Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/431

 s. V.MAY 5. 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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does not explain whether Thompson had changed his name permanently to Hamilton or whether he only assumed it pro tern, as a convenience to get over some regulation as to visiting the Sultan's Hungarian prisoners.

L. L. Iv.

LATIN GENITIVES IN FLOJIICULTURAL NOMENCLATURE (10 th S. v. 309). The use of a single or double i in this class of genitives is optional, or, at all events, a matter of taste. Such modern surnames have a nominative -ius hypothetically tacked on in order to conform with the large number of Roman clan-names with stems ending in -io. These clan-names are strictly speaking adjectival, and hence the genitives in -ii, as in Curtisii ; but, if they are to be regarded as substantive, there is classical support also for the monocular variety, as in Thomsoni.

J. DORMER.

Is it not merely considerations of euphony which demand the duplication of the i in such Latin genitives ? Aster Curtisii possesses a more rounded euphony than Aster Curtisi. Similarly Anoectochilus Loivii and A. Heriotii are preferable to A. Lowi (Low's) and A. Herioti (Heriot's).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

DICKENS ON THE BIBLE (10 th S. v. 304). The "paragraph in some of the papers" appeared first, I think, in The Daily Chronicle. It seems as if MR. MACRAE did riot see that paper day by day, or he would have noticed that, the day after the paragraph, a correc- tion appeared of its inaccuracy. The docu- ment discussed by The Daily Chronicle reporter was not a "notable and unknown Dickens letter," but a facsimile of one of the best -known letters of Dickens, written on the day before his death to John M. Makeham. This letter is re- produced in facsimile in the * Letters of Charles Dickens' (Macmillan, 1893), and has been often referred to elsewhere. MR. MACRAE speaks of his letter as quoted by Forster in the * Life.' It is referred to in my edition (Chapman & Hall, 1876) in vol. ii.

&467. The odd thing is that, had MR. ACRAE looked a few pages on, he would also have seen a quotation (on p. 469) from The Daily Chronicle's "unknown" novelty. I think it a pity that people cannot make a little research of such obvious character on their own behalf; but in the present age of hurry and superficiality, few lovers of litera- ture can expect that. NEL MEZZO.

The letter quoted by MR. MACRAE is un- doubtedly "genuine and independent," but

it is not unknown. It is reproduced in facsimile in the 'Letters of Charles Dickens' (Macmillan, 1882). I believe that the original is either at the British Museum or South Kensington. HAMMOND HALL.

" OSCAR WILDE BIBLIOGRAPHY (10 th S. iv. 266 ; v. 12, 133, 176, 238, 313). The statement at the last reference that Sharp, in his an- thology, claimed to have printed for the first time the sonnet on Keats's love letters, is manifestly due to an oversight. Two of Wilde's sonnets appear in the collection, the one on the love letters being numbered cclii., and immediately following the other. The editor's note on the subject is quite clear. " No. cclii.," he says, "appears in his 'Poems,' but its companion is printed here for the first time." Perhaps some question connected with copy- right prevented Tepublication in subsequent editions of ' Sonnets of this Century.'

THOMAS BAYNE. [U. V. W. writes to the same effect,]

To Midsummer Dreams, being the double Summer Number of a weekly journal called Society, for July, 1885, Oscar Wilde contri- buted a poem entitled 'Rosssand Hue.' This number is not in the British Museum, and though I have advertised for many months, I have not succeeded in procuring a 'copy. I am particularly anxious to have, at least, a transcript of this poem, in order that it may be included in the volume of ' Poems ' which I am editing for Messrs. Methuen's forthcoming uniform edition of Oscar Wilde's works. Can any of your readers help me?

This volume will contain all the poems included in the 1881 edition, ' Ravenna,' 4 The Sphinx,' ' The Ballad of Reading Gaol/ some sixteen hitherto uncollected poems, four translations in verse, and at least one unpub- lished poem of exquisite beauty.

STUART MASON. c/o Holywell Press, Oxford.

LADY COVENTRY'S MINUET (10 th S. v. 307). MR. BLEACKLEY asks if a special minuet was composed in honour of the beautiful Lady Coventry, and who wrote the music. I find it difficult to give an exact answer to the question, but I hope the following informa- tion may assist him. Mr. Adair FitzGerald, at p. 115 of ' Stories of Famous Songs,' writes that a correspondent in The Illustrated London Neivs of 16 February, and 1 March, 1856, says :

"In my youth I was accustomed to hear a song, of which'Kitty Fisher and the famous Countess of Coventry, who were rival beauties in their respec- tive lines, were the heroines."

Fisher's Jig, besides being in Walsh's dances %