Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/492

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. DEC. 19, wu.

A second edition followed : " Travels through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Sicily. Translated from the German of Frederic Leopold, Count Stolberg, by Thomas Holcroft in four volumes. The second edition. London : Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster - Row. MDCCXCVII." Octavo. L 17-|- 1-^27; II., 11+1-452; III., 11 + 1-537; IV., 8 + 1-591 pp.

J. D. Beuss, ' Register of Living Authors,' Berlin, 1804 (1: 491), lists the two -volume edition of 1796, omits mention of the 1797 edition, but records " A new edition. Vol. 1-4, 1802." I have not yet located a previous appearance of this work in French 'neither QueYard nor Larousse listed any, nor is there any in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris; .so we may tentatively place this as Holcroft's earliest translation from the German, the edition of which was " Konigs- berg and Leipzig, 1794." Cf. Monthly Review, August, 1797 (23: 371), commenting on the first edition.

In the March, 1805, issue of The Glasgow Repository of Literature (Mitchell Library), pp. 195-7, is an extract :

politans. From Travels through Germany, &c. Translated from the German of Frederick Leopold, Count Stolberg, by T. Holcroft."
 * ' Characteristic Anecdotes of the Modern Nea-

ELBRIDGE COLBY. Columbia University, New York City.

(To be. continued.)

ST. THOMAS'S DAY. A little Belgian friend one of the many new friends that English people have been making within the last months amused us on St. Nicholas's Day by an account of the ceremonies proper to that festival observed in his household. He told of the little baskets set out in the drawing-room overnight, filled with carrots, turnips, and other delicacies for the con- sumption of the good saint's ass, and which would be found in the morning miraculously charged with presents ; and then he went on to relate, with immense gusto, the pranks every one plays on St. Thomas's Day. The game is to lock some one up in a room and not let him out till he has promised to t*ive you all you ask for. Thus the boys at school lock up the master, and extort' good marks from him ; and the master, if he can manage it, locks up the boys. This may, however, if he is not sharp, give him an anxious quarter of an hour : for example, our vivacious friend told us how his class was once locked into a room having a balcony to its window, from which, by a dangerous

leap, the balcony of another room could be reached. A handful of the bolder boys, himself among them, dared the leap, Lot through the house to the locked door, arid released their companions. Our hero, how- ever, found his own father too much for him at this sport, for, being .locked into a room on the entresol of the house, he let himself down from the window by his hands, and dropped to the ground. The maids of a house are also liable to be played this trick, and are compelled to ransom themselves with promises of caramels or other sweets.

One interesting point about the custom is the fact that the interest taken in it is still so lively, and so tolerant of inconvenience ; another is its kinship with " barring-out " customs. Ana I right in thinking that it belongs to St. Thomas's Day, in allusion, first, to the doors that were locked where the disciples were assembled together, and. secondly, to the persistence of St. Thomas's demand for evidence ? PEKEGBINUS.

CHRISTMAS TBEES. If I am not mistaken, the late Prince Consort Albert is generally credited with having introduced into this country the custom of erecting Christmas trees for the youngsters. I have come across the following note in Alf. John Kempe's ' The Loseley Manuscripts ' (London, 1836) :

" We remember a German of the household of the late Queen Caroline making what he termed a Christmas tree for a juvenile party at that festive season."

According to the description given, how- ever, the tree in question was merely a painted or decorated board with real branches or twigs added, and not a Christmas tree as we know it. L. L. K.

PICTURES BELONGING TO EARL OF LEICES- TER : INVENTORY, 1677. The following list of pictures occurs in an

" Inventory of the goods and chattels of Robert, Earl of Leycester, late of Penschurst, in the County of Kent, deceased, in and about the mansion place called Leycester House, in the parish of St. Martyn in the Fields in the County of Middlesex,"

taken 14 Nov., 1677 :

" A picture of an Angell a sleepe, in a guilt carved frame ; Picture of a Gentleman's head paynted upon board ; the picture of Algernon, late Earle of Northumberland, in a guilt carved frame ; the picture of the Countess of Sunder- land, in a guilt carved frame ; the picture of the Lady Lisle, in a guilt carved frame ; the picture of Henry Sydney Esqr, when he was a child, in a guilt carved frame ; a peice of frutridge, in a guilt carved frame; the story of Hagar, in a guilt carved frame ; a Landskipp of Shipps, in a black frame ;