Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/194

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tio s. XL FEB. 20, 1009.

burning within forced it to go in quest of water The water, however, was far off, and before it had returned, the wary shepherd had carried off the whole heap of gold into a place of safety." Hahn ' Albanische Studien,' quoted in Tozer's ' Re searches in the Highlands of Turkey,' 1869, vol. i p. 205.

KTJMAGTJSU MTNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

SHAKESPEARE IN FRENCH : ARMS OF LIVERPOOL (10 S. xi. 84). MR. WILMSHURST is wrong in stating that the arms of the city of Liverpool display four livers. In point of fact, there is but one bird in these arms, and that bird, though popularly known in Liverpool as " the liver," and formerly dis- cussed as such, is described in the grant and confirmation of arms to Liverpool in 1797 as a cormorant. If ME, WILMSHTJRST can give any authority for the liver being the same bird as the wild swan, or for the swan- nery which he says originally existed at the mouth of the Mersey, our local antiquaries will be very grateful to him. J. P. R.

" Inch " does not mean " a cape or pro- montory," but indicates an island. " The furthest Inch of Asia " may refer to the West Indies. V.H.I.L.I.C.I.V.

THE NEVER NEVER LAND (10 S. xi. 9). Possessing as this phrase does the de- scriptive sense of the Ultima Thule of civilization, there is no reason why its application should be confined to Queens- land. Mr. J. S. O'Halloran, Secretary to the Royal Colonial Institute, says :

" The never, never country means in Queensland the occupied pastoral country which is furthest removed from the more settled districts."

Dr. Carl Lentzner in his ' Diet, of Austral- English Slang ' says :

" There is no such thing as an Australian cowboy. There is as much difference between the real never, never stockman, and the Earl's Court article, as there is between the real shell-back of the fore- castle, or the British tar in ' Ruddigore.'"

J; HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

MR. J. F. HOGAN may remember that the Never Never Land is used metaphorically by Mr. Barrie in ' Peter Pan.'

J. M. BTJLLOCH.

" KNIGHTS WITHOUT NOSES " (10 S. xi. 49). I think Wycherley was thinking of the phrase " to dine with Duke Humphrey," which meant to walk beside Duke Hum- phrey's monument instead of going to dinner ; and hence to go without one's dinner altogether. The " knights without

noses " would be the monuments to Crusaders- and others in the Temple ; for it is very common for such monuments to have the noses chipped off. Knights of the post often lingered about in various public places. This is the best I can make of it.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

GREYSTOKE FAMILY (10 S. xi. 81). I should like to make two or three corrections in my note. On p. 81, col. 1, 1. 16 from foot, for " his " read their ; 1. 4 from foot, for " Carden " read Cardeu ; p. 81, col. 2, 1. l r before " Sigulf " add " A later " ; p. 82,. col. 2, 1. 4, for " Cowscliffe " read Conscliffe.

W. FARRER.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

The Complete Poetical Works of James Thomson. Edited, with Notes, by J. Logie Robertson- Oxford Edition. (Frowde.)

COMPARED with many volumes in the same- amazingly cheap series the ' Shakspeare ' (1272 pp.), for example, or the 'Wordsworth' (1008 pp.), or the ' Sbelley ' (928 pp.) Mr. Robertson's ' Thomson,' which runs but to 540 pp. of spacious long primer, seems almost a slender affair. Yet the labour- bestowed on parts of this book has been anything but slender. To those who know Thomson's passion for rehandling his work it is enough to- say that the editor has conscientiously noted every change in the text of ' The Seasons ' from the first appearance of the several parts ('Winter,' March, 1726 ; ' Summer,' 1727 ; ' Spring,' 1728 ; ' Autumn ' and the ' Hymn,' 1730) down to the fourth and last collected edition revised by the author (1746) a task to some extent mechanical, yet neither short nor simple.

A reprint of ' Winter ' in its earliest shape brms another useful feature of this volume. The text, taken from the folio copy in the Advo- ates' Library, Edinburgh, is here accompanied with the variations introduced in the second edition, published in June, 1726. A bold vindica- ion of poetry and its claims just then obscured jy the absorbing political preoccupations of the lour prefaced this second edition, and is repro- duced in Mr. Robertson's notes. Elate with the oy of recent achievement, the cockerel o' the STorth crows a gay defiance of those " persons of great gravity and character " who, with the 'rime Minister, Walpole, at their head, held poets and their works alike negligible. " That any man should seriously declare against that divine art is really amazing .... That there are frequent and notorious abuses of Poetry " may be granted ; )ut to argue against the use of things from their ibuse is a stupid error, into which " I hope that no man who has the least sense of shame in him will fall .... after the present sulphureous attacker )f the stage." A note here would have been useful. The reference may be to Arthur Bedford, jne of the tribe of pamphleteers who fed the flaming controversy kindled in March, 1698, by