Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/189

 io* s. iv. AUG. 19.1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 153 senting the Russian character like a reversed K, the usual sound of which is given as yah. S. WATTS. Kniaz, no doubt=prince, being originally akin to Old Norse konungr, and Old High German chiming, i.e. " king." H. K. NICHOLAS KLIMIUS (10th S. iv. 108).—This is only a pseudonym. The real author of the book was Baron L. von Holberg, the great Danish dramatist. The original, from which the English translation was made, is in Latin,' Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum, novam telluris theoriam, ac historiam yuintse Monarchic ad hue nobis incognita exhibens,' 1741. There is a copy in the British Museum. JAS. PLATT, Jun. According to the British Museum Library Catalogue this is the pseudonym of the Danish Baron Ludvig af Holberg. To be more accurate, the baron is the reputed author of a book in which Nicholas Klimius minutely describes his own, purely imaginary, travels, "in the fifth monarchy," in the under- ground regions. The editio rrrinceps was in Latin, and was followed by French, English, Dutch, German, and Danish translations. In the Latin and German versions—the two I have seen—the frontispiece shows the por- trait of " Nicholas Klimius, the underground emperor and sexton of the Church of the Cross at Bergen, in Norway." L. L. K. [MR. A. BREBNER also thanked for a reply.] BALLAD : SPANISH LADY'S LOVE FOE AN ENGLISHMAN (10tb S. iv. 107).—See 8th S. i. 227, 321. JOHN T. PAGE. FORESTS SET ON FIRE BY LIGHTNING (10th S. iv. 28, 95).—In the month of July, 1895, on an island in Lake Joseph, Muskoka, Province of Ontario, 1 saw lightning strike a rampike and set it on fire. For the benefit of home readers, I must say that in Canada and the United States the word "rampike" means a standing dead tree. The Canadian bush is full of rampikes, usually of pine, very tall and strong, the results of a fire or of death from starvation. Some of these rarapikes stand for many years after death, certainly fifty years, perhaps well on to a hundred. The particular rampike of which I speak was a very old one, more than four feet in diameter, and a hundred feet high, a mere shell of sound wood, as hard almost as ivory, surrounding an immense mass of rotten stuff which supplied the place of so much tinder to the electric flash. The said rampike was soon in a blaze, with flames roaring aloft as from a tall chimney. That a forest fire did not follow in this case was due partly to a drenching rain which accompanied the- thunderstorm, and partly to the fact that there were people on the spot to extinguish the burning stuff as soon as the tree fell. I have no doubt that many forest fires are caused by lightning. I know the striking of trees by lightning is of very frequent occurrence in the rocky country referred to, and all you need to create a great fire is that the light- ning should strike something capable of holding fire until the rain which usually— but not always — accompanies thunder is- over. Canadians will be surprised to find that anybody has any doubts on the subject. AVERN PAKDOE. Legislative Library, Toronto. JACK AND JILL (10th S. iii. 450; iv. 13, 93). —These lines are the proem of a double acrostic, written by the late Mr. Justice O'Hagan, many years before his elevation to the Bench, as Judicial Commissioner of the Irish Land Commission, and the acrostic- will be found as No. 4 in a little volume called ' Dublin Acrostics.' I cannot at the present moment give the date of the first a' 'ication, but the second edition of the (which is now before me) is dated 1869. Amongst the contributors to the admirable series of double acrostics contained in this book were a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Ire- land, a bishop of the then Established Church, a president of Maynooth College, and numer- ous members of the Irish Bar, both Q.C.s and Juniors, one of whom is now one of the most distinguished members of the Irish Bench. Most of the acrostics were signed by a letter of the alphabet, and those subscribed with O were the compositions of Mr. Justice O'Hagan, then John O'Hagan, Q.C. He was a man of considerable literary ability, and was the author of a spirited metrical trans- lation of the 'Chanson de Roland,' and of at least one of the songs included in ' The Spirit of the Nation.' The correct and full text of the double acrostic in question is as follows :— Though not o'er Alpine anow and ice. But homely English ground, " Excelsior ' was our device, And sad the fate we found. We did not climb from love of fame, But followed duty's call: United were we in our aim, Though parted in our fall. 1. 1 am the crown of Irish mirth. 2. A poet, or hia place of birth. 3. A pretty toy, a hidden snare. 4. Fatal to me and all I bear.—O. I leave it to your readers to solve the lights of the acrostic. EDMUND T. BEWLEY.