Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/292

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. m. APRIL 15, 1911.

than would the colossal figure which was of late proposed to be erected at the entrance of the Park."

Siborn's model went to the Egyptian Hall the same year. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

BURNS AND THE " WEE WEE GERMAN

LAIRDIE." In a recently published miscel- lany entitled ' From a Northern Window ' one of the articles included is a revised lecture on Robert Burns by the late " Ian MacLaren." Speaking of the poet's Jacobit- ism, the lecturer says it " appears in some of his most agreeable poems, such as ' Wha hae we gotten for a king, but a wee bit German lairdie,' " &c. The quotation, it may be remarked in the, first place, is not accurate, for the song opens strenuously thus :

Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king But a wee wee German lairdie '

Secondly, there is every reason to believe that this vivacious illustration of the Jacobite spirit was produced immediately after the accession of George I., and there is nothing to show that it is among the earlier lyrics that were glorified by the revision of Burns. Had it been one of the favoured group, it would almost certainly have appeared in Johnson's ' Musical Museum,' and as it is not there, it may safely be con- cluded that the poet did not give it the benefit of his renovation.

The earliest kno\vn version appears to be that which Cromek published in 1810 in his ' Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song.' In 1 8 1 9 Hogg utilized this, with some additions, in his ' Jacobite Relics,' and he is duly followed, with the exercise of editorial prerogative, by Allan Cunningham, Robert Chambers, and other capable anthologists. None of these experts associates Burns either with the original lyric or with any of the additions and emendations whi^h they admit into the text. THOMAS BAYNE.

EXPEDITION TO IRELAND, 1571 : CAPT. THOMAS SMITH. From ' The Rise and Pro- gress of Liverpool, 1551-1835,' now being published by James Touzeau, I am enabled to supplement my communication at 10 S. ix. 334. The facts are taken from the records of Liverpool.

1571. " This yere this towne was very well vexed & trowbled by Capteyn Smyth and Capten Willm Clayton & the Soldears before they say led for Irlond."

On 22 May, 1573, the Mayor of Liverpool certified to the Privy Council of the trouble of Thomas Wynstandley, sustained at

arrickfergus in the North of Ireland by Thomas Smith, the captain that sailed from Liverpool thither, and William Clayton, a captain with him, which certificate was sent on to London.

A note inserted in the records asserts that this Capt. Smith flourished in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I., and was a man of wonderful adventures and travels, [n the war in Hungary in 1602 he is said to lave overcome three Turks successively in single combat and to have cut off their leads, for which exploit Sigismund (a Hun- garian duke) gave him his picture set in gold. He afterwards went to America, where he was taken prisoner by the Indians, from whom he found means to escape. He was a Lincolnshire man, and died in 1631.

J. H. K.

[The annotator of the records has attributed to Capt. Thomas Smith the feats of the celebrated Capt. John Smith, who, according to the ' D.N.B.,' was not born till 1580.]

" BURGLING." The earliest illustrative quotation for burgling given in ' N.E.D.' is from The Daily News of 28 October, 1880 ; but surely the word was brought into common use by Sir W. S. Gilbert in his comic opera ' The Pirates cf Penzance,' produced at the old Opera Comique on 3 April of that year. No one who heard Mr. Rutland Barrington ' as the Sergeant of Police sing his plaintive lament that

When constabulary duty's to be done The policeman's lot is not a happy one,

can help recalling the sympathetic reference to the period

When the enterprising burglar 's not a-burgling, When the cut-throat is not occupied in crime,

He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling, And listen to the merry village chime.

As books of the words were procurable in the theatre on the evening of production, there is no doubt as to this date for the word burgling appearing in print. PLAYGOER. O.P. Club, Adelphi, W.C.

THE FIRST RHINOCEROS IN ENGLAND. In The Post Boy for 17-21 April, 1711, appeared the following advertisement:

" The Skin and Skeleton of a Rhinoceros, exactly anatomi'/'d and put together (being tin- only one that was ever brought into, or seen in England), now lying at Mr. Thomas Evans's, a Shipwright, near Cuckold's Point in Rotherhitb, is to be sold or let out to be shown : Enquir' of the said Mr. Evans, or of Mr. John Barnet, at Mr. Martin's, near Wapp ing-New-Stairs. 1 '

A, F. R. <