Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/15

 10 s. XIL JULY 3, 1909. NOTES AND QUERIES.

Albans." This statement is reproduced in the ' D.N.B.' ; but despite these authorities it is incorrect. Althorp vacated his seat for Okehampton on accepting office as s> Lord of the Treasury early in February : the poll for Cambridge took place on 7 Feb. ; the new writ for Okehampton was ordered on that day, and Althorp was re-elected for his old constituency on 15 Feb. He never sat for, nor did he ever contest, St. Albans. How easily errors are made and perpetuated in works of standard authority ! ALFRED B. BEAVEN, M.A.

" BRING," ARCHAIC USE. I was under the impression that the use of this verb in the sense of "to take " in certain quarters in America, not always of necessity plebeian ones, was a mere vulgarism, as in the phrase " Bring that letter to the post office " ; but I find that Dr. Marcus Hartog, an old fellow-student of mine at University College, London, in an article (by himself and Miss Hayden) on the Irish dialect of English in The Fortnightly Review of April instances it as a current Irish use having an older English origin. I do not find this arly use of " to bring " noticed in the the totally dissimilar " bring to," as in ""to bring her to," i.e., persuade ('Tom Jones'); "to bring her to," i.e., revive ( ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' ) ; and the nautical locution " to bring to a ship," i.e., to cause it to stop. N. W. HILL.
 * N.E.D.,' however, which merely mentions

New York.

DARK ROOM IN PHOTOGRAPHY. I am informed by Mr. Herbert Awdry that Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of the method of producing by photography any number of prints on paper from a negative on glass, resided at Lacock Abbey, and that the first dark room used in this process c. 1838, was an early English crypt there. This fact seems to be of sufficient interest for a note. J. T. F.

Durham.

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S LITERARY DESCEND- ANTS. (See * Crusoe Richard Davis,' 10 S. xi. 425.) To this list can be added "The Adventures of Philip Quarll, the English Hermit, who was discovered by Mr. Dor- rington on an Uninhabited Island, where he had lived upwards of Fifty Years. London : Printed by and for Hodgson & Co., 10, Newgate Street. Sixpence." with folding hand-coloured frontispiece in compartments dated July 22, 1823. This, unlike ' Crusoe Richard Davis,' is on the same lines as

Selkirk's adventures, except that the com- panion of his solitude is an ape whose " back was a lively green, his face and belly a very bright yellow, his coat all over shining like burnished gold." The artist in the copy before me has painted this animal a dark green. With such an oppor- tunity for display it is a pity.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

fljwrus.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

SIR FRANCIS BACON ON TASTING. Can any of your readers give me the exact reference for the following statement, which is said to have been made by Sir Francis Bacon in his ' Natural Philosophy ' :

"Sir Francis Bacon observes, in his 'Natural Philosophy,' that our taste is never pleased better than with those things which at first created a disgust in it. He gives particular instances, of claret, coffee, and other liquors, which the palate seldom approves upon the first taste, but, wlien it has once got a relish of them, generally retains it for life."

This quotation is first given in an essay by Addison in The Spectator, No. 447, for Saturday, 2 Aug., 1712, and is to be found on pp. 293-4 of vol. vii. of The Spectator reprinted in 1817. The title of the essay is ' The Influence of Custom.'

F. S. PITT-TAYLOR, M.B., Cn.B.

The Lawn, Rock Ferry.

ROBERT AGASSIZ. Comte Marquiset is engaged on a life of the famous French actress of the First Republic, Mile. Langes. Information is sought as to Mr. Robert Agassiz. who is connected with her story, and is said to have been a London banker. The name is best known in connexion with American science, but was originally Swiss.

HISTORICUS.

HERRICK ON THE YEW. What does Herrick mean by the epithet " crisped yew " ? Southey writes of a " wrinkled holly," evidently alluding to the edge of the leaf. Yew leaves are straight. But the general effect of a yew tree, especially of some varieties, is often crinkly when battered by wind and rain. I am inclined to think it is this general effect that struck Herrick Milton, too, when he wrote in ' Comus ' :

Along the crisped shades arid bowers.

J. M. L.