Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/372

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIIL OCT. 19, 1007.

' Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs ' before Burns had emerged from boyhood. The poet's connexion with Johnson's ' Musical Museum ' has been the cause of both per- plexity and misunderstanding. Johnson, Mr. Lang says, would have published his anthology, although Burns had not become a coadjutor. This no doubt is the case, but it must be evident, even to a superficial observer, that, apart altogther from the poet's own contributions, the work without his help could never have reached its wonderful comprehensiveness and its repre- sentative character. With his generosity of appreciation, his zeal for everything charac- teristic and fresh, and his quickness in recog- nizing what constitutes a song, he discovered for Johnson much that had genuine and unmistakable value, a large proportion of which, it is quite safe to say, the publisher himself and his immediate advisers would have overlooked altogether. In one of his deeper moods Burns pays a hearty tribute to those unknown and forgotten minstrels whose lyrics, in whole or in part, remain as pathetic evidence and quick touchstone of their genius. He was never weary of following upon the track of these lyrists, and saving even their fragments from oblivion by securing a place for them in Johnson's collection. It is just possible that ' Braw Lads of Galla Water ' is one of those vagrant pieces which thus gained favour on his initiative ; but, whether or not, it was duly included in the second volume of the ^Musical Museum.' It is entered in the index as anonymous, and, curiously enough, it stands there between two of Burns's songs, each of which is announced under the poet's name. To all intents and purposes it is the lyric which Herd in 1776 included among his " Fragments of Comic and Humourous Songs," although it is not reproduced verbatim, as Scott Douglas asserts in the reprint of the Kilmarnock poems. Some one it may have been Burns, or it may have been Johnson himself, who had his own notions on matters of taste introduced into Herd's text two trivial variations, but these by no means warrant an ascription of authorship. Various editors before Mr. Lang gave the song to Burns, but it is long since the error of these practitioners was exposed and their decision shown to be unwarrantable. THOMAS BAYNE.

" CAMELIAN." (See 8 S. vii. 429 ; 9 S. iii. 75, 193, 276.) About twelve years ago I wrote to ' N. & Q.' to try to learn the nature of " Camelian," which was employed by

an American writer, Miss Mary E. Wilkins* to denote, as it appeared to me, an amal- gam that had the glitter of the precious metal, but nothing of its value. The story of Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring*' which appeared in The English Illustrated Magazine, vol. xiii. pp. 3-18, reminded me pleasantly of a word in active use during my childhood in Lincolnshire, but now ignored, as far as I can make out, by speakers and the dictionaries. As I quoted in 1895, the nearest thing in the ' N.E.D.' is "Cameline, sb. 2 " : " 1. A genus of cruciferous plants ; spec, the ' Gold of pleasure ' (Came- lina sativa). Also attrib."

At 9 S. iii. 75 1 suggested that " camelian " might bear some relationship to the mixture of pan-brass and arsenicum which furnished the occamy or alcamy spoons used by the first New England colonists. This reminded M. C. L. of New York of my original query, and he and another correspondent of ' N. & Q.' expressed the belief that " came- lian " was but a mispronunciation of " car- nelian " ; but that, as I took occasion to state, did not commend itself to me. I have in my mind's eye a kind of locket, an oval of double glass, framed in chased metal, which was said to be " camelian," and not gold, though I could not have detected the counterfeit.

Having been fortunate enough to meet again with ' Comfort Pease,' I will quote the two passages where mention is made of " camelian " ;

" [Comfort] had been named for her Aunt Com- fort, who had given her a gold ring and a gold

dollar for her name One of Comfort's chiefest

delights was in looking at her gold ring arid gold dollar. She had never worn the ring it was much too large for her. Aunt Comfort and her mother had each thought that it was foolish to buy a gold ring that she could outgrow. ' If it was a camelian ring I wouldn't care,' said Aunt Comfort ; but it does seem a pity when it 's a real gold ring.' "

Of a schoolfellow of Comfort's it is said :

" She was a doctor's daughter, and had many things that the other little girls had not, but even she had no gold ring, nothing but a camelian."

A lady of my acquaintance has written twice to Miss Wilkins (once to the care of a publisher, once to the address given in ' Who 's Who ') for information as to " camelian," but without eliciting a reply.

ST. SWITHIN.

DEATH OF THE OLDEST PHOTOGRAPHER. The death of Mr. William Hardy Kent, who is regarded as the oldest photographer in the world, is, I think, worthy of mention in 'N. & Q.' Mr. Kent, who had attained the