Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/277

 10 s. x. SEPT. 19, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

225

Register ; finally, in 1819 it was incorporated with The New Monthly Magazine.

Interesting are the opening words of the critique, which allude to the " tales of horror," the influence of which on Shelley in those days threatened his development as a great poet, and of which the Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire ' is one of the numerous offspring :

" Surely modern poets are the most unhappy of men ! Their imaginations are perpetually haunted with terrors. While others are congratulating themselves on a beautiful day, and basking in the enlivening rays of the sun, these votaries of the muse of misery see nothing but glooms, and listen to the pealing thunder, distant or near, as fancy dictates, 'not loud but deep.' In the evening ' black whirlwinds ' and ' yelling fiends ' beset them on every side, in spite of the golden beams of the declining sun, or the cheerful azure of a cloudless sky. At night, ghosts, hobgoblins, shadowy forms, death, devils, disaster, and damnation dance around them in dire dismay, till their ' souls are chilled,' their ' blood is frozen,' their ' heart sinks within them,' and miserable they are, to be sure ! At length they commit their sorrows to paper ; they publish, and the public are enraptured with their sufferings."

A. B. YOTJNG.

BOY SCOUTS : THEIR WAR SONG. The following account of the war song adopted by General Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts is from The Daily Mail of 27 August. It seems worth insertion here, not only as an item of general interest, but also to correct the absurd statement that it is " Ashanti," which has been repeated by several news- papers, whereas the words are really Zulu :

" The scouts have adopted the Eengonyama war chant of the Ashantis as their marching song. It begins with a solo, * Eengonyama gonyama ' (He is a lion). Then comes the chorus, * Invooboo yahbo, yahbo invooboo ' (Yea, he is better than that, he is a hippopotamus)."

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

THE NORRISES or MILVERTON, SOMERSET. William Norris, of Milverton, Somerset, the second son of John Norris of Winkleigh, Devon (Weaver's ' Visitations of Somerset/ p. 55), was buried at Milverton, 20 Jan., 1573. His will (' Somersetshire Wills,' ii. 107) mentions his wife Elizabeth (nee Baker), two sons John and Robert and four daughters Alice, Elizabeth, Joan, and Huysshe. The last was Anstice, wife of Sylvester Huysshe, of Donyland, St. Decu- man' s, a recusant. The elder son John and Mary his wife were also recusants (Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, v. 114, 115). What relation to the above- mentioned William and John were Richard, Hugh, and Sylvester Norris ?

Richard (b. 1554 or thereabouts) and Sylvester (b. 1572) were certainly brothers- and born at Milverton (' Cal. S.P. Dom.,. 1 581-90,' p. 1 92). Was Hugh their brother r A cousin Hugh Norris is mentioned by Wil- "iam Norris in his will.

1. Richard Norris was ordained priest at Laon and sent on the Mission 3 Aug., 1579. On 18 Aug., 1580, he was reported to be with George Gilbert, Gervase Pierre- point, and [George] Gifford ('Cal. S.P. For., 1579-80,' p. 389; cf. Oath. Rec. Soc., iv. 42, 43). In November and December, 1580, he helped Father Robert Persons, S.J., with his printing - pres& (Simpson's ' Campion,' 1896 ed., p. 260). In August, 1581, he was acting as chaplain to Mrs. William Griffin or Griffith at Ux- bridge (cf. P.C.A. [N.S.], xiii. 153, 187). He appears at this time to have assumed" the name of Richardson (Simpson, op. cit., pp. 343, 350, 521). It is possible that he also passed under the name of Nicholson. A priest called Nicholson gave evidence on behalf of B. Thomas Forde, 21 Nov., 1581,. in consequence of which he was imprisoned. The prison lists, however, know no priest called Nicholson. Richard Norris was sent to the Marshalsea, 17 Dec., 1581. He was- indicted at Westminster Hall on Wednesday,. 5 Feb., 1584, for having conspired with James Fenn, George Haydock, and others, at Rheims 20 Sept., 1581, and for having: come to England 1 Nov., 1581, to carry put the objects of the conspiracy. The indict- ment is simply ludicrous (Cath. Rec. Soc.,. v. 51, 54, 55). He was sent to the Tower probably 7 Feb., 1584. On 21 Jan., 1585, he and nineteen other priests and one lay- man were sent into perpetual banishment. In 1587 he was in Paris, and he died in Spain in 1590.

2. Hugh Norris was admitted to the English College at Rheims 3 April, 1582.

3. Sylvester Norris was arrested at Ratton(?) about 10 July, 1584, on his way to France (' Cal. S.P. Dom.,' loc. cit.}. Eight months later he arrived at the English College at Rheims. For his writings and subsequent career see ' D.N.B.,' xli. 140.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

" BOOT-TOP " AS A VERB. The * N.E.D/ gives the word "boot-top" as =" boot- topping," and explains the latter by a quota- tion from Falconer's ' Diet. Marine ' (1767) : " Boot-topping, the act of cleaning the upper

part of a ship's bottom chiefly performed

where there is no dock," &c. No instance, however, is supplied of the use of this word