Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/624

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. DEC. 23, 1907.

explain the expression " banner-cry of hell"; and perhaps Scott had them in his mind :

Then straight commands that at the warlike sound

Of trumpets loud and clarions be upreared

His mighty standard : that proud honour claimed

Azazel as his right, a cherub tall ;

Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled

The imperial ensign ; which, full high advanced,

Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind.

At which the universal host up- sent

A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

E. YARD LEY.

TWEEDLE-DTJM AND TWEEDLE-DEE (10 S.

viii. 487). I may supplement my last week's note by saying that I have since found that Thackeray has also gone wrong on this subject, for in his lecture on ' Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding,' p. 237, there is the following :

"Although Swift could not see the difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, posterity has not shared the Dean's contempt for Handel ; the world has discovered a difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum," &c.

HARRY B. POLAND.

' RINORDINE,' IRISH SONG (10 S. viii. 468). It is quite likely that this song is still sung traditionally in the British Isles. In 1001 I noted down from the singing of an old Sussex farmer two stanzas and the air, which, with a broadside version printed by Such, will be found in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. i. (part v.), p. 271. The Hon. Secretary of this Society, 84, Carlisle Mansions, Westminster, might per- haps be able to give your American corre- spondent further information concerning the song. W. PERCY MERRICK.

Elvetham, Shepperton.

ENGLISH PLAYERS IN GERMANY IN 1592 (10 S. viii. 305, 412). Any one interested in this question should read the first of Mr. W. J. Thoms's '-Three Notelets on Shakespeare.' Tieck, we learn, does not decide whether an English company referred to was composed of natives of England, or of Germans who presented translations of English plays ; but, according to Thorns, he gives one clear instance of our country- men being invited to Germany in about 1614, when John Sigmund of Brandenburg commissioned an agent to get a band of comedians from England and the Nether- lands (see p. 7). ST. SWITHIN.

There were several of the English actors in Germany, &c., who were of good repute. A full discussion of the matter would probably take up too much space in

the exhaustive treatment of the subject in Cohn's ' Shakespeare in Germany in the- Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries : an Account of the English Actors in Germany and the Netherlands,' 1865, and in the introduction to ' Die Schauspiele der englischen Komb'dianten,' by W. Creizenach (vol. xxiii. of " Deutsche National-Litter- atur "), in both of which reference is madfr to the question whether Shakespeare him- self was one of the travelling players.
 * ' N. & Q.,' but reference may be made to-

A. COLLINGWOOD LEE.

Waltham Abbey, Essex.

[L.L. K. also refers to Cohn's book.]

ERRA PATER (10 S. viii. 409). The fol- lowing extract will, I think, be of help im answering MR. WAINEWRIGHT'S questions :

" There seems to be no good reason for supposing with Dr. Z. Grey* that Wm. Lilly (1602-1681) is alluded to in this anticlimax. At any rate, the bare assertion of some modern annotators of ' Hudibras,' that such is the case, has the effect of keeping completely out of view the popular astro- logical tract, which imder the name of 'Erra Pater ' was frequently reprinted at London in the 16th and 17th centuries. A copy in the Brit. Mus. is- entitled, ' The Pronostycacion for ever of Erra

Pater: a Jewe borne in Jewery.' (Robt. Wyer),

London, [circ. 1535]. The significant addition to the name, and above all the fact that we find essen- tially the same matter ascribed to the Prophet Esdras, in old French (clxxviii. 11, St. John's Coll., Oxford ; see Coxe's ' Catalogue '), in Latin (MS. Hh. vi. 11 (11), Univ. Libr., Cambridge), and in Greek (' Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. du Roi,' xi. 2, p. 186, and Tischend., 'Apocalypses: Apocryphse,' p. xiv),f lead to the conclusion that ' Erra is a corruption from Ezra.":}: ' The Missing Fragment of the Latin Translation of the Fourth Book of Ezra,' edited by the late Prof. R. L. Bensly (Appendix, pp. 80, 81 ; Camb. Univ. Press, 1875).

Other quotations might be added to those- given by Dr. Grey, e.g., Massinger, ' The City Madam,' Act II. sc. ii. :

"Stargaze. 'Tis drawn, I assure you, from the aphorisms of the old Chaldeans, Zorpastes the first and greatest magician, Mercuriiis Trismegistus, the later Ptolemy, and the everlasting prognosticator,. old Erra Pater."

EDWARD BENSLY.

Univ. Coll., Aberystwyth.

an expression found in the ' Memoirs of the Years 49 and 50,' p. 75 (pub. in the 2nd vol. of ' The Post- humous Works' of Sam. Butler, 1715), 'O the infallibility of Erra Pater Lilly ! ' "
 * "The principal argument on which he relics is-

t " Compare especially in all these places the section which in the English begins thus : ' In the yeare that Janyuere shall enter upon the Sondaye the wynter shal be colde, and moyst.' "

+ " The same kind of astrological literature some- times appears under other distinguished names, as S. Dionysius and Ven. Bede (comp. ' Catal. de la.
 * Bibl. de Valenciennes,' par J. Mangeart, p. 684)."