Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/286

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. SEPT. 21, 1907.

time, until the expectant little one asks, What next ? Then conies the climax " :

The King of France, the King of France, with forty

thousand men,

Oh, they all went up the hill, and so came back again !

RICHARD WELFORD. Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The " common nursery song " was known in West Yorkshire some forty years ago in the following form :

King David was King David,

He had five thousand men ;

He marched 'em up a very high hill.

And marched 'em down again.

When they \vere up, they were up ;

And when they were down, they were down ;

And when they were half-way up the hill,

They were neither up nor down.

The song had a tune of its own. The num- ber of men varied. I have heard American mothers (United States) sing it to their chil- dren within the last six or eight years.

H. SNOWDEN WARD.

Hadlow, Kent.

[MR. A. COLLINGWOOD LEE and LADY RUSSELL also thanked for replies. 1

PALGRAVE'S 'GOLDEN TREASURY' (10 S. viii. 147). It is well to draw attention to the defects of this valuable work, for its essential excellence is such that one would be glad to see it approach perfection as nearly as possible. One feature that should be introduced is an indication of omissions made from the poems. In his original preface the editor wrote : " The poems are printed entire, except in a very few in- stances where a stanza or passage has been omitted." This statement is by no means sufficient to cover the actual practice. Let us take as examples three lyrics given in the second book of the anthology. Cra- shaw's ' Wishes for the Supposed Mistress ' is not nearly complete, and there is nothing to show the reader that he has not the entire poem as the author left it. So it is with Cowley's ' On the Death of Mr. William Hervey ' and Vaughan's ' Friends in Para- dise,' which stand next each other in the volume. Only seven of the nineteen stanzas in Cowley's monody are given, and the choice made seems somewhat arbitrary anc even casual. The close of the fifth stanza and the opening of the sixth, as these stanc in ' The Golden Treasury,' suggest an over looking of artistic fitness on the author' part, which, of course, is an untoward re suit never anticipated by the editor. Th omission of the three closing stanzas from Vaughan's characteristic study deprives i

of its lofty and culminating aspiration. It no doubt spoils the look of a page to dot it over with asterisks, but some such word as "excerpt" or "extracted" at the top of a piece would enable readers to see that they had to do with a quotation, and not with what an author considered a homo- geneous unity. THOMAS BAYNE.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (10 S. viii. 109, 153). The second of the lines referred to by T. E. M. occurs in the last stanza of Matthew Arnold's lyric entitled ' Progress.' W. B.

M. B. L. in the second quotation at p. 150 may have in his mind the lines in ' The Boatman ' by Pisistratus Caxton (first Earl Lytton), published in Blackwood, Decembe.v 1863 :

the sport of man's strife Gives the zest to man's life,

Without it his manhood dies ; Be it jewel or toy, Not the prize gives the joy,

But the striving to win the prize.

William Watson's tribute to Matthew Arnold, ' In Laleham Churchyard ' (Spectator* 30 Aug., 1890), has :

[He] set his heart upon the goal, Not on the prize.

With those elect he shall survive Who seem not to compete or strive, Yet with the foremost still arrive,

Prevailing still ; Spirits with whom the stars connive

To work their will.

And ye the baffled many who Dejected, from afar off view The easily victorious few

Of calm renown ; Have ye not your sad glory too

And mournful crown?

Great is the facile conqueror, Yet haply he who wounded sore, Breathless unhors'd all covered o'er

With blood and sweat, Sinks, foiled but fighting evermore, Is greater yet.

ROBERT LEWIS. Blackburn.

I cannot supply the name of the author of the sentence H. S. quotes at p. 169, but your correspondent may be glad to have (if he does not already know it) Fanny Kemble's version of the sentiment it embodies :

Better trust all, and be deceived,

And weep that trust, and that deceiving,

Than doubt one heart that, if believed, Had blessed one's life with true believing.

C. C. B.