Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/265

 ii s. L MAR. 26, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

fashion that the author was, or had lately been on business in Upper Canada. When we remember that the Blackwood group com- prised only a limited number of contributors, and that among them all there is but one, so far as we know, who satisfies the required conditions of authorship, the conclusion to my mind seems irresistible that Lockhart had no other than John Gait in view. Readers who are cognizant of the peculiar position held by Gait while in Upper Canada will be at no loss to understand why his name is not directly mentioned as the author of ' The Canadian Boat Song.'

WALTER SCOTT.

John Gait has been suggested as the author of this song. I am a descendant of Gait's, and I know his life and his character well. He had great gifts, and his work as a Canadian pioneer has never * been justly recognized. But he was a typical Lowland Scot whose sympathies were all diametrically anti-Celtic and anti-Highland. He could no more have written that poem than he could have written Ossian, as Macpherson did. His whole tone of mind was opposed to the spirit of the thing. If Lockhart was not the sole author if he touched up some- thing by somebody else that Somebody else was probably Mrs. Grant of Loggan.

W. Mum.

79, Coleman Street, E.C.

" MORAL POCKETHANDKERCHIEFS n (US. i. 146, 196). I remember buying one of t hcse in Liverpool as a child in 1861. It con- tained a picture of two navvies, a drunken l versation on the subject of total abstinence. On showing it at home I was told that it was "vulgar." J. WILLCOCK.
 * and a sober one, and recorded their con-

Lerwick.

CHILDREN WITH THE SAME CHRISTIAN NAME (10 S. xii. 365; 11 S. i. 35, 79, 112, 157). With reference to the remarks of MR. STAPLETON, ante, p. 112, I have to confess to having wandered in my reply from the point of the original note without making the circumstance apparent. Although the contrary would appear to be the case from my communication at the second reference, it is not my impression that so unpractical ( 'hristian name upon two (or more) sur- viving children of the same parents was con- tinued to Dr. Samuel Freeman's time. What I was in reality seeking to illustrate was the insistence which sundry persons have displayed in naming each successive
 * i custom as that of bestowing an individual

child of their issue with a name which might fairly be said to have " proved fatal " to the child's elder - brothers (or sisters, as the case might be). Although registered extracts to that effect are not contained in my notes at present, I regard it as certain that each of the two elder sons of Dr. Freeman had deceased prior to the christening of the next in line. I realize that I am not without blame for failing to make this clear when writing formerly. WILLIAM McMuRRAY.

Amongst the instances quoted of children of the same family bearing one and the same Christian name, I do not think the following passage from Gibbon's ' Autobiography * has been noted :

"So feeble was my constitution, so precarious my life, that, in the baptism of each of my brothers, my father's prudence successively repeated my Christian name of Edward, that, in case of the departure of the eldest son, this patronymic appel- lation might be still perpetuated in the family.

Gibbon was the eldest of six sons.

T. M. W.

" CUCKOOS TO CLEAR THE MUD AWAY '*

(11 S. i. 208). " When the cuckoo picks up the mud, ?i which is another form of the proverb given by Hazlitt, is not until April, or, to be more precise, supposedly the 14th or 15th of that month.

Probably further information would be found in Swainson's ' Folk-Lore of Birds,*

1885. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

" SPINNEY " (11 S. i. 145). There is something to be said in favour of the Latin origin of this word. Even if the word cannot be found in literature before 1228 A.D., it must not be taken as proved that the word was not in use in this country before that date or before the arrival of the Normans. During the civil and military administration of Britain by the Romans, lasting about 400 years, a large number of Latin words were incorporated into the British language ; it was inevitable, just in the same way as during the past 300 years a number of English words have been incorporated into the languages of India. I need only mention one such word: " pont n is quite common even now in Welsh names of places ; and no one, I suppose, will seriously contend that it is not of Roman origin. The chief argument in favour of the word "spinney 3 * being of similar origin is that it lingers in the West, whither the British inhabitants were driven. The old dictionary-makers treated it as a provincial colloquialism, and did not mention it. FRANK PENNY.