Chapter Miramont to Misprision of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

not come from Turkey, but North America, through Spain, or India. The French call them “dindon,” i.e. d'Inde or coq d'lnde, a term equally incorrect.
   Turkey rhubarb neither grows in Turkey, nor is it imported from Turkey. It grows in the great mountain chain between Tartary and Siberia, and is a Russian monopoly.
   Turkish baths are not of Turkish origin, nor are they baths, but hot-air rooms or thermæ.
   Vallombrosa. Milton says:-

“Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa.” Paradise Lost, i. 302.

   But the trees of Vallombrosa, being pines, do not shed thickly in autumn, and the brooks are not strewed with their leaves.
   Ventriloquism is not voice from the stomach at all, but from the mouth.
   Well-beloved. Louis XIII. A most inappropriate title for this most detestable and detested of all kings.
   Whalebone is no bone at all, nor does it possess any properties of bone. It is a substance attached to the upper jaw of the whale, and serves to strain the water which the creature takes up in large mouthfuls.
   Wolf's-bane. A strange corruption. Bane is the Teutonic word for all poisonous herbs. The Greeks, mistaking banes for beans, translated it kuamos, as they did hen-bane (huos-kuamos). Now wolf's-bane is an aconite, with a pale yellow-flower, and therefore called white-bane to distinguish it from the blue aconite. The Greek for white is leukos, hence “leukos-kuamos;” but lukos is the Greek for wolf, and by a blunder leukos-kuamos (white-bean) got muddled into lukos-kuamos (wolf-bean). Botanists, seeing the absurdity of calling aconite a bean, restored the original word “bane,” but retained the corrupt word lukos (a wolf), and hence we get the name wolf's-bane for white aconite. (H. Fox Talbot.)
   Wormwood has nothing to do with worms or wood; it is the Anglo-Saxon wer mod, man-inspiriting, being a strong tonic.

Misprision Concealment, neglect of. (French, mépris.)
   Misprision of clerks. Mistakes in accounts arising from neglect.
   Misprision of felony. Neglecting to reveal a felony when known.
   Misprision of treason. Neglecting to disclose or purposely concealing a treasonable design.