Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/95

 10 s. VIIL JULY 27, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

77

dated 1868. The publication of such docu- ments is of course illegal since the Ballot Act. F. W. READ.

TVER, BUCKS : GALLYHILL (10 S. vi. 450 ; vii. 292). There is a Galleywood (near Chelmsford) which is peculiar, having a church on the common, with a race-course round the church. The latter is not old, the parish being formed out of neighbouring ones. R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

H IN SHROPSHIRE AND WORCESTERSHIRE <(10 S. vii. 166). There is among my notes a fuller version of the stanzas at the above reference :

Appeal of the Letter H to the People of Shrewsbury, Wheras by you I have been driven From house, from home, from hope, from heaven, And placed by your most learn'd society In ills, in anguish and anxiety, And charged without one just pretence With avarice and impudence, I here demand full restitution, And beg you '11 mend your elocution.

Reply of the Inhabitants to the Letter H.

Whereas we rescued you, ingrate !

From hunger, havoc, and from hate,

From horsepond, hanging, and from halter,

And consecrated you in altar,

^.nd placed you where you 'd never be

In honour and in honesty,

We deem your protest an intrusion,

And will not mend our elocution.

I regret that I have failed to note my authority for this version. I consider, how- ever, that the second line of the first stanza is an improvement on both the versions that of MR. RELTON, and that of MR. BOUCHIER at 5 S. v. 64 ; for it has the cumulative effect of the latter, and is strengthened by the iteration of the preposi- tion as in the former version.

If lines 5 and 6 of both appeal and reply be interpolations, I venture to claim merit for the latter pair. J. H. K.

In the reply to the letter H as quoted both by MR. RELTON and by MR. BOUCHIER there is omitted one couplet which I have always heard introduced, and which seems par- ticularly appropriate. It should come, I think, after " hate " or " altar," and is as follows :

And placed thee where thou shouldst not be,

In honour and in honesty.

J. FOSTER PALMER.

8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU (10 S. vii. 326). I have no intention of going into the ques- tion of the quarrel between these two great

men, but simply call attention to what I consider a misstatement in ' Madame Tussaud's Memoirs,' respecting the last months of Voltaire's life. It is said that he frequented M. Curtius's rooms, and joined in the literary discussions which took place there, and that Rousseau complained that ideas he advanced at M. Curtius's table were taken up by Voltaire, and reproduced by him as his own in his next publication.

It is a well-known fact that Voltaire yearned for Paris, and that he exhausted all the influence at his command to obtain leave to return to his native land ; but Louis XV. was inflexible on this point. After the death of this monarch, he applied again for the desired permission, and at last succeeded ; but it was not before the beginning of Febru- ary, 1778, that he left Geneva for Paris. Shortly after his arrival he fell seriously ill, but recovered sufficiently to be present on 16 March at the representation of his ' Irene,' when he was crowned in his box amidst the greatest enthusiasm. On 20 May follow- ing he was again seized by his old malady, and died on the 30th of the same month. Four months of life was all that remained to the octogenarian when he left Geneva, and there is no record of any work pub- lished by him during that brief period.

If F. H. feels interest in the lives of these remarkable men of letters, I have great pleasure in recommending him ' Voltaire et J. J. Rousseau,' par Gaston Maugras and ' La Vie intime de Voltaire,' par Lucien Perey et Gaston Maugras (Paris, Calmann- Levy). M. M.

Costa-Rica.

" BREESE " IN ' HUDIBRAS ' (10 S. vii. 446, 515). Bradley-Stratmann's diet, gives O.E. brimse against the Mid. Eng. word ; but reference should be made to the account of its inception, by Prof. A. S. Napier, in Transactions of the Philological Society, 1905-6, p. 354. It appears that in the Leiden Glossary, s.v. tabamisbriusa, the Eng. word had been altered by a later (and probably O.H. Ger.) scribe to read brimisa.

H. P. L.

My note on " breese " was not an ety- mological one, and brimsa was merely intro- duced en passant as helping to define the word as distinct from " breeze." I took the A.-S. form from the best dictionary that was near at hand, Prof. Skeat's large ' Ety- mological Dictionary.' In his Appendix he agrees with Leo in closely identifying briosa with brimsa, which MR. MAYHEW says is non-existent. Kluge and Lutz in