Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/95

 10 s. vii. JAN. 26, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Richard I. and, probably, John were born, lay outside the town walls. Henry III. defied the tradition by coming to worship at the shrine of St. Frideswide in 1264 not long before the battle of Lewes. Charles I. who made Oxford his head-quarters for four years, cannot be called a fortunate monarch. A. R. BAYLEY.

Lincoln, where the Royal Show is to be held this year, was considered to be unlucky for kings, for we read

The first crowned head that enters Lincoln's walls, His reigu proves stormy, and his kingdom falls.

This was proved true by Stephen, who was -captured there in the battle fought on Candlemas Day, 1141, and detained prisoner for a time. King John was also a frequent visitor to Lincoln, and his reign was stormy indeed. His son, Henry III., was crowned a second time at Wigford, then a suburb of Lincoln, but he did not wear his crown in the city, in which was fought the battle which drove the French from the kingdom, by the capture of the Dauphin and defeat of his followers. The battle was known as " Lewis " or Lincoln Fair.

J. C. KINGHAM. City View, Lincoln.

'THE CHRISTMAS BOYS' (10 S. vi. 481 ; vii. 30). I have before me an acting edition of ' St. George ' as played in Cornwall, written by one of the performers early in the last century. I may say that our Cornish play seems always associated with Christmas. My copy gives only the names of the actors, not of the characters they represented.

" H. Grossman " apparently represented St. George. He sends his page to France, where the French prince says George is " young and of tender years, not fit to come in his degree, and he will send him three tennis balls that with them he may learn to play." The whole scene appears founded on Shakespeare. Times and seasons are as mixed in the Cornish play as in all others. tennis-ball scene, starts off Here am I infernal bold Took six ships and lead [waylaid ?] the Spaniards'
 * ' H. Grossman," a few minutes after the

gold

'Took share of their castles and port below Made the proud Spaniards look dismal and yellow But we was not daunted at all Until there come a ball and took us in the gall And Quebec fell from our hands.

" The first broadside the French did fire they killed our Englishmen so free We killed ten thousand of the French, the rest of them they runned away. Oh ! as we march to the French gates with drums and tnimpets so merrily oh ! then loespoke the old king of France, lo ! he fell on his

bended knee prince Henry I one of his gallant company. I soon forsook bold London Town, We went and took the Spanish Crown, The Spanish Crown we soon then won, And now we have snowed you all our fun."

The text is corrupt. The hat is taken round at the close, with an invitation " to sub- scribe a little part to pay the doctor's fee."

The incidents and phrases constantly recall those cited by MR. GORDON BROWN, with variations, of course, as "I will cut thy doublet full of eyelet holes and make thy buttons fly." The King of Egypt is father of St. George.

In a version of ' The Peace Egg ; or, St. George's Annual Play for the Amusement of Youth ' ( J. Harkness, Preston, n.d. ), we have

Here come I, Beelzebub,

And over my shoulder I carry a club.

I think myself a jolly old man, &c.

In our Cornish version :

Here comes I old Beelzebub

Upon my shoulder I carry a club

And in my hand a dripping (pan)

And am not I a handsome good looking old man.

The metre is extraordinary. In the Quebec passage above it is beyond my understanding altogether, as is also the meaning of part of the words. I have corrected the spelling, which would be unintelligible to any not acquainted with the Cornish accent. YGREC.

Let me draw the attention of readers of ' N. & Q.' to Thomas Hardy's ' Return of the Native,' which was written many years ago, and the scene of which is laid in Dorset- shire, a county where many primitive cus- toms yet linger. In it is a graphic descrip- tion of the visit of the " mummers " at Christmas to Mrs. Yeobright's farm-house, and the frontispiece depicts the scene, representing them arrayed in their streamers and ribbons. An aged aborigine, named

Granfer Cantle " has been instructing them for some time previously as to their mode of acting, which, as he tells them, would not have done in his own early days. But the whole story is well worth perusal. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

CAMBRIDGE BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS (10 S. vii. 26). I should like to know the authority from which H. R. gives this list of Cambridge booksellers. " John Boieden-*, 1502," is not, I suspect, a Cambridge bookseller (see E. G. Duff's ' Century of the English Book Trade,' p. 15 ; and H. R. Plomer's ' Wills of English Printers and Stationers,' p. 55). I had a copy of