Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/422

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. MAY 5,

41 And never made anither," and this is really what was originally written. 'Bonnie Lesley ' was one of the first songs contributed by Burns to George Thomson's ' Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs,' and it appears in' that work, vol. i. p. 33. The publisher, it seems, took it upon him to alter the line in question, presenting it in the form adopted in ' The Golden Treasury,' and thereby considerably offending the author, as one of his best-qualified editors has pointed out ('Works of Robert Burns,' iii. 85, ed. W. S. Douglas). With this information for one's guidance, there should be no room for hesitation about the standard reading in this particular case. It is interesting to note that Burns had previously used the form of superlative eulogy which he applies in his glowing description of Miss Lesley Baillie. One of his correspondents glorified in the 'Presentation Stanzas' of 1789 is either John Kennedy, factor to the Earl of Dumfries, or John Macmurdo, chamberlain of the Duke of Queensberry (perhaps the former for preference), and he is apostrophized in these energetic terms :

Factor John ! Factor John, whom the L d made

alone,

And ne'er made anither, thy peer, Thy poor servant, the Bard, in respectful regard,

He presents thee this token sincere, Factor John ! He presents thee this token sincere.

THOMAS BAYNE.

ROTARY BROMIDE PROCESS. Students who -wish to procure faithful copies of texts, written or printed in languages not generally known, like Arabic, &c., where transcription is costly, and impossible except by an expert, while ordinary photographs are too dear, will be glad to know of this comparatively cheap process, which produces a single copy, white on black, made, without a negative, direct in the camera. If the type or writing is fairly large and the page small, the size of the original can be considerably reduced and cost saved. For facsimile work by the autotype process, photogravure, &c., the negative is, of course, still indispensable ; but if a single copy a student's copy is all that is required, the process will answer the purpose. A description of it was given in a recent number of the Zentralblatt fur JBibliotheltswesen, and it is now fully installed at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Bodleian Library, and the British Museum. I shall be glad to publish the names and addresses of photographers who will under- take the work at the three libraries named, if our Editor will permit me to do so. The invention has given a great impetus to the

study of old texts, as the cost of copying is about one-fifth that of the ordinary process by means of photographic negatives.

L. L. K.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S SKULL. The following extract from The Tribune of 16 April may be thought worthy of preserva- tion in ' N. & Q.' :-

" The governors of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital resolved at their meeting on Saturday to restore to the vicar and churchwardens of the church of S. Peter Mancroft, Nprwich, the skull of Sir Thomas Browne, the distinguished author and physician, who resided in that city for forty years in the seventeenth century. Sir Thomas Browne was the author of ' Religio Medici' and ' Vulgar Errors,' and was buried in the church of S. Peter Mancroft. While an interment was taking place in an adjoining vault in the early part of last century his grave was accidentally broken into, and the skull (it is alleged) abstracted. After passing through various hands the skull became the pro- perty of the hospital governors, who latterly have preserved it in a handsome reliquary. The tomb of the famous author is now to be opened in the presence of representatives of the hospital, who wish to be satisfied that the remains therein are without a skull."

The " handsome reliquary " was, I under- stand, the gift of Prof. Osier.

For further information see Appendix II. (' Note on the Discovery of the Remains of Sir T. B. in 1840') in Dr. Greenhill's edition of the * Religio Medici,' and the appendix (No. II.) on 'The Measurements of the Skull of Sir T. B.' by Mr. Charles Williams in Dr. Greenhill's edition of the ' Hydriotaphia.' In view of the action of the governors of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital it may be noted that the Master of Pembroke College, Oxford (Bishop Mitchinson), in preaching a sermon in St. Peter Mancroft on 19 October of last year, in connexion with the Sir Thomas Browne centenary, roundly de- nounced the citizens of Norwich for per- mitting the continuance of what he described as an act of desecration.

EDWARD BENSLY.

11 PONICA " = GARDENER. I do not know if this slang word has ever been registered in in the trade, and is derived, no doubt, from the word Japonica, descriptive of so many of the plants, shrubs, &c., now to be found in English gardens.
 * N. & Q.' It is commonly used, I am told,

GEORGE F. T. SHERWOOD.

MANX EMPHASIS. This note is suggested by ** Rattling good thing" (ante, p. 250), but it does not quite come under that heading. Manx people are fond of using strong adjec- tives, and sometimes strangely. I asked a