paint a rather superior field gate. Before Hebrew word Ob identical with the Egyptian painting he wrote on the gate these lines :- Ob; and are both susceptible of the same interpretation? Is an African witch called JAMES HOOPER. This gate hangs well, to no man's sorrow; Pay for to-day, and I will trust to-morrow. As he proceeded immediately to cover the inscription with a coat of paint it is clear that he wrote it for his private satisfaction, because he thought something of the kind ought to be written. S. G. HAMILTON. SILVER LADLE (9th S. iii. 28, 137, 474).-The following note from the Builder of 10 June, sub High Holborn to the Strand,' may be interesting: "In "Things I Have Seen and People I Have Met' the late G. A. Sala describes the clearing of the well behind the Old Dog,' in Holywell Street (more probably the 'Spotted Dog, Strand), in which was found, with a vast variety of things, a punchbowl having a William and Mary guinea encrusted in the base, and a memorandum scrap of paper inscribed 'Dr. Goldsmith, 13sh, 10d.' CHAS. H. CROUCH. Wanstead. Obi? Norwich. In a long list of the different orders, civil L'ORDRE DU DEVOIR (FRANCE) (9th S. iv. 28). and military, which were created in the Middle Ages and have lasted down to our times, the above order is not mentioned. The list may there said to be complete. be seen in Larousse's 'Encyclopædia,' and is T. P. ARMSTRONG. TONGHES (9th S. iv. 28).-Tonge is perhaps the place desired. It is, however, not in Warwickshire or Northamptonshire, but in Shropshire, seven miles and a half from Wolverhampton. G. S. P. Putney. SCARLET IN THE HUNTING FIELD (9th S. iv. 48).-William Law, describing the enthusiastic hunter of his day, says, "You never saw him but in a green coat" ("Serious Call,' 1762, ch. xii.). W. C. B. The place must be that now spelt Tong, in the extreme east of Salop, near Allrighton. It has a castle and a cruciform church with central spire. E. L. G. NAMES OF TEAS (9th S. iv. 26).--MR. PLATT will find in Yule's 'Hobson-Jobson,' pp. 690-2, a list of market names of teas, with their etymologies. DONALD FERGUSON. Croydon. TOBACCO (9th S. iii. 488).-Every series of 'N. & Q.,' excepting the first, has contained references to the bibliography of this subject. I can furnish MR. ANDREWs with references to the thirty communications should he require them. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. OBI: OBEAH (9th S. iv. 47).-If the Rev. H. Goldie's etymology, as quoted by MR. PLATT, is correct, Dr. Brewer's account of Obiism, as he spells the word, is all wrong:: 71, Brecknock Road. FLEETWOOD FAMILY (9th S. iii. 448).-Sir Oliver Lambart, first Baron Cavan, who died in 1610, married Hester Fleetwood. What was this lady's paternity? Jane Lambert, of Ashmore, Wilts, married a Squire Fleetwood, of Missenden, Bucks, circa 1570. Can this bridegroom be identified? Elizabeth Lambert married Sir G. Fleetwood, living in 1649. His name is given variously as Gervase and Gerard, and he appears to have been the individual named by Sir W. Scott in his Woodstock.' Further details are desired. A. HALL. "Obiism. Serpent-worship. From Egyptian Ob (the sacred serpent). The African sorceress is still called Obi. The Greek ophis is of the same family. Moses forbade the Israelites to inquire of Ob, which we translate wizard." Now this looks very interesting, and carries us far; but is there an Egyptian word Ob signifying the sacred serpent? And is the 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. 'LUCY'S FLITTING' (9th S. iii. 229, 317).Nothing in the shape of direct proof has been produced to warrant the assumption that Hogg was the writer of the last verse, while the weight of, at least, collateral evidence is in favour of Laidlaw being the author of the song in its entirety. The fact that Rogers learned when in Tweedside that the last verse was by Hogg is no evidence as it stands, Rogers not even naming his authority. His excursion was made about 1830, at which period and for fifteen years after Laidlaw was alive. Why was not the important piece of information communicated to the public during Laidlaw's life? Borland probably repeats Roberts-at least he gives no proof for his assertion. Such editors as Mitchison (the intimate friend of Wilson), Whitelaw, Lockhart, &c., are quite as trustworthy, if not more so than Rogers and Borland. The man who wrote and conceived the song may be taken as the author of the last verse, especially if it is not inferior or greatly superior to its predecessors. ALFRED CHAS. JONAS. REMINGTON & Co. (9th S. iv. 47).—This business was 66 absorbed by Mr. John Macqueen, who carries on the firm on his own account at Hastings House, Norfolk Street, Strand. S. J. A. F. THE THREE MOST FAMOUS PREFACES (9th S. iii. 488; iv. 54).—Probably those by S. Jerome and Dr. Parr may be included. W. C. B. think that I must have erred in supposing WALLER (9th S. iii. 165, 352 ; iv. 11, 57).