Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/525

 10 s. vm. NOV. so, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

435

3. & J. Leighton's illustrated catalogue a few years ago ; it is, I understand, now in the British Museum. H. W. D.

" DRY," AS APPLIED TO SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS (10 S. viii. 269, 371). The epithet of " dry " or " sec " is not only applied to European intoxicants. The favourite drink of the upper classes in Abyssinia is a kind of mead, called tej, which is composed of honey mixed with water, and allowed to ferment. For ordinary drinking tej one part of honey to seven or eight of water is considered sufficient, and in this a slightly bitter herb, called geshu, which -answers in some ways to hops, is infused. A stronger quality, from which 'araki, the spirit of the country, is distilled, is manu- factured from one part of honey to three of water, with a stronger infusion of geshu. This mixture, in which the sugar is not apparent to the taste, is known as yedaraka tej, or literally dry tej.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

Two POPULAR REFRAINS (10 S. viii. 327). '" Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre " is usually considered to have been first sung about the time of the battle of Malplaquet, and to have come generally into vogue shortly after the birth of the elder son of Louis XVI., when the young Dauphin's nurse was always singing it to her charge. Brewer's ' Reader's Handbook ' and ' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ' assign it to the period of the Crusades ; the former work notes that the name appears in a Basque Pastorale, and also in the Chan- sons de Geste, and from the latter it appears that the air was known to the Egyptians and to Australian aborigines in the eighteenth century.

In Masson's anthology, ' La Lyre Fran- caise ' (in which 1709 is given as the date of ' Malbrough ' ), is printed an historical song, ' La Mort du Due de Guise,' referring probably to that duke who was assassinated .by Poltrot de Mere in 1563, beginning :

Qui veut oi'r chanson ? C'est du grand due de Guise,

Et bon, bon, bon, bon,

Di, dan, di, dan, don. C'est du grand due de Guise.

The following note is appended :

" This curious song, which we transcribe from M. Charles Nisard's ' Chansons populaires ' (vol. i. pp. 303, 304), was originally published in the 'Kecueil des Pieces inte"ressantes' of La Place <ii. 247). It is remarkably like the famous dirge on Marlborough."

R. L. MORETON.

The old French folk-song of ' Malbrouk ' has no reference to the first Duke of Marl- borough, and was known long before his time. There is some resemblance between the old tune and the airs to which the two refrains are sung, but not of such a character as to suggest that they are the same.

E. E. STREET.

The following is the arrangement, as I have heard the first " refrain," if such it may be called :

For he 's a jolly good fellow, For he 's a jolly good fellow, For he 's a jolly good fellow, Which nobody can deny !

With a hip, hip, hip, hurrah !

With a hip, hip, hip, hurrah !

Then :

With a hip, hip, hip, hurrah ! Hurrah !

So say we all of us, So say we all of us, So say we all ! With a hip, hip, hip, hurrah !

as before. The lines " So say we all," &c., are sung to ' God save the King.'

The other refrain, " We won't go home," &c., as I have always heard it, ran :

We won't go home till morning, We won't go home till morning, We won't go home till morn-a-ing,

Till daylight doth appear,

Till daylight doth appear,

Till daylight doth appear.

Then repeat the first three lines.

We '11 break th' jugs an' glasses, We 'll break th' jugs an' glasses,

An' kick th' Peelers' ,

Till daylight doth appear, Till daylight doth appear, Till daylight doth appear.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

DISSENTING PREACHERS IN THE OLD JEWRY (10 S. viii. 347). Dr. Abraham Rees, the distinguished compiler of the ' Cyclopaedia,' became minister of the Old Jewry Chapel (rebuilt 1809) in 1783. It was used by a congregation of English Presbyterians. On the occasion of the opening of the new building, 10 Dec., 1809, Dr. Rees delivered an address in which he sketched the history of the " Society " from the Act of Uniformity to the time he was then speaking. This is printed at the md of the second volume of his ' Sermons.'

Dr. Samuel Chandler, who, however, was not a Scotsman, having been born in Berkshire, was pastor of the Old Jewry " Society " from 1726 to 1766, the year of lis death, thus leaving only ten years of