Various - Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850

I feel obliged by your intelligent correspondent "D.S." having ascertained that De Foe was the author of the Tour through Great Britain . Perhaps he may also be enabled to throw some light on a subject of much curiosity connected with De Foe, that appears to me well worth the inquiry.

Mrs. Bray, in her General Preface prefixed to the first volume of the reprint, in series, of her Novels and Romances , when giving an account of the circumstances on which she founded her very graphic and interesting romance of Trelawny of Trelawne , says—

"In Gilbert's History of Cornwall , I saw a brief but striking account, written by a Doctor Ruddell, a clergyman of Launceston, respecting a ghost which (in the year 1665) he has seen and laid to rest, that in the first instance had haunted a poor lad, the son of a Mr. Bligh, in his way to school, in a place called the 'Higher Broom Field.' This grave relation showed, I thought, the credulity of the times in which the author of it lived; and so I determined to have doctor, boy, and ghost in my story. But whereas, in the worthy divine's account of the transaction, the ghost appears to come on earth for no purpose whatever (unless it be to frighten the poor boy), I resolved to give the spirit something to do in such post-mortem visitations, and that the object of them should be of import to the tale. Accordingly I made boy, doctor, and the woman (who is said after her death to have appeared to the lad) into characters, invented a story for them, and gave them adventures."

Mrs. Bray adds—

"Soon after the publication of Trelawny , my much esteemed friend, the Rev. F.V.T. Arundell 1 1 Of Landulph, Cornwall, the author of Discoveries in Asia Minor , and the well-known Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia . Mr. Arundell is now dead. , informed me, that, whilst engaged in his antiquarian researches in Cornwall, he found among some old and original papers the manuscript account, in Dr. Ruddell's own hand-writing, of his encounter with the ghost in question. This he lent Gilbert, who inserted it in his History of Cornwall ; and there I first saw it, as stated above. A few months ago, I purchased some of the reprinted volumes of the Works of Daniel De Foe . Among these was the Life of Mr. Duncan Campbell , a fortune-teller. To my great surprise, I found inserted in the Appendix (after verses to Mr. Duncan Campbell), without either name of the author, reference, or introduction, under the heading, 'A remarkable Passage of an Apparition, 1665,' no other than Dr. Ruddell's account of meeting the ghost which had haunted the boy, so much the same as that I had read in Gilbert, that it scarcely seemed to differ from it in a word. The name of Mr. Bligh, the father of the boy, was, however, omitted; and Dr. Ruddell could only be known as the author of the account by the lad's father calling the narrator Mr. Ruddell, in their discourse about the youth. The account is so strangely inserted in the Appendix to the volume, without comment or reference, that, had I not previously known the circumstances above names by Mr. Arundell, I should have fancied it a fiction of De Foe himself, like the story of the ghost of Mrs. Veal, prefixed to Drelincourt on Death .

"Aware that Mr. Arundell had no idea that Ruddell's ghost story was to be found in any work previous to Gilbert's, I lost no time in communicating to that gentleman what I could not but deem a very curious discovery. He assured me there could be no mistake as to the genuineness of the ghost document he had found, as he had compared the manuscript with Ruddell's hand-writing in other papers, and saw it was one and the same. Soon after, Mr. Arundell favoured me with some further information on the subject, which I here give, as it adds still more to the interest of the story:—'Looking into Gilbert's History of Cornwall , in the parish of South Petherwin, there is said to be in the old mansion of Botathan five portraits of the Bligh family; one of them is the likeness of the boy, whose intimacy with the ghost of Dorothy Durant has been spoken of in his first volume, where she is erroneously called Dingley. If this be a fact, it is very interesting; for it is strange that both Mr. Ruddell, the narrator (whose manuscript I lent to Gilbert), and De Foe, should have called her Dingley. I have no doubt it was a fictitious name, for I never heard of it Launceston or the neighbourhood; whereas Durant is the name of an ancient Cornish family: and I remember a tall, respectable man of that name in Launceston, who died at a very advanced age; very probably a connexion of the Ghost Lady. He must have been born about 1730. Durant was probably too respectable a name to be published, and hence the fictitious one.' Mr. Arundell likewise says, 'In Launceston Church is a monument to Charles Bligh and Judith his wife, who died, one in 1716, and the other in 1717. He is said to have been sixty years old, and was probably the brother of Samuel, the hero of Dorothy Dingley. Sarah, the wife of the Rev. John Ruddell, died in 1667. Mr. Ruddell was Vicar of Aternon in 1684. He was the minister of Launceston in 1665, when he saw the ghost who haunted the boy.'"

Such is Mrs. Bray's account of these very curious circumstances. The ghost story inserted in Gilbert, as mentioned above, is altogether so much in the style of De Foe, that a doubt remains whether, after all, he may not have been the author of it. Can "D.S.," or any of your readers, throw further light on the subject?

"Mary" is informed that "Polly" is one of those "hypocorisms," or pet-names, in which our language abounds. Most are mere abbreviations, as Will, Nat, Pat, Bell, &c., taken usually from the beginning, sometimes from the end of the name. The ending y or ie is often added, as a more endearing form: as Annie, Willy, Amy, Charlie, &c. Many have letter-changes, most of which imitate the pronunciation of infants. L is lisped for r . A central consonant is doubled. O between m and l is more easily sounded than a . An infant forms p with its lips sooner than m ; papa before mamma. The order of change is: Mary, Maly, Mally, Molly, Polly. Let me illustrate this; l for r appears in Sally, Dolly, Hal P for m in Patty, Peggy; vowel-change in Harry, Jim, Meg, Kitty, &c; and in several of these the double consonant. To pursue the subject: re-duplication is used; as in Nannie, Nell, Dandie; and (by substitution) in Bob. Ded would be of ill omen; therefore we have, for Edward, Ned or Ted, n and t being coheir to d ; for Rick, Dick, perhaps on account of the final d in Richard. Letters are dropped for softness: as Fanny for Franny, Bab for Barb, Wat for Walt. Maud is Norman for Mald, from Mathild, as Bauduin for Baldwin. Argidius becomes Giles, our nursery friend Gill, who accompanied Jack in his disastrous expedition "up the hill." Elizabeth gives birth to Elspeth, Eliza (Eloisa?), Lisa, Lizzie, Bet, Betty, Betsy, Bessie, Bess; Alexander ( x = cs ) to Allick and Sandie. What are we to say of Jack for John? It seems to be from Jacques, which is the French for our James? How came the confusion? I do not remember to have met with the name James in early English history; and it seems to have reached us from Scotland. Perhaps, as Jean and Jaques were among the commonest French names, John came into use as a baptismal name, and Jaques or Jack entered by its side as a familiar term. But this is a mere guess; and I solicit further information. John answers to the German Johann or Jehann, the Sclavonic Ivan, the Italian Giovanni (all these languages using a strengthening consonant to begin the second syllable): the French Jean, the Spanish Juan, James to the German Jacob, the Italian Giacomo, the French Jacques, the Spanish Jago. It is observable that of these, James and Giacomo alone have the m . Is James derived from Giacomo? How came the name into Scotland?