--I that the first of my later notes on Æsop appeared before my note on Waller. But an earlier contribution of mine on sop appeared in the Seventh Series, and in that I remarked the resemblance between the lines of Waller and those of Byron. Lately I have observed a likeness between passages of Pope and Waller, which perhaps has not been noticed by others : Why sit we mute when early linnets sing, This couplet is clearly a reminiscence of Hylas, oh! Hylas ! why sit we mute, Very many of Pope's imitations have been NOUNS OF SINGULARITY (9th S. iii. 405; iv. 53). In venturing to criticize a common form of expression, I pointed out its strangeness. I am now told that it is not strange because it is common. MR. FORD'S instances are colloquial, not to say vulgar, and colloquialism and vulgarity are as much out of place as rhetoric in such a solemn and almost official record as the 'D.N.B.' Moreover, they are not apt. As a rule, only one cuckoo is heard at once, two postmen do not come to the same door at the same time, nor can we look out of two windows at once the arab feels that he has only one "bobby to fear at the moment. On the contrary, as a rule, every man carries two eyes, two legs, &c., with him always, everywhere. MR. FORD does not see the point. If a man loses one of his eyes he is not only deficient of that eye, but also in sight, the peculiar property of both eyes. But if he be wounded in one of his thighs he is deficient in that limb, but in nothing peculiar to both thighs. In the late Dr. W. Smith's 'History of Greece,' 1885, p. 61, we are told of Lycurgus that "his eye" was struck out; but in North's Plutarch,' 1579, it is "one of his eyes" (1899, i. 176). W. C. B. 6 Bligh, who died April 15th 1812 in the 60th year of her age. In this vault are deposited also the south side of the monument, is a coat of arms Over the inscription to Mrs. Bligh, on the which I failed to copy. I shall be glad if some kind reader of N. & Q.' will remedy this omission for me. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire. EPITAPH (9th S. iv. 47).-It is now many years ago that the beautiful epitaph quoted was given to me by the Rev. J. G. Bedford, of Bath, and afterwards Winchester, with two English translations. I cannot lay my hands on them, the fairy Order not having presided at my birth, but one of the two I remember perfectly: Too much beloved, God calls. Go, better part. Learn thou to follow, remnant of my heart. Whether the version was his own or not I do not remember, but I hope N. S. S. will pardon my thinking it superior to his. My impression is that the other version I had was in four lines. Anyway I have forgotten it; but this has always been kept in my memory. CHARLOTTE G. BOGER. SCABIOUS OR DEVIL'S-BIT (9th S. iv. 28).-It is not clear that by scabious Jeremy Taylor meant devil's-bit. The latter is not usually classed as a scabious by our Elizabethan or Jacobean herbalists, though they describe many varieties. Gerard alone enumerates seventeen, of which Morsus diaboli is not one. I do not know that scabious is particularly common by "the shore of the sea," but it grows well in light, sandy soils; and one of its supposed virtues was that of being good for what was euphemistically called the "French disease.' I suspect that Taylor's reference is to this. The words "that God Inight cure as soon as he wounds" are suggestive. " C. C. B. In parts that are not adjacent to the sea, such as the Rossendale Valley, Lancs, devil'sbit is still found by simple folk to be a cure for scaly eruptions. ARTHUR MAYALL. A NOTABLE OLD LONDON TAVERN (8th S. xi. 204, 512).—My view, as stated in the first of my two previous communications on this subject at the above references, that it was in order to distinguish the several apartments in the "Queen's Arms" tavern (temp. Eliz.) that the signs mentioned were respectively given thereto (instead of by the modern system of numbering in such cases)-and not, as stated in another quarter, that the house contained several public-houses within it-is, I find, confirmed by a foot-note in a review of Larwood and Hotten's History of Signboards' in the Herald and Genealogist, vol. iv. p. 496, as follows: In large inns each chamber was named after its own sign, so entirely did the pictorial symbol take the place of numbering." I may add that, according to the now popular, but erroneous idea, every building formerly known by a sign was (to use the common expression) a "public-house." W. I. R. V. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (9th S. iii. 469).— Anglorum Regi scripsit schola tota Salerni. These are the first six lines of the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum,' "A Poem addressed by the School of Salerno to Robert of Normandy, son The edition which I of William the Conqueror.' have is by Sir Alexander Croke, Oxford, 1830. The familiar use of this poem is shown by the circumstance that Sir A. Croke enumerates twenty editions in the fifteenth century alone. There is an account of this poem in a note at 3rd S. i. 53. ED. MARSHALL. The hearts of men, which fondly here admire Fair-seeming shows, may lift themselves up higher. The stanza from which these lines are taken is the third in Spenser's noble poem 'An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,' one of his last works. Mr. J. W. Hales, in his memoir of Spenser prefixed to the Globe edition of the poems, calls this hymn 'one high refined rapture.' JAMES HOOPER. Ben Jonson was the author of The fair acceptance, sir, creates Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. 