Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/136

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NOTES AND QUERIES. cio s. i. FEB. 6, 1904.

Italy,' 1768 ? Baretti seems to have been a truthful person. He no doubt believed what he told his readers :

" It will not be improper to say something of the gimerroi, as I find that no travel-writer, of the many I have read, has ever mentioned them, and that they are but little known even to those of my English friends who delight in various and exten- sive reading. A gimerro is an animal born of a horse and a cow ; or of a bull and a mare ; or of an ass and a cow. The two first sorts are generally as large as the largest mules, and the third somewhat

smaller Of the two first sorts I have seen

hundreds, especially at Demont, a fortress in the Alps (about ten miles above the town of Cuneo) that was much talked of during the last war between the French and the Piedmontese. There many of these gimerros were used, chiefly in carrying stones and sand up to the fortress that was then a-building on a high rocky hill. Of the third species I rode upon one from Savona to Acqui so late as the year 1765." Vol. ii. p. 282.

K. P. D. E.

NICHOLAS FERRAR: HIS 'HARMONIES.' Capt. Acland-Trpyte read, on 26 January, 1888, to the Society of Antiquaries a most interesting paper on these ' Harmonies,' and at its close expressed a hope that the result of his paper would be the discovery of the original MS. of the first ' Harmony,' prepared by the community at Little Gidding for their own use in 1630. Was his wish fulfilled ? If so, where is the volume now 1 As the paper was written nearly twenty years ago, some of the ' Harmonies ' then in private hands may now have passed into public collections.

Where are the ' Harmonies ' then owned by Capt. Acland-Troy te ; Miss Heming, of Hillingdon Hill, Uxbridge ; Lord Arthur Hervey, formerly Bishop of Bath and Wells ; Capt. Gaussen, of Brookman's Park, Hatfield 1

I assume those then belonging to Lords Salisbury and Norman ton are still at Hatfield and Somerley respectively. If not, where are they 1 Have the ' Harmonies ' made for George Herbert, Lord Wharton, and Dr. Jackson been discovered ?

T. CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A.

Lancaster.

"THE ETERNAL FEMININE." When did this phrase become current among English writers'? Dr. Murray does not quote it under "eternal," but under "feminine" he gives a reference to the Pall Mall Gazette of 16 June, 1892. I fancy it was in vogue before that date. It is, of course, borrowed from the French, but whether it was invented or not by Theophile Gautier I cannot say. That writer makes use of it in the masterly essay on Baudelaire which was prefixed to the definitive edition of ' Les Fleurs du Mai,' 1868, p. 35. He italicizes the phrase :

" Diverses figures de femme paraissent au fond des poesies de Baudelaire, les unes voilees, lea autres demi-nues, mais sans qu'on puisse leur attribuer un nom. Ce sont plutot des types qua des person nes. El les representent Veternel feminin t et lamour que le poe'te exprime pour elles est I'amour et non pas un amour, car nous avons vu que dans sa the"orie il n'admettait pas la passion individuelle, la trouvant trop crue, trop familiere, et trop violente."

Perhaps some correspondent may be able to say if Gautier was the author of the phrase. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

[Surely the origin of the phrase is found in the last words of ' Faust,' Part II. ; an invocation to the Virgin Mary :

Das Ewig- Weibliche

Zieht uns hinan.

It may well have been conveyed straight from Goethe to English without coming through the French.]

WOLFE. I should like to know what regi- ments General J. Wolfe, the conqueror of Canada, was in. The 'Annual Register,' 1759, p. 281, refers to Kingsley's, but very vaguely.

R. B. B.

[Wolfe's first commission was as second lieu- tenant, 3 November, 1741, in his father's regiment of marines, then known as the 44th Foot. On 27 March, 1742, he became ensign in the 12th Foot (Duroure's). He was with his regiment at Det- tingen ; adjutant, 2 July, and lieutenant, 14 July, 1743. On 3 June, 1744, captain 4th Foot (Barrel's); 12 June, 1745, brigade-major. On the staff at Cul- loden. In January, 1746/7, brigade-major in Mor- daunt's brigade ; wounded at Laeffelt. On 5 January, 1748/9, major in 20th Foot (Lord George Sackville's) ; on 20 March, 1749/50, lieutenant-colonel. On 7 Feb- ruary, 1757, Quartermaster-General in Ireland. In 1758 commanded a brigade in America, and during his absence there was made colonel of the 2nd Bat- talion of the 20th, then converted into a separate regiment, the 67th. For further particulars consult 'D.N.B.'J

CHILDREN ON THE STAGE. When did children first act publicly for the entertain- ment of children ? Was the fashion of so doing set in Gilbert and Sullivan opera, or by a French company of children which, I believe, came to England a little before?

NIGEL PLAYFAIR.

Garrick Club.

[Children, of course, acted in Shakespeare's time. See the references in 'Hamlet' to "an aery of children, little eyases," II. ii. 355, supposed to indicate the children of Paul's or of the Chapel. In 'Jack Drum's Entertainment; or, Pasquil and Katherine,' 1601, one reads :

I saw the children of Poivles last night,

And troth they pleased me pretty, pretty well ;

The apes, in time, will do it handsomely.]

BUCKINGHAM HALL, OR COLLEGE, CAM- BRIDGE. Can you kindly help me to find any contemporary, or early, accounts of the