It certainly
is unknown to the French, who call the fruit either _peche lisse_, or
_brugnon_. The Germans also call it _glatte Pfirsche_.
Can any of your readers inform me what is the Armenian word for _apricot_,
and whether there is any reason to believe that the Arabic words for
_apricot_ and _peach_, are of Armenian and Persian origin? If it is so, the
resemblance of the one to _praecox_, and of the other to _persicum_, will be
a curious coincidence, but hardly more curious than the resemblance of
[Greek: pascha] with [Greek: pascho] which led some of the earlier fathers,
who were not Hebraists, to derive [Greek: pascha] from [Greek: pascho].
E.C.H.
* * * * *
MINOR NOTES.
_Chaucer's Monument._--It may interest those of your readers who are
busying themselves in the praiseworthy endeavour to procure the means of
repairing Chaucer's Monument, especially Mr. Payne Collier, who has
furnished, in the November Number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (p. 486.),
so curious an allusion from Warner's _Albion's England_, to
"---- venerable Chaucer, lost
Had not kind Brigham reared him cost,"
to know that there is evidence in Smith's _Life of Nollekens_, vol. i. p.
79., that remains of the painted figure of Chaucer were to be seen in
Nolleken's times. Smith reports a conversation between the artist and
Catlin, so many years the principal verger of the abbey, in which Catlin
inquires,
"Did you ever notice the remaining colours of the curious little figure
which was painted on the tomb of Chaucer?"
M.
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