To be "out on the Never Never" is a bit Rutherford, C.B., is made. The captain of Australian bush slang. A book descrip- died 14 Jan., 1818, and is (with his wife) tive of this part of Australia was published buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster. Any by Sampson Low & Co. in 1884 under the information will be acceptable. title of The Never Never Land.' It would A. W. COOPER. be interesting to know something definite 230, Navarino Mansions, Dalston, N.E. about the Canadian "Never Never Country,' and whether the phrase is in common use among Canadians as descriptive of that portion of their Dominion. J. F. HOGAN. Royal Colonial Institute,

Northumberland Avenue.

"BROKENSELDE." "Le Brokenselde" in

West Chepe by Milk Street is said to have
been in 1332 a tavern, and it is mentioned
in Henry Rede's will, 1420 ('Calendar of
Wills,' quoted in Topog. Record, vol. iv.
p. 35).
What was a Brokenselde ?

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.
SHIPS RENAMED AFTER THE RESTORATION.

'VILLAGE BLACKSMITH' PARODIED.-I remember reading a very witty parody of The Village Blacksmith' some years ago in a paper or review, but forget where. Can a reader of N. & Q.' say where it may-Has any list come down to us of the ships be found? It is not in a recently published Book of Parodies.'

66

great

whose names were changed after that event? The Naseby became the Royal Charles, and there were several other changes following the return of Charles II.

(Madame) CHRISTINE AIGUESPARSES. CUTHBERT SHIELDS.-Can any reader give K. P. D. E. information concerning Cuthbert Shields, whom I have seen described as a GOWER, A KENTISH HAMLET.-There is Oriental scholar," said to have been wor- a hamlet called Gower in Eastry parish (in shipped as a god by the Druses" ? He Sandwich), Kent. How did the hamlet was further known under the name of get this name? What is its derivation? "Robert Laing." What books did he CHRISTINE AIGUESPARSES.

write?

2A, Rue de Berlin, Brussels.

R. VAUGHAN GOWER. Ferndale Lodge, Tunbridge Wells.

Replies.

MEDITERRANEAN.

(10 S. x. 308, 351, 376, 456, 495.)

ONE of the contributors to this lengthy discussion, after drawing my attention to could be elucidated by some one acquainted it, inquired whether the points still in doubt with Modern and Medieval Greek. I admitted that Classic Greek alone, stopping short, as it does, at about the third century A.D., helps but little toward the solution of such apparent linguistic riddles.

Perhaps I may state at the outset that 'Aoúpi (in Smith's 'Dict. of Ancient Geography') does not stand for any known Greek word, but is evidently a misprint for "Aσmpη. This is the more or less colloquial Mediæval and Modern Greek adjective for evкòs=white. Ducange and others after him are inclined to seek its derivation in the Latin asper, because a diminutive Turkish coin, the third of a para, is known among Greeks as äσрov* (being "white

* Cf. Littré's French Dict. : "Blanc anciennement, petite monnaie de cinq deniers. Mettre quelqu'un au blanc, le ruiner, lui gagner tout son argent."

by reason of its coating of tin), and hence it proves to this day in the experience of ǎσπρa (n. pl.), substantively, means money all mariners, the Greeks had recourse to generally eyeɩ пodλà аσтрa he is rich. that system of euphemism whereby they It was therefore not a far cry to associate sought to propitiate dreaded powers and ǎompa with asperi nummi. But, as Coray avert unfavourable omens, and gave it has shown, when the Romans spoke of these, what we may consider the coaxing_name they referred, not to tin-coated or silver of Eugeuvos. So also Evuevides, the Furies, coins, but to the newly minted, which of and evúvvuos, the left hand. course are crisp, and rougher to the touch than such as have been in circulation for some time. With his characteristic acumen, therefore, Coray traced dopos to aσridos (spotless, immaculate), and by syncope dolos, the change of A into p being very common in later Greek. So much for the etymology.

