Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/614

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. DEC. 2*. 190*.

who liked her exceedingly. Then his principal mistress, Ching-Chii, said to her : * The king likes you very much, but only your nose he dislikes to see ; so, if you will cover your nose every time you see him, you shall never lose his favour.' She acted according to the advice, which caused the king to ask Ching>Chii, ' What makes this new favourite of mine cover her nose in my presence ? ' The reply was, 'It seems she hates your majesty's breath,' whereon the enraged sovereign ordered her nose to be severed."

The ' San-pu-ku-shi,' written about the third century A.D., quoted in the same ency- clopaedia, I.e., fol. 84a, attributes the cause of the Emperor Wu-ti killing his heir-apparent in the year 91 B.C. to the latter's adopting a wicked courtier's advice and covering his own nose with paper before the emperor, then suffering from disease.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.

THE VINERY AT HAMPTON COURT. The following extract from the Times of 10 Dec. seems to be worthy of a niche in the columns of <N. &Q.':-

"The King is having the vinery at Hampton Court Palace rebuilt, and workmen are now engaged in the erection of the new building. For this pur- pose it has been found necessary to take away a portion of the gardener's house. The old vine house, which has been enlarged several times, shelters the famous vine which was planted in 1763 from a slip off a vine at Valentines, near Wanstead, Essex. Hitherto the public have been allowed in the vinery itself, but on account of the dust raised, which had a detrimental effect on the grapes, the Royal vine in the new house will be protected with a glass enclosure, and through this it will be viewed by the public. The vine will also be situated at a greater distance from the glass roof. The paving stones forming the floor of the old vine house are to be removed. This it is hoped will benefit the roots of the old vine. The principal branch is over 114ft. in length, and the greatest girth is over 45 in. Some forty years ago the yield of the vine was between 2,300 and 2,500 bunches, weighing about 1 Ib. each, but of late years the grapes have been thinned out considerably, and at the end of this summer only about 700 bunches were allowed to mature."

RICHARD EDGCUMBE.

33, Tedworth Square, Chelsea.

POEM BY COWLEY. A little discovery which I have made recently of some lines by the poet Cowley, which have never, I believe, been included in any volume of his works,

Philips v. /7

which occurred in 1664. It ends in all the editions of the poet I have seen including the so-often-reprinted folio edition of 1668, in which the ode first appeared in a Cowley volume, Tonson's great edition of 1710, and

Dr. Grosart's " Chertsey Worthies " edition

with the lines :

So well Orinda did herself prepare

In this much different clime for her remove

To the glad world of poetry and love.

Looking over the edition of Katherine Philips published in 1667, in which Cowley's tribute was first printed, I found that the ode had there the following very " Cowleian " additional lines : There all the blest do but one body grow And are made one too with their glorious head, Whom there triumphantly they wed After the secret contract past below ; There Love into Identity does go 'Tis the first Unity's monarchique throne, The Centre that knits all, where the

Great Three 's but One.

Dr. Grosart does not mention these addi- tional verses in his notes on the ode, and I feel sure their existence is quite unknown. It would be interesting to know to whose judgment their omission from the collected edition of 1668 was due whether to Cowley's own or to Bishop Sprat's, to whom in his will the poet left the revising of his works. The lines are of no special intrinsic value, but I think any buried verses by such a writer as Cowley are worth disinterment. J. M. ATTENBOROUGH.

ASSES HYPNOTIZED. Some Basks of both French and Spanish Navarre have given me the following details on the folk-lore of their region. If you knock a donkey down, bellow very loudly into its ear, and stop the ear, before you end your braying, with a large stone, the astonished quadruped will lie in an apparently dead sleep for an hour or more. E. S. DODGSON.

"BOLLING." (See ante, p. 479.) In the notice of ' The Flemings in Oxford ' the reviewer had a question as to the meaning of the word boiling. Boiling is defined in John Craig's dictionary as "a tree which has been shorn of its leaves and branches." Hence, no doubt, the word here means the clipping off of superfluous hair of the horse.

G. C. W.

'EAST LYNNE.' Mr. Lang, in Longman's Magazine, supposes that this novel may be derived from the story of Nephele. There may be some likeness, but it does not extend to the whole of the stories. Twice have I pointed out in * N. & Q.' the resemblance between * East Lynne ' and ' Dix Ans de la Vie d'une Femme,' a play by Scribe and another dramatist, which must have been acted at least twenty years before the publi- cation of the novel. My first letter, or letters, on the subject appeared about the year 1870 ;