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Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 47 September 21 1850 by Various
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Ebook has 215 lines and 17918 words, and 5 pages
NOTES:-- Old Songs. 257 "Junius Identified." by J. Taylor. 258 Folk Lore:--Spiders a Cure for Ague--Funeral Superstition--Folk Lore Rhymes. 259 On a Passage in the Tempest, by S.W. Singer. 259 Punishment of Death of Burning. 260 Note on Morganatic Marriages. 261 Minor Notes:--Alderman Beckford--Frozen Horn--Inscription translated--Parallel Passages--Note on George Herbert's Poems--"Crede quod habes"--Grant to Earl of Sussex--First Woman formed from a Rib--Beau Brummell's Ancestry. 262
QUERIES:-- Gray's Elegy and Dodsley's Poems. 264 Hugh Holland and his Works, by E.F. Rimbault, L.L.D. 265 Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood. 266 Minor Queries:--Bernardus Patricius--Meaning of Hanger--Cat and Bagpipes--Andrew Becket--Laurence Minot--Modena Family--Bamboozle--Butcher's Blue Dress--Hatchment and Atchievement--"Te colui Virtutem"--"Illa suavissima Vita"--Christianity, Early Influence of--Meaning of Wraxen--Saint, Legend of a--Land Holland--Farewell--Stepony Ale--"Regis ad Exemplar"--La Caronacquerie--Rev. T. Tailer--Mistletoe as a Christmas Evergreen--Poor Robin's Almanacks--Sirloin--Thompson of Esholt. 266
MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 271 Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 271 Notices to Correspondents. 271 Advertisements. 272
NOTES.
OLD SONGS.
I heard, "in other days," a father singing a comic old song to one of his children, who was sitting on his knee. This was in Yorkshire: and yet it could hardly be a Yorkshire song, as the scene was laid in another county. It commenced with--
"Randle O'Shay has sold his mare For nineteen groats at Warrin'ton fair,"
and goes on to show how the simpleton was cheated out of his money.
All, indeed, that this proves is, the probability of the hero of the song being also a native of Cheshire, or one of the adjacent counties; and that the legend is a truth, even as to names as well as general facts. The song is worthy of recovery and preservation, as a remnant of English character and manners; and I have only referred to Hasted to point out the probable district in which it will be found.
One song more may be noticed here:--the rigmarole, snatches of which probably most of us have heard, which contains an immense number of mere truisms having no connexion with each others, and no bond of union but the metrical form in which their juxtaposition is effected, and the rhyme, which is kept up very well throughout, though sometimes by the introduction of a nonsense line. Who does not remember--
"A yard of pudding's not an ell,"
and other like parts?
It is just such a piece of burlesque as Swift might have written: but many circumstances lead me to think it must be much older. Has it ever been printed?
There is another old song, which I do not remember to have seen in print, or even referred to in print. None of the books into which I have looked, from deeming them likely to contain it, make the least reference to this song. I have heard it in one of the midland counties, and in one of the western, both many years ago; but I have not heard it in London or any of the metropolitan districts. The song begins thus:--
"London Bridge is broken down, Dance over my Lady Lea: London Bridge is broken down, With a gay lad?e."
This must surely refer to some event preserved in history,--may indeed be well known to well-read antiquaries, though so totally unknown to men whose general pursuits have lain in other directions. The present, however, is an age for "popularising" knowledge; and your work has assumed that task as one of its functions.
T.S.D.
"JUNIUS IDENTIFIED."
It is fortunate for my reputation that I am still living to vindicate my title to the authorship of my own book, which seems otherwise in danger of being taken from me.
JOHN TAYLOR.
FOLK LORE.
Whilst I am on the subject of cures, I may as well state that in parts of the co. Carlow, the blood drawn from a black cat's ear, and rubbed upon the part affected, is esteemed a certain cure for St. Anthony's fire.
JUNIOR.
Perhaps the superstition may have come before you already; but not having met with it myself, I thought it might be equally new to others.
H.J.
Sheffield.
"Find odd-leafed ash, and even-leafed clover, And you'll see your true love before the day's over."
If you wish to see your lover, throw salt on the fire every morning for nine days, and say--
"It is not salt I mean to burn, But my true lover's heart I mean to turn; Wishing him neither joy nor sleep, Till he come back to me and speak."
"If you marry in Lent, You will live to repent."
WEDSECNARF.
EMENDATION OF A PASSAGE IN THE "TEMPEST."
Mr. Collier reads these last two lines thus--
"But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours; Most busy, least when I do it."
with the following note--
and his supposed emendation has ever since been taken as the text; even Capell adopted it. I am happy in having Mr. Amyot's concurrence in this restoration."
Mr. Knight adopts Theobald's reading, and Mr. Dyce approves it in the following words:--
Thus in Hamlet's letter, Act ii. Sc. 2.:
The passage will then stand thus:--
"But these sweet thoughts, do even refresh my labour, Most busiest when I do it."
The sense will be perhaps more evident by a mere transposition, preserving every word:
"But these sweet thoughts, most busiest when I do My labour, do even refresh it."
Here we have a clear sense, devoid of all ambiguity, and confirmed by what precedes; that his labours are made pleasures, being beguiled by these sweet thoughts of his mistress, which are busiest when he labours, because it excites in his mind the memory of her "weeping to see him work." The correction has also the recommendation of being effected in so simple a manner as by merely taking away two superfluous letters. I trust I need say no more; secure of the approbation of those who feel "that making an opaque spot in a great work transparent is not a labour to be scorned, and that there is a pleasant sympathy between the critic and bard--dead though he be--on such occasions, which is an ample reward."
S.W. SINGER
Mickleham, Aug 30. 1850.
PUNISHMENT OF DEATH BY BURNING.
In the "NOTES AND QUERIES" of Saturday, the 10th of August, SENEX gives some account of the burning of a female in the Old Bailey, "about the year 1788."
Having myself been present at the last execution of a female in London, where the body was burnt , and as few persons who were then present may now be alive, I beg to mention some circumstances relative to that execution, which appear to be worthy of notice.
Our criminal law was then most severe and cruel: the legal punishment of females convicted of high treason and petty treason was burning; coining was held to be high treason; and murder of a husband was petty treason.
"The Recorder of London made his report to His Majesty of the prisoners under sentence of death in Newgate, convicted in the Sessions of September, October, November, and January , fourteen of whom were ordered for execution; five of whom were afterwards reprieved."
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