Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/451

 ii s. XL JUNK s, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

441

that the Matins of Kaster Day begins any- where earlier than midnight. It begins with the priest proclaiming " Christ is rism from the dead," and is followed by the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. When the Vigil Mass did not end till midnight, the Easter*morning service began later, as, for instance, at dawn ; and it is by no means at every church that it begins at midnight even now. At Bays- water it is not till 10.45 A.M., and if the writer referred to by ST. SWITHIN knew of one church at St. Petersburg where it began at midnight, another where it began at dawn, and a third where it began during the morn- ing, it is easy to conceive how he drew the erroneous conclusion that the Russian Church orders three Masses on Easter Day. In the Eastern Church the Gospel for Easter Eve is the whole of Matthew xxviii., but in the 13.om.an Church only a few verses a.re read. On Easter Day the Roman Church reads a. portion of Mark xvi., and the Eastern a portion of John i. ; in fact, the whole of the Anglican Gospel for Christmas Day with .two verses added. W. A. FROST.

MYRIORAMA (11 S. xi. 361). I seem to have one of these, although I did not know anything about it till I read the query at the above reference. It was given to me long ago. The series of pictures are on sixteen oblong cards, or rather on discoloured paper "backed with linen. They measure 7 in. high by 2| in. wide. The designs are lithographed in black ink. The art seems to be what was known as landscape eighty or one hundred years ago.

Each of the little pictures is complete in itself, but the picture can be extended in width by the addition of other cards, either to the right or left of the one first laid down ; certain nearly horizontal lines carry the eye from one picture into the next one.

The subjects might be English landscapes. There are foreground trees, rather bare ; distant trees, and hills, one of these like St. Michael's Mount ; some water (in most) ; Gothic ruins ; castles, cottages, and rivers. There are some few foreground figures peasants at work, a man driving sheep, children at play, some boys in a boat, &c.

On one card there is the drawing of a tall round tower with a rounded top, which might have been a beacon or landmark ; I think I have seen it before. Most of the pictures seem to be by some artist or draughtsman who was clever at the compo jsition of pictures. \y. H. PATTERSON.

Belfast.

CREAM-COLOURED HORSES (US. xi. 361). The white horse has appeared on the crest of the Dukes of Brunswick-Liineburg since the fourteenth century. It is commonly con- sidered as an emblem of the Lower-Saxons (Niedersachsen) from Westphalia to the Elbe, hence its usual German appel ationof Sachsen- ross. The cream-coloured horses have been bred near Hanover since the seventeenth century. In the early nineties there were still six of them at Herrenhausen, the summer palace of the Georges, near Hanover ; but the Prussian Government was not interested in keeping up the breed, and the last one died, aged 28, I believe, about ten years ago. I understand that the peculiarity of this breed is that the foals are born white, while the ordinary white horse starts life as a bay. D. L. GALBREATH.

74, Grand' Rue, Montreux.

OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM : STANDARD VERSION (US. xi. 248, 307. See ibid., 68, 113, 197). The words given by ST. SWITHIN, ante, p. 307, agree exactly with those in Grove's ' Dictionary of Music and Musicians,' edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1913, vol. ii. p. 188, though the stops and capital letters are not always the same. Whoever may have been the author and composer, and whatever may be its original date, I think that the earliest version now available is that in The Gentleman's Maga- zine, October, 1745, vol. xv. p. 552, where it is headed " A Song for two Voices. As sung at both Playhouses." It is almost the same as that in Grove's dictionary.

To have the 1745 version, for line 1 read :

God save great George our king. Lines 13, 14,

On him our hopes we fix,

save us all. Line 16,

On George be pleas'd to pour. Line 20,

To say with heart and voice. Why " With heart and voice to sing " ought to be " restored " in place of "To sing with heart and voice," as suggested by DR. CUMMINGS, is not clear. In the first and second stanzas there are triplets ending with " victorious," " glorious," " over us," aid "politics," "tricks," "fix."

It would follow that there should be a triplet in the third stanza. Of course " voice " rhymes very badly with " laws " and "cause," but "sing" would be far worse ; it would destroy the triplet.

There have been som,3 attempts a.t better versification for the National Anthem.