Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/105

 ii s. XL JAN. so, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES,

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it is a large river with bitter water. The place in which this spring is situated he calls 'Ea//,7rcuo9. Stein in his ' Com- mentary on Herodotus ' points out that this fabulous bitter spring is presumably a mere hypothesis to account for the saltness of the stream, which is really due to the sea-water driven up by the south wind, the effect of which is still felt as high up as Nikola jev, and was probably felt still higher in antiquity. The Bug becomes broader and deeper after passing the cataracts. Pausanias (iv. 35, 12) refers to Herodotus's account.

EDWARD BENSLY. [MR. H. H. JOHNSON thanked for reply.]

A SCARBOROUGH WARNING (11 S. xi. 46). I live too near the English border to allow ST. S WITHIN' s assumption about the origin of this phrase to pass unchallenged. In Galloway we have a familiar saying, " A Skyreburn warning." It is scarcely possible that " Scarborough warning " and " Skyre- burn warning " are not variants of a common original. It is not for me to say which is the older. The problem may prove as insoluble as that which perplexed the owl in ' Keinecke Fuchs ' whether the first egg came out of the first owl, "or the first owl out of the first egg. Though the Galloway phrase is still current, the earliest literary authority I can cite for it is Andrew Symson, who was appointed minister of Kirkinner in 1663, who, in his ' Description of Galloway,' printed from the MS. in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in 1823, writes as follows :

" Skyreburn, having its rise from Cairnsmore and the adjacent northern mountains, will, even in summer-time, and in a moment almost, by reason of the mist and vapours on the hills, be so great that it will be hardly fordable, which occasioned the proverb of Skyreburn 's warning, applicable to any trouble that conies suddenly or unexpectedly."

Robert Chambers discussed the question of the priority of origin of the two forms of the saying ('Book of Days,' i. 136), and concludes :

"It is easy to conceive that this local phrase, when heard south of the Tweed, would be mistaken for Scarborough warning ; in which case it would be only too easy to imagine an origin for it connected with that Yorkshire watering-place." He says that John Heywood alludes to it in one of his ballads (to which I have not the opportunity of referring) as arising from " a summary mode of dealing with suspected thieves " at Scarborough, and he also mentions Fuller's explanation of it as con- nected with Stafford's surprise of Scar- borough Castle in 1557.

The Skyreburn is a pretty stream flowing into the Solway through Anwoth parish, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright ; and although bridges, which did not exist in Symson's day, now relieve travellers from all anxiety about fords, housewives still have to be wary of leaving their washing or other property within flood-mark.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

Monreith.

CRISPIN VAN DER BASSE'S PRINT OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS (11 S. x. 469). There may be a doubt expressed whether this print is the work of Crispin Van de Passe, and I would ask your corre- spondent to sift his evidences. In the ' Catalogue of Satires in the B.M.' the work is doubtfully ascribed to Simon de Passe (square brackets being used in giving the name), but as the print is not included in any way in D. Franken's " L'CEuvre grave des Van de Passe, decrit par D. F.," pp. xxxviii and 318, Paris, 1881, I think one may feel sceptical.

The family of Van de Passe was composed of Crispin or Crispiaen, the father ; three sons, Crispin, Simon, and William ; and two daughters, Madeleine and Martha. Of these, Crispin the elder, Simon, and William each produced some w r ork in London, Simon being by far the most prolific in England. Madeleine is not even mentioned as ever having been in London, and Martha was not interested in the art work of the family.

Of Crispin the elder Franken says : -

" Depuis cette ann^e [1594] une grande quantit^ de portraits, de planches historiques et embl&natiques [&c.], gravies par lui ou sous sa direction dans ses ateliers, parurent a Cologne et trouverent leur chemin en Hollande, en France

et en Angleterre [1634.] Pendant que Crispin

grava et publia chaque ann^e avec ses fils nombre d'estampes, ces jeunes gens, animus du nieme esprit entreprenant, s'en allaient en France, en Angleterre, en Danemark; travaillant pour des e"diteurs de Paris, Londres, &c., niais le plus souvent pour la maison de famille, et to u jours, comme on a raison de le croire, revenant a Utrecht apres une absence plus ou moins longue."

As to Simon's hand being traceable in the work of the print in question, we must remember that he was only fifteen or sixteen years old at the time of the Gunpowder Plot. Franken says of him :

" II travaillait toujours avec et chez son pere, jusqu'en 1616, car dans cette ann^e c'est & Londres que nous le rencontrons. C'est la qu'il executa pour l'e"diteur Compton Holland ces beaux portraits de seigneurs et de dames nobles, si riches d'ornements et si fins de gravure. En 1619, peut-etre de passage en Hollande.... qu'avant 1623 il a visits son frere Crispin a Paris