Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/493

 io" s. ii. NOV. w, loo*.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

405

La Veuve.

Qui de son valet fait son maitre, Tot ou tard s'en repent : si je franchis le pas, Je m'en repentirai peut-Otre

Le Cure.

Crainte du repentir, no 1'epousez done pas. La, Veuve.

Lucas est vigilant, il agit, il dispose

Avoir un moulin sur lea bras ! Sur les bras un moulin, c'est une Strange chose.

Le Cure.

Partant, Jeanne, ?pousez Lucas. Elle allait proposer de nouveaux anicroches, D'autres s 1 ?', d'autres mais. Sortons, dit le cure\

Ecoutez bien ce que disent nos cloches, Elles debrouilleront le fait a votre gre" ;

L'oracle est sur. On sonne, Jeanne 6coute. Eh bien ! entendez-vous? dit le pasteur madre.

Ah ! monsieur, je suis hors de doute ;

Vos cloches disent clair et net :

Prends ton valet, prends ton valet.

JJuit jours apres, Lucas devint l'6poux de Jeanne* Epoux complaisant ? Non : mais ivrogne, brutal. Tous les coups qu'il donnait ne tombaient sur son

fine,

Jeanne en avait sa part : il la traita fort mal. On fit cent et cent fois un e"loge sincere Du pauvre Nicolas et de son caractere. Jeanne pleura, gmit : entin, dans sa douleur,

Elle alia trouver son pasteur. Elle s'en prit lui, pretendit que ses cloches

Etaient cause de son malheur. Vous m'etonnez, dit-il, parde pareils reproches ;

Je soupgonne ici de 1'erreur. Jeanne, certainement vous vous serez me"prise.

Mais tinissons tout altercas. On va sonner encor. Quelle fut sa surprise ! Le son etait le nieme, et n'6tait pour Lucas ; Et les cloches disaient d'une fagon precise :

Ne le prends pas, ne le prends pas.

Cf. Rabelais, ' Pantagruel,' bk. iii. ch. xxvii., xxviii. EDWARD LATHAM.

(To be continued.)

"ANGLICA [OR RUSTICA] GENS EST OPTIMA

FLENS ET PESSIMA RIDENS." (See 3 rd S. vi. 10,

59 ; 4 th S. ii. 203 ; iv. 449, 479, 498, 525 ; 9 th S. xii. 509.) This line has several times formed the subject of queries and communications in'X. &Q.'

At the last reference, under " English take their pleasures sadly " (I have not found the Latin quotation in the Index to the Ninth Series), MR. LATHAM quotes "Anglica gens optima flens, pessima ridens," from 'Reliquiae Hearnianse,' and asks where Hearne met with the phrase. See the reference at 4 th S. ii. 203 to Chamberlayne's ' Anglise Notitia ' for 1669.

The line in its Rustica form can be carried back to an earlier date. Kornmannus ('De Linea Amoris,' cap. ii. p. 47, ed. 1610) quotes the two lines :

Rustica gens est optima flens, & pessima ridens [:] Vngentem pungit, pungentem rusticus ungit.

Binder (' Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Lati- norum,' No. 2983) gives the two lines, with sed for et, from Neander's * Ethice Vetus efc Sapiens ' (1590).

They would appear to be among the numerous Latin adespot-a which provoke frequent but futile inquiry for the author.

If the Rustica form is the original, who first substituted Anglica and applied the criticism to our countrymen 1

Mr. King in his 'Classical and Foreign Quotations ' quotes only the unmetrical form from Hearne. EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

LADY MARY GREY. MR. RUTTON remarks at 8 th S. vi. 303 :

" Reverting to the question of the burial of Lady Mary Grey, it will be observed that by her will she appointed it to be wherever the queen should think most meet and convenient. It is possible, there- fore, that she was interred with other members of her family, elsewhere than at St. Botolph's without Aldersgate."

I find in Stow's 'Survey,' in the list of burials in Westminster Abbey :

Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, 1560, Mary Gray, her daughter, 1578.

R. J. FYNMORE.

WILLIAM COLLINS, R.A. The following in- scription was copied for me from the monu- ment in the churchyard of Speldhurst, near Tunbridge Wells. It supplements the in- formation in the ' D.N.B.' :

Sacred to the Memory of

Harriet Collins

widow of William Collins, R.A.

(of the Royal Academy of Arts, London").

The last years of her life were passed at Southboro.

She died 19 th March, 1868.

This monument which marks the place of her burial is also designed to serve as some poor record

of the love, gratitude and reverence

which are inseparable from the remembrance of her

in the hearts of her sons

Wilkie Collins

and Charles Allston Collins.

W. P. COURTNEY.

'THE DEATH OF NELSON.' A few days* before the ninety-ninth anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, I became possessed of an old music book, which from a note inside the copy formerly belonged to the Lichfield Cecilian Society. The title-page is :

"A Fifth Collection of | Catches Canons and Glees | for three and four | Voices. | Most humbly inscribed to the | Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Catch Club | at St. Alban's Tavern. | by their much obliged | and Devoted Servant | Tho" Warren. | London Printed by Welcker in Gerrard Street S 1 Ann's Soho."