Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/397

 s. v. APRIL 28, loco.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

325

(another kinsman), also in the Company's service in the Bengal artillery, together served Scott as his model for Capt. Hector Mclntyre in *The Antiquary.' Perhaps some day, at a time of less storm and stress, my documents and notes relating to the two David Willisons may find a fitting setting, as they are of considerable historical importance. My cousin's name is Archibald David, although it is true that some years ago, for business purposes, he elected to drop the David an action, which has proved at times inconvenient to myself.

My grandfather's partner Robert Cadell is styled "the pivot financial and otherwise on which the business revolved." This is rather extravagant praise of one who, by all accounts, other than those contained in the very biassed pages of Lockhart's * Life,' was an exceedingly commonplace man. Mr. Cadell certainly profited, and that very largely, by the enterprise and initiative of my grandfather, who was also his father-in- law, the fact of Robert Cadell's marriage to my aunt Eliza Constable being omitted in the article to which I refer.

Finally, I must deal with the statement that "Archibald Constable was a broken man after 1826," which is absolutely untrue. My grandfather never for a moment lost heart after the Scott-Ballantyne-Constable catastrophe of January, 1826, as I can prove from existing unpublished material, as well as from a large number of letters printed in the third of those very volumes from which the writer of the article professes to have drawn his facts. ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE.

Hanover.

MAY DAY: MAYPOLE. There are well- known passages in praise of May in Sir Thomas Malory's ' Prince Arthur,' 1816, i. 76, iii. 265.

The word ** May " and its compounds in the * New English Dictionary' may be studied with advantage.

George Buchanan (1506-82) celebrates May- games in his 'Elegiarum Liber,' * Majre Calendse,' pp. 315-18 ; in his 'Epigrammatum Lib. I.,' 'In pinum pro foribus scholarum Calend. Maji erectam,' p. 365 ; and in his p. 414 (ed. Arnstel., 1641).
 * Miscellaneorum Liber, 3 ' Calendse Majse/

Theophilus Higgons, the Puritan censor of Christ Church, Oxford, sawed down a maypole which had been erected there ; he said he did it because the pole had been

the House of Commons, says that '* in neigh- bouring parishes drums beating up for a morris or a maypole on the Lords day" were often heard (p. 19).

On 30 April, 1666, at 11 P.M., fourteen young men from Birdsall went into a wood belong- ing to Eddlethorpe Grange in order to get " a young ash tree for a May poll to carry to- the town of Birdsall"; but they met with opposition, and one of the fourteen was shot, and fell down dead ('Depositions from York Castle,' Surt. Soc., p. 141).

In 'Gotthold's Emblems,' by Christian Scriver, 1671, translated by Robert Menzies, Edinb., 1857, section cxliv. pp. 233-6, is headed " May Boughs, May 23," and states that it is an old custom to decorate houses and churches with green boughs at Whit- suntide.

See also * The Mayers and their Song, or some Account of the First of May and its Observance in Hertfordshire, 1 by W. B. Gerish, 8vo, 10 leaves and cover, Hertford (1906). W. C. B.

' THINGS INDIAN.' While thanking you for the kindly notice of my book, ante, p. 299, may I be allowed to point out that when your critic writes: "One singular feature in the volume is that a large number of words have an asterisk against them, no* explanation of which is afforded," he has forgotten that this is explained in the Preface 1 The book was intended partly as a supplement to the * Anglo-Indian Glossary/ and accordingly subjects discussed and words explained in that book were marked with an asterisk, so as to avoid repetition. I may also add that the alphabetical arrangement of subjects was not derived from 'Hobson - Jobson,' but was adopted simply because the earlier volumes of the series Chamberlain's 4 Things Japanese r and Ball's 'Things Chinese' were arranged in this way. WILLIAM CROOKE.

LAVA. In recording the recent terrible eruption of the " unextinguished " Mount Vesuvius, and its destructive "lava" (a "fire-stream"), it may be worth observing that the metaphoric sense in which the term lava is applied to a stream or torrent of fluid matter or molten rock issuing from a volcano, now commonly adopted from the Italian lava by most European languages appears to have originated, not from the Neapolitan dialect, as supposed by the 'N.E. Diet.,' but from that of Sicily; for both the 'Vocabolario Napoletano degli Accademici Filopatridi ' of 1789 and Puoti's 'Vocabolario Napoletano e Toscano' of 1841 know the word lava merely