Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/101

 ii s. i. JA*. 29, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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remembered that the Rev. Robert Simpson's assertion applies to a period full sixty years ago. Conditions have greatly altered within recent years. Covenanting literature is not now regarded as a treasure, as it was in Simpson's time. It is matter for regret that the spirit which animated the ' Sanquhar Declaration ' is no longer held in the same esteem as formerly, even in districts once avowedly Covenanting.

C.'s allusion to Williamson seems to imply fchat he has in view, not only unpublished Covenanting MSS., but also such as have already found their way into print. If this be so, I would venture to recommend him, to consult Johnston's ' Treasury of the Scottish Covenant, 1 Edinburgh, 1887, in which he will find a tolerably complete list of tho writings of Covenanters, banished and otherwise. It probably includes all Cove- nanting literature that is worth the knowing. At the same time Wodrow's ' History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland ' and Howie's * Scots Worthies ' will afford not a few details in the line of his query.

W. SCOTT. Stirling.

" TALLY-HO " (11 S. i. 48). As I ventured to suggest in a recently published volume, " tally-ho " is probably merely a contraction of the old Anglo-Norman cry of " Dans le taillis en haut " (" Up in the brushwood"). I cannot for a moment believe that the French cry of " tai'aut u was derived from our English " tally-ho." RALPH NEVILL.

Some years ago a falconer told me that the word in question was derived from " est alle en haut,' 1 as applied to a quarry which has taken an upward flight. E.G.

The refrain of the fourth verse of the cele- brated old hunting song " A southerly wind and a cloudy sky n runs thus :

Tally-ho ! tally-ho there ! across the green plain ! Tally-ho ! tally-ho, boys ! have at him again !

When was this song written ?

TOM JONES.

MICHAEL MAITTAIBE (11 S. i. 30). The day of Maittaire's birth is supplied by his ' Senilia ' (London, 1742), that volume of Latin verse, the title of which may be familiar to the English reader through Johnson's criticism and Macaulay's essay on Croker's * Boswell.' On p. 105 are some lines headed " In meum Natalem, 29 Nov.' 1 EDWARD BENSLY.

" THIS WORLD'S A CITY FULL OF CROOKED STREETS" (11 S. i. 49). At 9 S. iii. 192 PROF. SKEAT showed that the first two lines of this epitaph must have been taken from the anonymous play of ' The Two Noble Kins- men ' (Act. I. sc. v.). The editorial note to MR. CLEMENT SHORTER' s query gives the source of the remaining lines, so when the reference in Gay has been supplied, the whole of the epitaph will have been identified.

I have been for some years greatly interested in this epitaph, and have collected cases of its occurrence in different parts of the country. It is contained On one of the group of gravestones connected with the Banbury family in the churchyard here which Sir Frederick Banbury caused to be restored in August, 1908. The stone bears date 1775, and the lines are :

This World a City full of Crooked Streets Death is the Market place where all Men meet If Lite was Merchandise that Men could bye The Rich would all ways Live the poor must die.

I have references with slight variants of this epitaph as occurring at Stanwick and Ecton, Northamptonshire ; St. Michael's, Liverpool ; Chingford, Essex ; Polling, Sussex ; Elgin ; Milton, Kent ; Bengeo and Hatfield, Herts ; Chard, Somerset ; Stoke, Surrey ; White Ladies, Hants ; Hickling, Notts.

See also 9 S. iii. 53, 191, 192, 415.

JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

The first two lines of this quatrain occur in ' The Two Noble Kinsmen,' I. v. 15, 16, in the following form :

This world's a city full of straying streets, And death's the market-place, where each one meets.

In the edition of this play published by the New Shakspere Society some instances are given, in a note on this passage (p. 131), of the use of the lines as an epitaph ; and the editor also quotes a fuller version from an ancient poem entitled ' The Messenger of Mortality, 1 printed in ' Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, 1 edited by R. Bell, 1857.

M. A. M. MACALISTER. Cambridge.

Misquoted from the last two lines of Act I. of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen, l by Fletcher and another. Possibly suggested by lines in Chaucer's ' Knight's Tale,' A. 2487 :

This world nis but a thurghfare ful of wo, &c. WALTER W. SKEAT.