Notes and Queries, Number 19, March 9, 1850 | Page 4

carefully removed when the old fabric was taken down, and restored as nearly as could be to corresponding situations in the new building. I sought in vain, amongst these, for the name of Herrick. On making inquiry of the old sexton who accompanied us, he said at first in a very decided tone, "Oh, he died in Lunnun," but afterwards corrected himself, and said that Herrick died at Dean Prior, and that an old tombstone in {292} the churchyard, at the right hand side of the walk leading to the south side of the church, which was removed several years ago, was supposed to have covered the remains of the former vicar of Dean Prior.
Being baffled in our search after "tombstone information," we called at the vicarage, which stands close by the church, and the vicar most courteously accorded us permission to search the registers of the marriages, births, and burials, which were in his custody. The portion of the dilapidated volume devoted to the burials is headed thus:--
"Dean Prior
"The names of all those y't have been buried in y'e same parish from y'e year of our Lord God 1561, and so forwards."
After some careful search we were gratified by discovering the following entry:--
"Robert Herrick Vicker was buried y'e 15th day October, 1674."
I fancy I met with a selection from _Herrick's Poems_ edited by _Mr. Singer_, several years ago, comprised in a small neat volume. Can any of your readers inform me whether there is such a book? I possess Mr. Singer's valuable editions of _Cavendish_, _More_, and _Hall's Satires_, and would wish to place this volume on the same shelf.
J. MILNER BARRY.
Totnes, Feb. 21. 1850.
* * * * *
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "L?RIG?"
This _query_, evidently addressed to our Anglo-Saxon scholars by the distinguished philologist to whom we are all so much indebted, not having been hitherto replied to, perhaps the journal of "NOTES AND QUERIES" is the most fitting vehicle for this suggestive note:--
TO DR. JACOB GRIMM.
Allow me, though an entire stranger to you, to thank you for the pleasure I have derived, in common with all ethnological students, from your very valuable labours, and especially from the Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache. At the same time I venture, with much diffidence, to offer a reply to your question which occur in that work at p. 663.:--"Was heisst _l?rig_?"
Lye says, "H?c vox occurrit apid C?dm. At interpretatio ejus minime liquet." In the Supplement to his Dictionary it is explained "docilis, tyro!" Mr. Thorpe, in his _Analecta A.-S._ (1st edit. Gloss), says, "The meaning of this word is uncertain: it occurs again in _C?dmon_;" and in his translation of _C?dmon_ he thus renders the passage:--"Ofer linde l?rig=over the linden shields." Here then _l?rig_, evidently an adjective, is rendered by the substantive _shields_; and _linde_, evidently a substantive, is rendered by the adjective linden. In two other passages, Mr. Thorpe more correctly translates _lindum_=bucklers.
_Lind_, which Lye explained by the Latin _labarium_, _vexillum_, that excellent scholar, the late lamented Mr. Price, was the first, I believe, to show frequently signified _a shield_; which was, probably for lightness, made of the wood of the _lime tree_, and covered with skin, or leather of various colours. Thus we have "sealwe linde" and "hwite linde" in _C?dm._, "geolwe linde" in Beowulf.
All this is superfluous to you, sir, I know--"_Retournons �� nos moutons_," as Maistre Pierre Pathelin says.
The sense required in the passage in Brythnoth seems to me to be:--
"b?rst bordes l?rig=the empty (hollow concave) shields
"and seo byrne sang=and the armour (_lorica_) resounded."
And in _C?dmon_:--
"ofer linde l?rig=over the empty (hollow concave) shield."
In Judith, _Th. Anal._ 137, 53. we have a similar epithet:--
"hwealfum lindum=vaulted (arched concave) shields."
We should remember that Somner has _ge-l?r_, void, empty, _vacuus_; and Lye, with a reference to the Herbarium, _l?r-nesse_, vacuitas. In the Teuthonista we have _l?r_, vacuus, concavus. In _Heiland_, 3, 4. "larea stodun thar stenuatu sehsi=empty stood there stone-vats six." I need not call to your mind the O.H.G. _l��ri_.
I think, therefore, we cannot doubt that what is intended to be expressed by the A.-S. _l?rig_ is _empty_, _hollow_, concave. But if we wanted further confirmation, _leer_, _leery_, leary are still in use in Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and perhaps elsewhere, for _empty_, _hollow_, as the provincial Glossaries will show. Skinner has the word _leer_, vacuus, and says, "foeliciter alludit Gr. [Greek: lagaros], laxus, vacuus." In Layamon we have (244, 16.), "the put w?s _i-l?r_." I have found but one instance in Middle English, and that is in the curious old _Phrase-Book_ compiled by William Horman, Head Master of Eton School in the reign of Henry VIII:--
"'At a soden shyfte leere barellis, tyed together, with boardis above, make passage over a streme.' Tumultuario opere, inanes cupp? colligat? et tabulatis instrat? fluminis transitu perhibent."--_Hormanni Vulgaria_, Lond. 1519, f. 272 b.
Instances of the word