Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/523

 ii s. i. JUNE 25, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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buffoy, faisoient grans despens en leur mengier, mais de lui estoit encores petit renom tenuz. Richard avoit alors 29 (? 23) ans.' MS. du Chevalier errant. Bibl. du Koi."

JOHN HODGKIN.

ARABIAN HORSES IN PRE -MOHAMMED AN DAYS (11 S. i. 421). Most scholars are agreed that the pre -Islamic element in the romance of ' Antarah l is spurious, but we have sufficient evidence in the 'Moallakat' that horses were not counted rare by the Arabs of the Time of Ignorance. In the first of these odes 11. 54-71 (Capt. Johnson's text) is a magnificent description of a charger. War horses and armour are men- tioned in the fifth and sixth odes ; in the latter the breeding of mares also is mentioned. Lebid's ode the fourth devotes a few lines to the description of a mare. On p. 65 of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's .spirited transla- tion of the 'Moallakat* there is a note worth quoting :

" Lo the mares we bestride..,.. .are not these the inheritance of our fathers? This passage is of great interest as showing the tradition already existing in Arabia in pagan times of the great antiquity there of the horse, and may be cited in answer to those moderns who hold the horse to have been introduced into Arabia at a compara- tively late date. Pie"trement, though not the originator of the new heresy, is its principal exponent. According to him the Bedouins of Nejd obtained their first horses from the kings of Hira and Ghassan ; but it is surely incredible that, had such been the case, 'Amr ibn Kolthiim, while pleading before a king of Hira, should have indulged in a boast such as stands in the text. Nothing is clearer from the Poetry of the Ignorance than that the Arab idea about their horses, as an indigenous possession, was pre- cisely in their day what it now is in ours. The mention, too, which is so frequent of mares being used in their wars, may be contrasted with a common assertion that in ancient Arabia horses only were used. What is probable is that in the days when armour was more commonly used than now, the armoured chiefs rode stallions in battle as being more powerful weight-carriers. On their long expeditions, however, it is clear that mares were preferred for the same reasons that they are now."

ALEX. RUSSELL. Stromness, Orkney.

' WATERLOO BANQUET ' : ' THE NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS ' : KEYS WANTED (US. i. 408). It was usual for art publishers when bringing out engravings of popular paintings, in which a number of figures were included, to issue keys along with them. Such keys were no doubt published by F. G. Moon and R. Turner for the use of purchasers. As, however, the names of Moon and Turner are no longer included among lists of publishers, it is impossible

to say where keys can now be obtained. Perhaps advertising for them might elicit a response.

In The Art Journal for 1868 ' The Noble Army of Martyrs * is described in some detail. It was painted by T. Jones Barker, a well -known artist of last century, and exhibited in public before being engraved. Upwards of sixty figures are said to be included in the painting. Of these more than twenty are named in The Art Journal notice. W. S. S.

MR. AGNEW ON THE HUGUENOTS (11 S. i. 448). The Rev. David C. A. Agnew, of the Free Church Manse, Wigtown, N.B., pub- lished in 1866 two volumes of a work entitled ' Protestant Exiles from France in the Reign of Louis XIV. ; or, The Huguenot Refugees and their Descendants in Great Britain and Ireland.* I cannot think the price was any- thing like 10Z. And in 1871 Mr. Agnew published a new and remodelled edition, also in two volumes, which I procured at a cost, I think, of 30s., followed in 1874 by an Index volume, which, besides being an index to the two previous volumes, contained much additional and supplemental information.

There is a mass of valuable information in these three volumes, principally relating to the Huguenot refugees to this country during the reign of Louis XIV., and more particularly to those who in some way dis- tinguished themselves above their fellows in the Army, Navy, Church, Parliament, at the Bar, the Universities, and in the Civil Service, but the information is badly ar- ranged, and in parts very diffuse and scattered over the volumes.

At p. 156 in vol. i. in his account of De Ruvigny, Earl of Galway, he mentions that by the permission of the Duke of Savoy the Earl assembled a Protestant Synod at Vegliano to discuss the reformation of the morals of the soldiers, and that Durant (Durand in the Index), Chaplain of Aubus- sargues's Regiment one of the six Refugee Regiments was President of this Synod. At pp. 87-8 of vol. ii. there is a long account of the Rev. David Durand (son of Pasteur Jean Durand of Montpellier), who was born at Sommieres in 1680, and died in England in 1763. He was appointed chaplain of a French Refugee Corps in Dutch pay, and followed the regiment to Spain, where he was captured by the Duke of Berwick. In 1711 he came to London, where he spent the remainder of his life as minister of the French Church, first in Martin's Lane and latterly in the Savoy. He was also a F.R.S.