To return now to the Mediterranean, the first to employ this name, as the distinctive geographical designation of a particular sea, was Isidorus (Origines,' xiii. 16, p. 181), who wrote in the seventh century. Before him Solinus makes use of it, but rather in the sense of a general description of landlocked seas, mediterranea maria (c. 18); With regard to the geographical point, for he still refers to the Mediterranean Aσpη áλασoa is an exact rendering of specially as nostrum mare (c. 23, § 13). This Ak Denghiz, the Turkish designation (which and Mare Internum, or Intestinum, were the occurs also as Bahri-Eliaz and Adalar-Arassi) designations usual with Roman writers; of that part of the Mediterranean which, while the Greeks knew the Mediterranean Iying outside the Dardanelles, and between as ἡ ἔσω θάλασσα, ἡ ἐντὸς θάλασσα, ἡ ἐντὸς the shores of Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt, τῶν Ἡρακλείων στηλῶν θάλασσα, ἡ καθ' is studded with the innumerable Greek ἡμᾶς θάλασσα. The term μεσόγαιος was used islands, those of the Ægæan being included. by the Ancient Greeks in the sense of It was evidently so named by the Turks in interior, inland, or midland country contradistinction to the sea which is situated (cf. peσoyeía. Thuc. i 100, 120;

on the other side of the narrows, and which

they called the Black Sea (Kara Denghiz
also Bahri-Eswèd), owing to its sudden
and violent storms, and principally, I should
say, to the dense fogs which pervade it.
From the Turks, the Russians also have so
christened it, Czarne More; and among
our Greek mariners it is usually known as
Μαύρη θάλασσα. But the ancient appella-
tion Εύξεινος Πόντος (or Εὔξεινον Πέλαγος,
Mare Euxenum) is still in use in our literary
style. Strabo (vii. pp. 298, 300-who uses
also the designation Πέλαγος Ποντικόν,
i. p. 21, &c.), citing Apollodorus and other
earlier authors, states that it was originally
known as "Ağevos, "the inhospitable,"
owing to its dangerous navigation, and to
the barbarous and cannibal habits of the
surrounding tribes; but that after Greek
colonies were established and commerce
flourished, it was renamed the "hospitable
sea." So says also the Scholiast of Apol-
lonius Rhodius (ii. 550). Schymnus (734)
terms it "Aşevos. Herodotus, however, who
speaks at length of the Euxine, makes no
allusion to such later modification of its
name; while Pindar refers to it both as

ПóvTOS "A§ELVOS ('Pyth,' iv. 203) and as
Eugeivov Пeλayos (Nem.,' iv. 49). I am
therefore inclined to think that the Black
Sea being really "Aέevos ab antiquo, such as

Demosth. 326,

loca

66

the

Latin
9),
as
exactly
mediterranea, and, indeed,
the English mediterranean (adj.) when
applied to the central parts of a country
which end without reaching the sea, or to
as distinct from the sea-coast, or to rivers
the inhabitants of an inland region, But
the designation of the sea in question as
Meroyectos is of quite later times: when it
first came into use with us I cannot state
with any precision. Certain it is that we
have now no other name for that sea*-
Ασπρη θάλασσα being a mere rendering of the
Turkish term, to be heard sometimes among
the sailors in those waters, which, as I have
already said, are not to be considered as
confined strictly to the Ægean Sea-the so-
called Archipelago.

This barbarous, but universally accepted term is one of the most curious examples of the distortion and transformation of the geographical nomenclature in the Levant, consequent upon the irruptions in those parts of swarms of Venetian adventurers,

* Our geographical manuals speak of a Дevky Oáλaσoa when they refer to the White Sea in the Arctic Ocean, the Myeloye More of the Russians. It is this sea, no doubt, that Queen Victoria had in her mind when (as your correspondent D., x. 376, points out) she playfully deprecated the proposal of the Turks in 1853 that the operations of the British fleet should not include the Black Sea.

