Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/153

 11 S. X. AUG. 22, 1914.];

NOTES AND QUERIES.

147

Plowden : " no priest, no Mass, no violation of the law " ; and so acquittal followed.

The sign will b> found wherever Roman Catholics had any influence.

R. USSHER.

rThis sign was discussed and this explanation given so long ago as 2 S. iv. 188, 235, 299, 418.]

GUILDHALL LIBRARY : SUBJECT INDEX. The venerable traditions of the City Cor- poration are evidently no deterrent to daring new departures when the occasion seems to demand them. As an instance, readers at the Guildhall Library may have noticed the spelling of its Subject Index, wherein the recommendations of the Simplified Spelling Board are adopted throughout. This im- portant step is one worthy of record in the pages of ' N. & Q.' E. L. P.

[MB. BERNARD KETTLE, the Librarian of th e Ouildhall Library, in a letter to us, explains the matter as follows :

" The Library card subject -index is arranged according to the Dewey Decimal classification, which is an American production. It is un- doubtedly the best classification for large (or small) libraries ever yet devised, and is used all over the world.

" Its only drawback is that simplified spelling is used. There is no English edition of the work, or we should certainly use it. We are, however, most careful in repeating the headings upon the cards themselves to avoid the simplified spelling eyesores. To do the index justice, it has not ' gone the whole hog ' and adopted the new spelling throughout, but is here and there blurred with such monstrosities as egs, colums, engin, nervs, offis, delks, def, practia, and the elimination of countless e's and ph's.

" I think you will readily agree with me, that because we use the best classification, we do not therefore necessarily adopt the language in which it is explained."

We felt sure that our friends at the Guildhall Library had no intention of adopting the "new spelling."]

HENDERSON'S ' LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRE.' Is this a fictitious title ? I cannot now recall where I saw a reference to it in 1898, but I have tried hard to find out since then whether or no there was such a book pub- lished.

The following authorities have been con- u'ted in vain, viz., Catalogues of the British Museum, Bodleian Library, Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, Dublin University Library, and London Library ; Watt's ' Bib- liotheca,' 'London Catalogue of Books.' Can any one help ? W. ABBATT.

410, East 32nd Street, New York.

LOWELL'S ' FIRESIDE TRAVELS.' I should be grateful to any reader of ' N. & Q.' who could give the source of any of the following quotations. (The references are to the pages in E. V. Lucas's edition, Oxford Press) :

1. Not caring, so that sumpter-horse, the back, Be hung with gaudy trappings, in what coarse, Yea, rags most beggarly, they clothe the soul.

P. 24.

2. He needs no ships to cross the tide Who, in the lives around him, sees Fair window-prospects opening wide O'er history's fields on every side, Rome, Egypt, England, Ind, and Greece.

W T hatever moulds of various brain

E'er shaped the world to weal or woe,

Whatever empires wax and wane,

To him who hath not eyes in vain,

His village-microcosm can show. P- 26.

3. For Achilles' portrait stood a spear Grasped in an armed hand. P 41.

4. Like the fly in the heart of the apple. P. 64.

I have been unable to trace the following allusions :

5. " One of the old travellers in South America tells of fishes that built their nests in trees, and gives a print of the mother fish upon her nest, while her mate mounts perpendicularly to her without aid of legs or wings." P. 59.

6. " raised it, like the Prophet's breeches'

into a banner." P. 66.

7. " That quarrel of the Sorbonists, whether one should say ego amat or no." P. 78.

8. " Where that Thessalian spring, which, without cost to the country, convicted and punished perjurers ? " P. 119.

9. Who were Lechmere (p. 67), Esthwaite (p. 73), Capt. Spalding (p. 116), Tito (p. 135)? and where are the Half-way Rock (p. Ho) Torneo (p. 143), Passawampscot (p. 176) ?

F. A. CAVENAGH. 20, Pollux Gate, Lytham.

'ALMANACK DE GOTHA.' In the volume for 1863 a history of the 'Almanach' is given, and it is said that the issue for 1764 is the first of ths series of which that for 1863 is the hundredth. But it is also said that in 1766 the ancient 'Almanach de Gotha ' seems to have ceased to exist, and the number for 1766 would therefore appear to be more properly the first of the present series. It has continued without inter- ruption until now, except that Napoleon confiscated and burnt the edition for 1808, and had a reprint, altered to suit his tastes, substituted for it. The original issue for 1808 exists only in the few copies which escaped the holocaust.

Copies of the ' Almanach ' from its com- mencement must be very rare. I know of