Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/47

 10 th S. I. JAX. 9, 1904.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

35

synonym of li hoar-frost'' is as small as that attached to rhyme as a spoken sound. In the Times Literary Supplement of 18 Decem- ber, 1903, p. 365, it is pointed out that John Milton favoured the spelling rime. The article on 'The Manuscript of "Paradise Lost"' contains these words :

" And still more characteristic of the individual is the change of 'rhinie' into ' rime.' This is one of the corrections that the printers ignored, and Bishop Pearce, noticing that in the preface Milton spells the word ' rime ' six times without an h, conjectured that Milton had used the word where it occurs in the poem (1. 16) in a special sense. A reference to this manuscript would have shown him that the inconsistency was not the poet's."

Would not Milton bid us write " poets" 1 Of what use is the apostrophe before thegenitival or possessive si E. S. DODGSON.

[MK. HOLD EX MACMICHAEL notes that <% To a Walsheman for making a ryme, 10s. " occurs among Henry VII.'s Privy Purse expenses (S. Bentley's ' Excerpta Historica,' 1831, p. 101).]

" MAIS ON REVIENT TOUJOURS " (9 th S. Xli'

308). The words " On revient toujours a ses premieres amours " are quoted by several authorities as a French proverb, and pro- bably Etienne, in ' Joconde,' merely intended to quote the proverb. The following lines, from an ode by Lebrun (died 1807) entitled 'Mes Souvenirs, ou les Deux Rives de la Seine,' are at all events of earlier date than 'Joconde':

Ce premier sentiment de 1'ame Laisse un long souvenir que rien ne peut user ; Et c'est dans la premiere tlamme Qu'est tout le nectar du baiser.

If the idea were taken literally, it might be referred perhaps to Pliny's 'Hist. Nat.,' x. 63, where he says : " Cervi vicissim ad alias transeunt, et ad priores redeunt"; but the French proverb is generally held to mean that one returns to one's first love en souvenir only. Another proverb has it that "II ne faut pas revenir sur ses premieres amours, ni aller voir la rose qu'on a admiree la veille." Probably this advice should be taken lite- rally. Cf. "Toujours souvient a Robin de ces flutes, ' another French proverb.

The first paragraph of ch. xii. of Scott's ' Peveril of the Peak ' contains some remarks that are perhaps pertinent to the question. EDWARD LATHAM.

THE OAK, THE ASH, AND THE IVY (9 th S. xii. 328, 433, 492). To a Northerner "bonny ivy tree" is, as I have said, meaningless, simply because he would not say that the ivy, whether a tree or bush or what not, was "bonny," which the mountain ash is. The quotation given by C. C. B. from Wickliffs Bible is beside the question, as it is not an

"ivy" tree that is referred to, but a yew ("yue"). In the Authorized Version it is a juniper tree that is named ; in the Revised Version the broom, much more likely trees, or rather bushes, than the "ivy" to sit under. R- B E.

MR. COLEMAN is, I think, mistaken. Nothing has been said, unless at other refer- ences than those given by him (9 th S. xii. 433), concerning the lines in question. The refer- ences to which he directs attention relate to the question of the priority of the oak over the ash, or vice versa, in leafing.

It does not seem to have been noted by any of your correspondents that the lines

The oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree

Flourish bravely at home in my own country, are the burden of an old ballad, a black- letter copy of which is in the Roxburghe collection (see 'Roxburghe Ballads,' 1893, ed. by J. Woodfall Ebsworth, vol. vii. p. 168). The proper title of the ballad is The Northern Lassie's Lamentation ; or, the Unhappy Maid's Misfortune.' The whole of the verses will also be found in William Chappell's 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' vol. ii. p. 457. Here also the burden of the ballad is

The oak, and the ash, and the bonnie ivy tree.

Another black-letter ballad, in the Douce collection, p. 135, is entitled 'The Lancashire Lovers ; or, the Merry Wooing of Thomas and Betty,' &c. (early Charles II.), and this also has the burden as first quoted above. (See ' Old English Music,' by William Chappell, new edition by H. Ellis \\ool- dridge, 1893, vol. i. pp. 276-7.)

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

DOROTHY NUTT (9 th S. xii. 387). Sir Henry Blunt, Bt., married, March, 1724, a Dorothy Nutt, daughter of William Nutt, of \\alt- hamstow, Essex. Sir Henry was great-great- grandfather of Major Edward Walter Blunt, who married the Countess of Cromartie.

H. S. V.-W.

RIDING THE BLACK RAM (9 th S. xii. 483). T Collinson's ' History of Somerset ' quotes this "ancient custom" in the manor of Kilmers- don; and I have an engraving of it which was given to me many years ago by the former steward of that manor, widow in my print is seated astride in the orthodox fashion : she is attired in a dress which the artist evidently meant to represent as of the Elizabethan era, but I am pretty sure the date of the engraving is not earlier than the end of the seventeenth century. The name of the publisher has unfortunately