Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/89

 ii s. i. JAN. 29, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

81

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 1910.

CONTENTS. No. 5.

NOTES: 'The Canadian Boat Song, 1 81 'The Book of Oaths,' 82 Bibliography of Manners, 84 Royal Manners temp. William IV. Manners in the Eighteenth Century Osbaldistone, 85 General Ireton's Death "Function" T. L. Peacock's ' Essay on Fashionable Literature ' Families Dying Out, 86.

"QUERIES: "Tally" Verdant Green Warly Letters "Standing for Parliament "Master Stephen and his Hawk Sir Henry Audley Battle of Mohacs Columbine Flower Fishwick of Islington, 87 Authors Wanted Nosegay in the Pulpit Miss Abbott's Portrait London Visitations De Quincey and Dreams "Le Whacok" "Altes Haus" Cowes, 88 Place de la Concorde Mohammed and the Mountain "Old Lady of Thread- needle Street " Lyon's Inn Dr. T. Bray, 89.

REPLIES : Watson's ' History of Printing'' Short Whist,' 90 King's Place -Three CCC Court Authors Wanted Banished Covenanters, 92 "Tally-ho" Michael Mait- taire "This world's a city," &c., 93 Dun Y "W T hen our Lord shall lie." &c.-Diss-Sir R. Geffery, 94-Med- menham Abbey, 95 Walsh Surname Lady Worsley American Words : " Franklin," 96 St. Margaret's, West- minster Selby Peculiar Court " Whelps," 97 Brooke of Cobham Rev. R. Snowe Dr. J. Bradley, 98 "Culprit," 99.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Burke's Peerage and Baronetage ' 'Anna van Schurman'' Who's Who' and Year-Book Writers' Year-Book.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

'THE CANADIAN BOAT SONG. 1

' THE CANADIAN BOAT SONG l was discussed in the columns of ' N. & Q.' some seven or <eight years ago. If I remember aright, no very definite conclusion as to the authorship was then arrived at. The subject has since been revived through the publication of Mr. G. M. Eraser's ' The Lone Shieling,' reviewed in ' N. & Q.' on 11 December last (10 S. xii. 478). Perhaps I may be permitted to add a few words to the discussion.

The claim in favour of Wilson is by no means novel, but Mr. Fraser has developed it on lines never attempted before. That he has established his theory of the Wilson authorship I am not at all prepared to admit. His argument is based almost entirely on similarities in style and diction between * The Canadian Boat Song * and Wilson's pub- lished poems. This, I venture to submit, is much too slender a foundation on which to build. Such similarities or imitations are no satisfactory proof of authorship. As corroborative evidence, confirming con- clusions arrived at on other premises, they have, no doubt, their value. But when a considerable body of evidence, pointing in

a different direction, can be adduced against them, literary similarities do not go far to establish an author's identity.

Permit me to state briefly the conclusions already reached with regard to the author- ship. I do not quote authorities or develope arguments, but content myself with simply cataloguing the facts which, I think, have been satisfactorily established in the course of discussion.

' The Canadian Boat Song ' first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in September, 1829. The September issue of the magazine No. XLVI. was edited by John Gibson Lockhart. The MS. of ' The Canadian Boat Song * is still in existence, and is in Lockhart's handwriting. Wilson never claimed to be the author. Neither did Lockhart. The latter states that he re- ceived the verses " from a friend of mine now in Upper Canada. 5i That friend was a contributor to BlackwoocTs Magazine. So far as can now be ascertained, the only contributor to Blackwood to whom Lock- hart's description will apply was John Gait. It would therefore appear, on the face of it, that Gait sent to Lockhart, for insertion in the magazine, the first rough draft of what is now known as ' The Canadian Boat Song.' But Gait's authorship has been strenuously denied, and here I break away from fairly settled fact into the domain of inference.

1. It is objected that Gait was incapable of achieving a supreme tour de force like * The Canadian Boat Song.' Now this is unfair to Gait. ' The Canadian Boat Song * is no supreme tour de force. With the exception of one " haunting verse " to borrow Sir Henry Lucy's happy phrase in The Cornhill for last December the greater part of it does not rise much above mediocrity. There are scores of minor poets, with not one tithe of Gait's ability, who could write as good verses as most of those found in the received version of the song. Gait pub- lished three, if not four volumes of verse, more than double that number of plays, and almost innumerable contributions in verse to magazines and newspapers. True, his poems are now entirely forgotten. Only a few scraps here and there survive. Yet he could write tolerable verse. Witness the lines given in his * Autobiography, 1 written when he was old, paralyzed, and nearing the end of his days the lines beginning,

Helpless, forgotten, sad, and lame, On one lone seat the livelong day,

I muse of youth and dreams of fame, And hopes and wishes all away.