Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/321

. i. APKIL 2, i9ot] NOTES AND QUERIES.

261

LONDON, SATl'lWAY, APRIL ?, 1304.

CONTENTS.-No. 14.

NOTES : Scotch Words and English Commentators, 261 Westminster Changes, 263 Ainoo and Baskish, 264 Bibliography of Easter, 265 Easter Sepulchre Korean and Manchurian Names, 265 " Mosky "Parish Register to stop a Hat's Hole -Disguised Murderer in Folk-lore- Lincolnshire Jingle, 266.

QUERIES : Gahriel Harvey's Books Sir C. Hatton's Title Louis XVII. MSS. of the late Mr. Stacey Grimaldi Rubens's Palaces of Genoa,' 267 Ellison Family' Death of Bozzari.s ' Battlefield Sayings Dr. Hall Inscription on Museum jEsop Patience, Card Game Latin Lines Prints and Engravings, 268 Robertson Family The Cave, Hornsey Rowe Family " Tugs," Wykehamical Notion American Loyalists Admiral Hopson Puns at the Haymarket Samuel Haynes, 269.

REPLIES : - Our Oldest Public School, 269-Chelfea Physic Garden, 270 "Go for" Guide to Manor Rolls Soulac Abbey Dickens Queries Yeoman of the Crown, 272 Cobweb Pills, 273 Capt. Cuttle Tickling Trout Leche Family Honour of Ttifbury, 274 Manitoba Penrith Penn's ' Fruits of Solitude ' Authors Wanted " Hanged, drawn, and quartered," 275 " King of Patterdale " ' As merry as Giiggs," 276 "An Austrian army" Foscarinus " He who knows not " Franco-German War Boer War of 1881 Mess Dress : Sergeants' Sashes, 277 William of Wykeham Samuel Shelley The Cope First Steam Rail- way Train Last of the War Bow Tideswell and Tides- low, 278.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Mantzius's 'History of Theatrical Art ' Swan's ' Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations ' 'Devon Notes and Queries' 'Rules for Compositors at the Clarendon Press.'

Obituary : Dr. F. S. Creswell ; Mr. H. J. Moule.

Notices to Correspondents.

SCOTCH WORDS AND ENGLISH COMMENTATORS. (See 9 th S. xi. i.)

IT has recently become fashionable to write biographies of Burns, to announce theories of the poet's literary art, and to edit his works as a whole or in selections. Such exercises are probably in demand, or they would not be so numerous ; but it is surprising to find that there is room for them all. Now, as Burns is not merely a provincial man of letters, but one of the sovereign forces of English literature in the widest acceptation of the term, it is of the last importance that what is said of him should be correct, and that the editing of his work should at least display familiarity with his language. As a test of this it will be instructive briefly to examine a dainty little volume, entitled ' Selected Poems of Robert Burns,' which was published by an eminent London firm in 18S6. The material qualities of the book are all in its favour : paper, type, and binding are fully worthy of the house from which it is issued. It has a critical preface by an author who is a past master in the art of composing introductions, and it is fur-

nished with a somewhat extensive glossary. Everything points to the conclusion that Burns in this guise will have secured numerous readers, and it is curious and entertaining to note what the neophytes among these are assumed to know and what they are expected to believe.

It is not quite clear who is responsible for the editing of the work, but that is of little consequence now, as it is the comment, and not the text, with which we are con-' cerned. The author of the introduction appears to attach considerable importance to the explanation of terms, and therefore one naturally expects the glossary to be one of the strong features of the book. Burns, says the critical guide, "delights in provincial Scotch, in Ayrshire words of which even the Scotch sometimes need an explanation/' He men- tions " muslin kail," "a shangar " (sic), and " a stimpart " as expressions with which he has sometimes puzzled "even very loyal and unanglicized Scots," and he lingers over "tarrow," which in one poem Burns rimes with Pizarro, and indicates his belief that the term is of exceeding rarity. " The word," he says, " is so obscure that it escaped even the older minstrel who was so hard set for various rimes to Yarrow." " Tarrow," how- ever, as Burns experts are aware, does not merely serve the poet's purpose of hitching in a rime, for it expressively embellishes the texture of a stanza in one of his notable epistolary lyrics Further, as it constitutes the kernel of several familiar Scottish pro- verbs, and is used by writers so diversely situated as Henryson, Ramsay, Samuel Rutherford, and Ross of 'Helenore,' it seems a fair inference that Yarrow minstrels had it for the taking if they had found it suitable for their purpose. The essayist makes some further distracting allusions and misleading statements. He refers, for instance, to Willie who " brew'd a peck o' maut " as " the detestable William Nichol " ; he is divertingly expansive over " nowt," which he ultimately dismisses as " horned cattle in general " ; he labours to show that Burns in writing of Bannockburn confounded Edward I. with Edward II. ; and he asserts that the poet complained of " the execrable whiskey [sic] of Dumfriesshire." These are persons and subjects that need not have been introduced in a style provocative of controversj 7, but as presented here they are eminently calculated to foster confusion and error.

A casual inspection of the glossary is sufficient to arouse a lively curiosity regarding its character and value. It is plain that there are many possibilities open to a writer who