one:
"So fond, so young, so gentle, so sincere,
So loved, so early lost, may claim a tear:
Yet mourn not, if the life, resumed by heaven,
Was spent to ev'ry end for which 'twas given.
Could he too soon escape this world of sin?
Or could eternal life too soon begin?
Then cease his death too fondly to deplore,
What could the longest life have added more?"
Curious Extracts.—Dean Nowell—Bottled Beer.—I was somewhat hasty in assuming (see Vol. vii., p. 135.) that bottled beer was an unknown department in early times, as the following extract will show. It is from Fuller's Worthies of England, under "Lancashire," the subject of the notice being no less a person than the grave divine Alexander Nowell, dean of St. Paul's, author of the Catechism, whose fondness for angling is also commemorated by Izaak Walton. Fuller, having noticed the narrow escape which Nowell had from arrest by some of Bishop Bonner's emissaries in Queen Mary's reign, having had a hint to fly whilst fishing in the Thames, "whilst Nowell was catching of fishes, Bonner was catching of Nowell," proceeds to say,—
"Without offence it may be remembered that, leaving a bottle of ale, when fishing, in the grass, he found it some days after no bottle, but a gun, such the sound at the opening thereof: and this is believed (casualty is the mother of more inventions than industry1) the original of bottled ale in England."—Nuttall's edit., vol. ii. p. 205.
A Collection of Sentences out of some of the Writings of the Lord Bacon (i. 422. edit. Montagu), with the ensuing exceptions, is taken out of the Essays, and in regular order:
No. 1. p. 33. of the same volume.
No. 2. p. 21.
No. 3. p. 5.
No. 4. p. 8.
No. 51. My reference is illegible: the words are,—"Men seem neither well to understand their riches nor their strength: of the former they believe greater things than they should; and of the latter, much less. And from hence, certain fatal pillars have bounded the progress of learning."
No. 68. pp. 173. 272. 321.
No. 69. p. 185.
No. 70. p. 176.
No. 71. Vol. vi., p. 172. The Charge of Owen, &c.
Nos. 72, 73. Vol. vii., p. 261. The Speech before the Summer Circuits, 1617.
Law and Usage.—In The Times of September 1, the Turkish correspondent writes as follows:
"Mahmoud Pasha declared in the Divan of the 17th that 'he would divorce his wife, but would not advise a dishonourable peace with Russia.' This is an expression of the strongest kind in use amongst the Turks."
It is worth a Note that, in spite of polygamy and divorce, a common proverb is monogamic, and divorce is spoken of as the greatest of unlikelihoods.
Manichæan Games.—Take any game played by two persons, such as draughts, and let the play be as follows: each plays his best for himself, and follows it by playing the worst he can for the other. Thus, when it is the turn of the white to play, he first plays the white as well as he can; and then the black as badly (for the other player) as he can. The black then does the best he can with the black, and follows it by the worst he can do for the white. Of course, by separating the good and evil principles, four persons might play.
Bohn's Hoveden.—By way of expressing my sense of obligation to Mr. Bohn and his editors for the Antiquarian Library, perhaps you will suffer me to point out what appears to be an inaccuracy in the translation of Roger de Hoveden's Annals? At p. 123. of vol. ii., the word Suuelle (as it appears to stand in the original text) is translated into Swale: but surely no other place is here meant than the church of St. Mary's at Southwell2 (or Suthwell, Sudwell, Suwell, or Suell, as variously spelt, but never Swale), in Nottinghamshire.
I would also notice a trifling error (perhaps only a misprint) at p. 125.; where we are informed in a note, that the Galilee of Durham Cathedral is at the east end, whereas its real position is at the west.
Oxford.
Milton at Eyford House, Gloster.—In the British Museum (says Wilson in his description of Christ's College, Cambridge) is the original proclamation for Milton's appearance after the Restoration. Where was he secreted? I find this note in my book:—At Eyford House, Gloucestershire, within two miles of Stow-on-the-Wold, on the road to Cheltenham, a spring of beautiful water is called "Milton's Well," running into a tributary of the Thames. The old house, &c., at the time would be out of the way of common information.
Queries
EARL OF LEICESTER'S PORTRAIT, 1585
There is at Penshurst, among many other interesting memorials of the Dudleys,
Fuller might have quoted the Greek proverb, Τύχη τέχνης ἔστερξε καὶ τέχνη τύχης.
The seal of the vicars of Southwell, ann. 1262, had in its circumference the words "Commune sigillum Vicariorum Suuell."—Vid. Thoroton's