66 A Literary History of Ireland. By Douglas Hyde, LL.D. (Fisher Unwin.) THE second volume of Mr. Fisher Unwin's admirably devised "Library of Literary History" deals with Ireland, the first, which appeared a twelvemonth earlier, being occupied with India (see 9th S. i. 198). Dr. Hyde, who, for the benefit of Celtic readers, announces himself as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn," is qualified by zeal and erudition for the important task he has undertaken. It should be, but is not, universally known that while England and Western Europe generally were in ignorance and barbarism, Ireland had an advanced civilization, and a literais at length being drawn. To Englishmen of to-day ture to the value and significance of which attention Tara's halls are associated only with a pretty lyric of Tom Moore. Yet in the days of Cormac mac Art, in the third century of our era, among other edifices and monuments, Tara possessed a house sons, and was used at once as a house of assembly, a which was capable of accommodating a thousand perbanqueting hall, and a sleeping abode. In the house of the Lady Credé there were splendid couches of yellow gold with precious stones, beds of gold and silver with curtains and soft pillows, and with other abundance of articles of gold in Ireland that brought objects of taste and luxury. It was, perhaps, the about the successive waves of Viking invasion, beneath which its civilization was ultimately submerged. As regards its literary treasures, meanwhile, enough literature, produced before the volumes is still in existence. It is with this early seventeenth century, to fill a thousand octavo literature alone that Dr. Hyde concerns himself. A Literary History of Irish Ireland' would, he says, be a more appropriate title for his book than that it now bears. Works such as those of Farquhar, Swift, Goldsmith, and Burke find their true and natural place in a history of English literature. Alone among nations Ireland has a continuous his'tory from the earlier centuries of our era up to the present day, and Irish epic story is "like Irish law, a monument of a civilization far superior to that of the most ancient German." The key to unlock the door of the past history of the Celtic world which means a large portion of Europe-is found, we are told, in the "Irish manuscripts of saga and poem. These sagas and poems present a vivid picture of pre-Christian civilization and life, and the characters dealt with are accepted as real. Zimmer, in his 'Kelt-Studien,' in a passage quoted by Dr. Hyde, says: "For we believe that Mève, Conor mac Nessa, Cuchulain, and Finn mac Cúmhail, are exactly as much historical personalities as Arminius or Dietrich of Bern or Etzel, and their date is just as well determined as that of the above-mentioned heroes and kings." This idea does not pass unchallenged. The Irish sagas have not yet taken the place they will one day occupy beside the Nibelungen epics and the Arthurian and Carlovingian epics. They are, however, even now being collected and translated; the Cuchulain saga especially has received of late the close attention of Irish scholars. To the spread of a knowledge of Irish literature Dr. Hyde's scholarly book will largely contribute. While bearing tribute to the work that has been done by Oxford in the promotion of Celtic studies, Dr. Hyde is impatient of the ignorance and indifference displayed in Dublin, where doubt as to the value, except for linguistic purposes, of early Irish literature is widespread, and where the effort to teach Irish children through the Irish tongue is discouraged. With these questions we are not called upon to deal, and we profess no competency to estimate the truth or value of the opinions advanced. Evidence to corroborate the truth of some of the more important annals from authoritative sources is not wanting, and those who would see in Cormac mac Art a sun-god have to face his presence in the Dictionary of National Biography.' The general use in Ireland of letters Dr. Hyde ascribes to the early Christian missionaries, but not their introduction, which he holds to have taken place in the fourth century, if not even earlier, One thing seems certain, that the patronage accorded to poet and scribe by Irish kings was far more liberal than that of Saxon or Norman nobles. It is impossible that we should give a digest, or even a description, of a work of nearly seven hundred pages and of forty-four chapters, each chapter possessing an interest of its own. As the first history of Irish literature yet produced the work is sure to commend itself to Celtic scholars. The general reader, who knows not the significance of such phrases as "the Brehon law," "The Annals of the Four Masters,' and "the Fenian cycle," will do well to enlighten his ignorance by means of a book which adds to scholarly worth great charm of style. Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys. Edited by Emily J. Climenson. (Long mans & Co.) By her marriage with Philip Lybbe Powys, Caroline Girle, daughter of John Girle, M.D., of Lincoln's Inn Fields, became mistress of Hardwick House, Oxon, and a person of some consideration and note. At the instigation of her father she began, at an early age, to keep diaries, chiefly of English travel. A selection from these, covering the period 1756 to 1808, has now been issued. At the outset their interest scarcely extends beyond furnishing a view of the conditions of English country life and travel, and the diaries, though not without character, are full of most genteel, discreet, and young-ladylike approval. She has some enthusiasm, however, and something she believes to be taste, owns to a partiality for the country," quotes Milton, and indulges freely in superlatives. In later years she becomes more observant, and gives us some interesting, though not very stimulating, information. She visits the Moravian settlement at Pudsey, and finds the situation "charming," an epithet not likely now to be applied to the smoky ridge of Pudsey, and was never so charmed" as by the music, though what is the nature of the religion she cannot tell. "Some people imagine it borders on the Roman Catholic.' On seeing Stonehenge she quotes with approval Dr. Stukeley, and is "struck with an ecstatic reverie." At Windsor Castle she finds little worthy of observation, the place "being kept so very un-neat that it hurts one to see.' At p. 140 there is some pleasing gossip about Pope and Patty Blount, and a good-and, so far as we know, new-story concerning the poet. Under the date 1776 she describes a frost of exceptional severity, lasting from 7 Jan. to 2 Feb., and a twelve days' snowstorm, 66 A curious bit of folk-story is encountered when the coachman tells her that no one attempts to number the stones at Stonehenge, such an attempt necessarily causing death. An animated account given of an amateur performance before a very distinguished company of a translation of Rousseau's 'Pygmalion,' and of the comedy of 'The Provoked Husband.' Garrick was expected, but was ill of the gout. Some of the entries are curious. Dec. 2, 1807. Staying at Hardwick; the gentlemen [four in number] went a shooting and had great sport, killed six woodcocks, four rabbits, one hare, but missed a shot at a fine cock-pheasant.". We have noted a few errors, generally of little importance, but are puzzled to understand what is meant by "Ogre's Life of Chaucer'" (see p. 243). In perusing the book one is struck by the paucity of references to politics. Not a single allusion do we find to the French Revolution, which event, so far as Mrs. Powys is concerned, might never have happened. The "Corsican tyrant" makes, however, his existence felt. The whole conveys an idea of a placid, uneventful country life, the monotony of which is broken only by the presence of the writer at the coronation of George III., and by visits to different country seats. A portrait of Mrs. Powys shows a comely and rather cheery-looking woman. Florizel's Folly. By John Ashton. (Chatto & Windus.) THOUGH sufficiently mysterious, it may be supposed, to the general reader, the questions, Who was Florizel? and What was his Folly? can scarcely present much difficulty to the student of N. & Q' Florizel was George, Prince of Wales, subsequently George IV., who so styled himself during his brief and discreditable liaison with Mrs. Mary Robinson, a well-known actress of Drury Lane stage, who captivated his fancy while enacting Perdita in The Winter's Tale." His Folly was the Brighton Pavilion, the scene of royal orgies and the centre of royal corruption. Those who like to read the unedifying particulars of the intrigue between Florizel and Perdita may read her view of it in the not too trustworthy life of Mrs. Robinson or in the poetic plaints she contributed, under the signatures of Anna Maria, &c., to Della Cruscan literature. Mr. Ashton does not, however confine himself to this episode in the life of the Regent, which is, indeed, not very closely connected with his subject. That subject is an account, drawn from existing and trustworthy sources, of the growth and de velopment of Brighton, and especially of the con- A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. quarters of the world, and embrace all religions. The Alleged Haunting of B- House. Edited by A. IN glancing over the observations concerning mani- Shueypingsin: a Story made from the Chinese THIS abridgment of a Chinese novel, made from a A GOOD many works of more or less merit have been Sacred Songs of the World. Edited by Henry C. SOME of our readers may not be aware that an interesting series of letters by George Borrow, illustrating his connexion with the Bible Society, is passing through the pages of the Bible Society's Monthly Reporter. The letters were discovered in the crypt of the Bible House. We do not know how many of these exist, but hope that they are numerous. THESE sacred songs are translated from one hundred and twenty languages, are of very varied merit, and form a curious assortment. They are from the four Notices to Correspondents. We must call special attention to the following notices: ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub. lication, but as a guarantee of good faith. Let F. R. W. ("Quotation Wanted").-We cannot undertake to supply again and again information to be found in convenient books of reference. NOTICE. Editorial Communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries ""-Advertisements and Business Letters to "The Publisher"at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C. We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rule we can make no exception. |