"'Tis _seldom-when_ the bee doth leave her comb In the dead carrion."
Here also the editors have always printed it as two words; and, as before, MR. COLLIER here repeats the comma.
That the word was current with our ancestors, is certain; and I have no doubt that other instances of it may be found. We have a similar compound in Chaucer's _Knight's Tale_, v. 7958.:
"I me rejoyced of my lyberté, That _selden-tyme_ is founde in mariage."
Palsgrave, too, in his _Eclaircissement de la Langue Françoise_, 1530, has--
_Seldom-when_, as far as my experience goes, seems to have passed out of use where archaisms still linger; but _anywhen_ may be heard any day and every day in Surrey and Sussex. Those who would learn the _rationale_ of these words will do well to consult Dr. Richardson's most excellent _Dictionary_, under the words AN, ANY, WHEN, and SELDOM.
This is at least a step towards MR. FRASER'S wish of seeing _anywhen_ legitimatised; for what superior claim had _seldom-when_ to be enshrined and immortalised in the pages of the poet of the world?
Your correspondent C. affirms, as a mark of the Roman origin of Chichester, that "the little stream that runs through it is called the Lavant, _evidently from lavando_!" Now nobody, as old Camden says, "has doubted the _Romanity_ of Chichester;" but I am quite sure that the members of the Archæological Institute (who meet next summer upon the banks of this same _Lavant_) would decidedly demur to so singular a proof of it.
{ 336} C. is informed that, in the fourth volume of the _Archæologia_, p. 27., there is a paper by the Hon. Daines Barrington, on the term _Lavant_, which, it appears, is commonly applied in Sussex to all brooks which are dry at some seasons, as is the case with the Chichester river.
"From the same circumstance," it is added, "the sands between Conway and Beaumaris in Anglesey, are called the _Lavant sands_, because they are dry when the tide ebbs; as are also the sands which are passed at low water between Cartmell and Lancaster, for the same reason."
To trace the origin of the term _Lavant_, we must, I conceive, go back to a period more remote than the Roman occupation; for that remarkable people, who conquered the inhabitants of Britain, and partially succeeded in imposing Roman appellations upon the greater towns and cities, never could change the aboriginal names of the rivers and mountains of the country. "Our hills, forests, and rivers," says Bishop Percy, "have generally retained their old Celtic names." I venture, therefore, to suggest, that the British word for river, _Av_, or _Avon_, which seems to form the root of the word _Lavant_, may possibly be modified in some way by the prefix, or postfix, so as to give, to the compound word, the signification of an _intermittent_ stream.