Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/320

 312

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii a. i. APR. ie,

1910.

" New York, April 23, 1829," in which the writer says : ' ' My friend Mr. Gait will embark to-morrow for England. '* This fixes the date of Gait's leaving America, to which he never returned. The dates are not given of the earliest letters written by Gait from London, to be found at these references, the first recorded date being " 14 July, 1829 n ; but the contents of this letter show that he must then have been in London some weeks. It seems safe to say that he had been there certainly since early June. As some of the letters were to Mr. Blackwood, Lockhart must have known of Gait's whereabouts ; but, on the other hand, since Gait then expected to return soon to Canada, making the English visit a mere interlude, Lockhart, for literary purposes, might truthfully speak of him as * ' a friend now in Canada/'

I may here refer to an argument against Mr. Fraser's claim for Wilson's authorship upon the basis of literary similarities that was brought forward by a Toronto correspondent of a New York paper when this question was being discussed. He took up the phrase "hoary woods," which Mr. Fraser thinks points so strongly to Wilson, and com- mented that no one could see on the shores of Canadian lakes and rivers the many groves of hemlocks draped with grey moss without at once finding "hoary" their best descriptive word, and this sight was familiar to Gait, but not to Wilson.

M. C. L.

New York.

As is well urged by MR. Mum at the last reference, the likelihood is that Gait had no more to do with the conception of the piece than any other Canadian resident of his day. The suggestion that Mrs. Grant of Laggan may have given the inspiration is not without a measure of plausibility, although, of course, even her stimulus is not an indis- pensable factor in the case. As has already been indicated, those responsible for the utterances of Christopher North had within themselves many resources on which they were never reluctant to draw. These were amply sufficient to supply them with all that is given in ' The Canadian Boat Song.*

The assertion that Lockhart was severely earnest throughout the number of the ' Noctes ' that includes the lyric receives droll illustration in what is averred as to his editorial methods. John Gait, it would appear, wearily sighing afar over Highland woes, sends him an apposite song, which he

forthwith subjects to wholesale alteration. His earnestness should have prompted respect for his contributor's gifts, but we are assured that, instead of giving the considera- tion that might have been expected in the circumstances, he not only intrudes into the stanzas on his own account, but also with artful cunning imparts ' ' a flavour of Prof. Wilson." The interesting amalgam, thus ingeniously compounded of Gait plus Lock- hart plus Wilson, is then submitted to the readers of Blackwood ; and these, it is now assumed, should have had no difficulty in concluding that the lyric as it stood bore the unequivocal impress of Gait. In his deliberate and complex manipulation Lock- hart, it would seem, ' ' had no mystification in view. On the contrary," we are specially asked to note, ' ' he was taking peculiar pains to indicate who the author was.'* This reasoning is hard to follow. If it has a logical outcome at all, it is that the versatile and dexterous editor, whose flights in versify- ing were familiar to his readers, expected that the credit for the production would be given to himself. This, in the total lack of evidence on the point, is a view that may be reasonably taken. THOMAS BAYNE.

[New facts bearing on the discussion are welcome, but theorizing has, we think, now proceeded far enough.]

NOTTINGHAM EARTHENWARE TOMBSTONE (11 S. i. 189, 255). In thanking MR. B. D. MOSELEY for his kind reply to my query, I very willingly submit herewith the particu- lars for which he asks, having only withheld them originally from a desire to say as little as possible about matters not likely to be of general interest.

Not long ago, I had the headstone bared to the bottom for this very purpose of securing exact dimensions, &c. Its full length is 3 ft. 10 in., and its exact breadth 1 ft. 11 in.. the thickness varying from 3 in. to 4 in. at opposite edges. It will thus be seen that it is no diminutive substitute for a tomb- stone. The following further details are from a description written by another student upwards of a dozen years ago :

"It is of white or buff -coloured clay or terra- cotta ; i.e., pipe or potter's clay intermixed witl fine sand. The face is divided by a perpendicular incised line into two parts, to commemorate two children, each half being rounded at the top. A horizontal incised springing line is cut across the two heads, and the tympani thus formed are enriched with cherubims, impressed in low reli As may reasonably be supposed, from what we know of the figure subjects produced at the old Nottingham potteries, it is not of a high order