Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/303

 10 S. XL MAR. 27, 1909.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

musical points of interest have fared badly in the light of recent investigations into the origin of numerous folk-melodies. William Chappell unfortunately relied on Rimbault, and hence we find him fixing the date of the song as 1758. This date is clearly wrong, as " Brighton " Camp was unknown by such a name in 1758 ; in fact, Lord Camden dates an important letter from " Brightelmstone " on 4 Nov., 1798, and we may take it as certain that " Brighton " only came into use in 1785. I regard the Anglo-Irish song and the Irish air to which It was set as having appeared about 1780, not earlier. The older Irish song named though Mr. Frank Kidson could discover no earlier setting of the Anglo-Irish words than in a MS. of 1797, I find a song in " Paddy's Resource,' printed in 1795, set to the air of ' The Girl I left behind Me.'
 * An Spailpin Fanach,' is still sung. Al-

W. H. GRATTAN FLOOD.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND ' MORTALITY.' The centenary of the birth of Lincoln has recalled the fact that at one period of his life he frequently repeated some stanzas of a poem with the above title, and spoke of their appeal to him and of his indebtedness to the unknown author. The following is the first of the fourteen verses of ' Mor- tality ' :

Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal he proud ! Like a fast-flying meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The poem being of the same character as Thomas Moore's

This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given,

which many a youth had to learn in the mid years of last century, one can in some degree understand how the lines impressed the silent and reflective backwoodsman, and it would be interesting to learn how the little book in which ' Mortality ' appeared came into Lincoln's hands. He never knew who was the author, and many in America were under the impression that the lines their President had often quoted were his own composition. William Knox, born in Roxburghshire in 1789, published a little volume of poems, ' The Lonely Hearth,' in 1818. It was favourably noticed by Sir Walter Scott, and six years later Knox, who died in 1825, an " inheritor of un- fulfilled renown," published ' The Songs of Israel,' in which was included ' Mortality.'

J. GRIGOR. 105, Choumert Road, Peckham.

OLDEST POSTBOY rsr ENGLAND : HIS DEATH. The death of Joseph Austen, the oldest postboy in England, is, I think, worthy of mention in the columns of ' N. & Q.'

Born at Studholm, Bedfordshire, in 1811, Austen followed the calling of postboy for forty years, having previously been postilion to the Marquis of Carmarthen, afterwards the Duke of Leeds. During his long life he saw coaching in its palmiest days, then its gradual decline and the rise of railways, and finally the evolution of the motor-car. One of his proudest boasts was that he had not missed seeing the Derby or Oaks for thirty years in fair weather or foul. As postboy, and afterwards as postmaster, he lived a happy life until he retired twenty- two years ago and became a caterer at " Ye Parchmore Coffee-shop," Thornton Heath, where his death took place from old age and the severe weather on 1 March*

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

KING'S ' CLASSICAL AND FOREIGN QUOTA- TIONS.' (See 10 S. ii. 231, 351 ; iii. 447 ; vii, 24 ; ix. 107, 284, 333 ; x. 126, 507.) No. 3020 (among the ' Adespota ') :

Ah quam dulce eat meminisse ! This looks rather as if it might be a transla- tion of part of a line of Euripides (Nauck, Frag. 131, 'Andromeda') in the form in which it is quoted by Plutarch ( ' Moralia,' 630 E),

'J2s 178^ TI rov o-cu^evra /ze/ii^cr^at TTOVCDV, or as given by Macrobius (' Saturnalia,' vii. 2, 9),

'12? r)8v rot 6evTa p.fp.vfja-Oa.1 TTOVWV. Another reading of the Greek line is cited by Mr. King under No. 815.

Seneca, however, has (' Hercules [Furens],' 656-7),

Quse fuit durum pati, Meminisse dulce est.

EDWARD BENSLY.

Aberystwyth.

ARMORIAL WINE-BOTTLES. At 9 S. ix. 7, 175, 276, 411, the origin of the familiar black wine-bottle was discussed, and some extant eighteenth-century specimens were described as having a raised circle or seal on one side, stamped with initials and a date. This rather points to the fact that some persons were in the habit of having wine-bottles specially made for them. I recently came across a presumably eigh- teenth-century bottle, with a crest neatly executed on the raised circle (about the