66

So

Genoese pirates, and that expedition of numerous island-habitations of the Greeks bandits humorously known as the "Fourth of the Egean. Thus Arcipelago can only Crusade." Such distortions are the result, have been a hybrid compound of a Greek partly of what is known as popular ety-sea-term, and an italianized Greek prefix mology," and partly of that self-conceded (άpxi from άpxós, chief, leader) signifying licence whereby more or less illiterate superiority, priority, pre-eminence. It was mariners rechristen in a fanciful manner exactly in this manner that the Italians had the places they visit. In the present instance already in use the word Arciduca; and the Italian name Arcipelago (in English successively added to their language arcitexts of the sixth and seventh centuries poeta, arciconsolo, arcifondatore, arcifanfano Archipelagus and Archipelage) has given (braggart), arcivero, arcibenissimo, &c. rise to all kinds of fantastic etymologies. also in French archicamérier, architrésorier, It is thought by some to be a corruption archichapelain, archiviole, archimagie, and of "Aytov IIéλayos, a name supposed to be the more recent archipédant, archimilionaire, given by Greeks to the sea near the holy | &c. Of like formation are the English Mount Athos. Others consider it a com- expressions arch-traitor, arch-enemy, and pound of arco and pelago, because the arches even arch alone, signifying chief, as in Shakeof the monasteries perched on that mountain speare, My worthy arch and enemy. can be seen from the sea! More reasonable The first steps to these formations were the appears the derivation from apyǹ and réλayos, words in Western languages taken immeas signifying the sea of the kingdom. diately from the Greek, such as architect, D'Anville (Analyse de la carte des côtes archangel, archdeacon, archiater, archetype, de la Grèce,' Paris, 1757) disposes of the &c. Arcipelago, therefore, with the Venequestion in a more off-hand manner :— tians originally signified the greater of the sheets of water which they had in mind when referring to it.

"Le nom d'Archipel n'est qu'une altération du véritable, et ne vient point, comme on pourroit le croire, d'une qualification supérieure à l'égard de quelque autre mer."

His countrymen who edited the 'Grand
Dictionnaire Larousse' and the
Encyclopédie' either ignore the difficulty,
or squarely affirm that Archipel is the
Ancient Greek name itself.

But this

Now, as this sea is studded with islands, renowned for their number and beauty above those of any other sea, the word Archipelago soon Grande came to be applied, by an extension of meaning, to any expanse of water studded with numerous islands, and, indeed, to any group of islands. was never the meaning of Αἰγαῖον Πέλαγος, and therefore I am all the more sorry to confess that some half-learned, slovenly, or slavish Modern Greek writers betray their ignorance, or their carelessness, by making use of such a grotesque word as 'Apxɩ πéλayos in the place of Aiyaîov Пléλayos, or, in respect to a group of islands, instead of Ioλúvηoos, or Νησοπέλαγος.

The term occurs (apparently for the first time) in a treaty between the Emperor Michael Palæologus and the Venetians, dated 30 June, 1268: Item, quod pertinet ad insulas de Arcipelago." It is then met with in Villani (c. 1345). But in a Venetian State paper of 1419 the medieval designation is adhered to, "Ducatus Egeopelagi," this being a rendering of the Greek Αἰγαιοπέλαγος, for Αἰγαῖον Πέλαγος (Mare Agæum). Πέλαγος in Greek signifies the high sea, the main, as distinct from the sea in general, and is further specialized when preceded by an epithet denoting the adjacent country, e.g., Μυρτώον Πέλαγος, Κρητικόν Пéλayos, &c.; as also in the case of móvтos, e.g., Ικάριος Πόντος, Θρηίκιος Πόντος.

Now, as regards the Italian prefix arci (Fr. archi, Eng. arch), we are led, by analogy in language, to discern in it the difference which struck the early Venetian navigators, between the narrow lagoons and shallow ponds of their own island-home and the comparatively vast expanse and depth of the seas which separate the even more

But that Arcipelago is a mere corruption of the Greek Αἰγαῖον Πέλαγος is an impossible supposition, on the face of it. Not that the Venetians were incapable of even that enormity. They have left firmly rooted in Western languages such linguistic tours de force as Negroponte from Evрios. They heard the Greeks journeying there say: (ei)'s TηN "Eуpinov (vernacular for Evρirov); and there is a bridge (ponte) over the narrow strait. By a similar process they transformed Mount Hymettus into Monte Matto, the "mad mountain," thus associating the sound of its Greek name with the physical characteristic of Hymettus-the sudden storms that come from over it.

Q. V. To the instances of bell-ringing on Queen WILLIAM BLACKBOROUGH, MILTON'S Elizabeth's Day may be added an exRELATIVE (10 S. x. 488).-William Black-tract from the churchwardens' accounts at borough and John Milton, father of the poet, married two ladies who were first cousins.