Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/217

 10 s. XL FKB. -27, 1900. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

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ence to the authentic histories of the Portu- guese in Asia, to show that it is doubtful in the extreme if Mendez Pinto ever ex- perienced many of the adventures credited to him in that book.

I also expressed my disbelief that the book, in its entirety at any rate, was written by Fernao Mendez, since it was not pub- lished until 1614, some thirty years after its reputed author's death, and more than fifty after his return from the East. I believe it to be a concoction in which the Jesuits had a hand, for the glorification of Francis Xavier (see the reprint of the ' Letters ' referred to, pp. 35-9). The old English translation by Henry Cogan, " Gent.," is a greatly abbreviated one, the chief omissions being the chapters at the end referring to Xavier. In consequence, apparently, of a remark of mine that

" it is much to be regretted that no competent scholar has undertaken to properly edit the ' Peregrinacam,' showing how much is fiction and how much fact, and of the fact how much is from personal experience and how much stolen from earlier writers,"

the Lisbon Academia Real das Sciencias in January, 1903, commissioned Senhors Coniglieri Pedroso and Goncalve Vianna to undertake a new edition of the ' Pere- grinacam ' on the lines of Yule's ' Marco Polo.' Whether these gentlemen have done anything towards the fulfilment of their task I cannot say, as I have heard nothing further of the scheme. In any case, the need of such an edition is a crying one. In conclusion, I may remind those who put their faith in Mendez Pinto that after the appearance of the ' Peregrina9am ' there became current among the Portuguese a saying, " Fernao, mentes ? Minto." ("Fer- nao, liest thou ? Much.")

DONALD FERGUSON.

CHARLES JAMES AURIOL (10 S. xi. 108). See Foster's ' Alumni Oxonienses,' where it will be found that his brother Edward Auriol was Rector of St. Dunstan's-in-the- West, London, until his death, 10 Aug., 1880. His relatives will be easily traced for further information.

HENRY BRIERLEY.

Thornhill, Wigan.

PARLIAMENTARY BANNER IN THE CIVIL WAR (10 S. xi. 89). In H. D. Train's ' Social England,' vol. iv. pp. 328-9, are some illustrations of standards used by Parliamentarians in the Civil Wars. They are taken from a print published after the war, and described as being copied " from

an original MS. done at that time, and now in the hands of Mr. Benjamin Cole, of Oxford." CHAS. War. TERRY.

Taunton.

ORKNEY HOGMANAY SONG (10 S. xi. 5, 72). The line in the modern version of this song as sung in Stromness,

Get up, old wife, and shake your feathers (see ' Eng. Dial. Diet.,' s.v. feather to steer one's feathers, to bestir oneself), does not occur in an old version from the same place, which will be printed, with music, in the April number of The Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness Miscellany of the Viking Club. It, however, occurs in another modern MS. version in my possession as

Rise up, guid wife, and shake your feathers. In the Walls, 1893, version (' Sagabook ' of the Viking Club, vol. ii. p. 40) it is rendered :

Gude wife, rise up, and be na sweer. Sweer means lazy : the same idea.

The lines

Gie 's the lass wi' bonnie broon hair,

Or we '11 knock your door upon the floor,

are not in the old version, but are found

in the Walls version as

The lassie wi' the yellow hair, If we get her we '11 seek nae mair,

followed by " a rather free stanza " which is not recorded. But in the Sandey, 1836, version (Orkney and Shetland Miscellany, vol. i. p. 266) we have :

Open the door ! we maun be in,

We are a' Queen Marie's men,

To keep us out is surely sin,

An' that 'a before Our Leddie !

But gif you dinna open the door, Sec.

We'll ding it owre upon your floor, &c.

In the latter case there is no mention of a lassie. A. W. JOHNSTON.

59, Oakley Street, Chelsea, S.W.

JUDGE GASCOIGNE AND PRINCE HARRY : F. SOLLY FLOOD (10 S. xi. 121). The concluding paragraph of Mr. F. J. COLLJN- SON'S note hardly does justice to the late Frederick Solly Flood, who is there set down as being " not even a member of the English Bar." Solly Flood, who was Attorney-General of Gibraltar from 1866 to 1877, was in fact called to the English Bar at Lincoln's Inn on 6 May, 1828. He practised for some thirty-eight years on the Midland Circuit, at the Parliamentary Bar, and elsewhere in this country, with no little success ; and his name remained amongst those of his brother barristers in the ' Law List ' down into 1888, the year of his death.