Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/252

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [io< s. m. MARCH is, 1905.

Eau lenite de cour. Vain promises. Here is a little poem by De Senece (1643-1732) in illustration :

Vingt fois par jour en mon chemin

Se trouve Orgon, qui d'un air tendre

Me clit eu me serrant la main :

A quoi peut-on servir Cleiudre ?

II sait que j'ai depuis deux uiois Perdu mon equipage en Flandre ; Le bourreau me dit toutefois : A quoi peut-on servir Cleandre?

II sait qu'un creancier maudit Et pourtant le traitre me dit : A quoi peut-on servir Cleandre ?
 * Saisit mes meubles, les fait vendre,

Je n'ai besoin de rien, Orgon, Si ce n'est que tu t'ailles pendre, Pour n'entendre plus ce jargon : A quoi peut-on servir Cleandre?

An epitaph by Cesar Blot (died 1655) on Cardinal Mazarin contains a witty jeu de mots on this phrase :

O vous qui passez par ce lieu, Daignez Jeter, an nom de Dieu, A Mazarin de 1'eau benite. II en donna tant a la cour, Que c'est bien le moins qu'il merite D'en avoir a son tour.

Precher d'exemple. To practise what we

reach. In the first canto of ' L'Art de recher,' by the Abbe de Villiers, a simple- minded man takes literally a passage in a sermon against luxury, and, having two coats, tells his wife to sell one of them in Border to give the proceeds to the poor. His wife, however, is desirous of knowing exactly how the sermon should be interpreted, and rgoes straight to the preacher :

Vous demanded mon maitre, .Dit le valet : bientot vous le verrez paraitre. Attendez. Quoi ! si tard, il est encore au lit? Non, pour aller aux champs monsieur change

d'habib.

Change d'habit ! dit-elle ; adieu, je me retire : Puisqu'il a deux habits je n'ai rieu a lui dire.

C'est ainsi qu'en prechant on fait si peu de fruit : JLe sermon eclin'e, et 1'exemple detruit.

EDWARD LATHAM.

SHAKESPEARE'S PALL-BEARERS. After many years some of the queries in ' N. & Q.' fine their answers. It is well that, like Tenny- son's 'Brook,' 'N. & Q.' goes on for ever, to accommodate these things, slower than the .mills of the gods.

At 6 th S. x. 464 is printed a letter from MR C. C. OSBORNE, who had found in an Ameri can newspaper an account of an old grave stone in Virginia, said to mark the grave o Edward Helder, one of Shakespeare's pall bearers. (This in December, 1884.) In the

urrent New Shakespeareana for January, 905, twenty-one years afterwards, under the itle ' An American Shakespeare Hoax,' I ind the exposure of the fraud. A curious mrt of it is that your correspondent of ,wenty-one years ago concludes his letter, ' The whole story smacks strongly of Yankee magination," and Dr. Morgan's paper, ex- oosing the whole thing, confirms completely MR. OSBORNE'S suspicion.

I hope that ' N. & Q.' may still go on for
 * he sake of our children's grandchildren.

C. HAROLD MCCHESNEY.

[This supposed pall-bearer of Shakespeare was brought to the notice of readers of ' N. & Q.' more than twenty years before MR. OSBORNE'S letter appeared, for at 3 rd S. ii. 188 ESTE (the late S. Timmius) quoted an account of the tombstone inscription given by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt in The Canadian Free Press of 1 August, 18G2, and asked whether readers of 'N. & Q,' "here, or over the water," could verify or demolish " this very cir- cumstantial statement of fact." He stated that he was himself " very sceptical " on the subject. No doubt this mythical pall-bearer will in due course again go the round of the press ; but readers of 'N. & Q,.,' at least, will not be troubled at his resurrection.]

IRISH FOLK-LORE. I cull the following ex- amples from Mr. Samuel M. Hussey's 'Remi- niscences of an Irish Land Agent.' During the famine of " the black forty-seven "

" some superstition prevented even the children

from eating the myriads of blackberries which ripened on the bushes." P. 52.

" It was generally believed that the priests had power to change men into frogs and toad?, a super- stition by no means obsolete even now in lone dis- tricts." P. 94.

"A priest once threatened a bibulous parishioner, that if he did not become more sober in his habits he would change him into a mouse. ' Biddy, me jewel, I can't believe Father Pat would have that power over me," said the man that same evening as the shadows fell, ' but all the same you might as well shut up the cat.' "P. 294.

ST. SWITHIN.

" VICARIATE." This word has been wrongly used in the newspapers for some time. The modern tendency to abbreviation has caused the disuse of the old name " vicarage-house," so that the vicar's house-of-residence is now known as " the vicarage." Therefore, to avoid confusion, another word was needed to in- dicate the benefice, and thus " vicariate" has been blunderingly adopted. But " vicariate " means the period of the vicar's incumbency, or the whole administration of his cure. I am led to make this note because there seems to be a danger of "vicariate'' receiving ecclesiastical recognition. The Bishop of Hull has recently printed a letter wherein he says he has "accepted the vicariate of Hessle."