Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/362

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. m. MAY e, 1911.

in Rome. Father Hebert was the confessor of King Louis XVI., and shortly before his death he made the King promise to consecrate his kingdom to the Sacred Heart if he escaped from his enemies."

The late Rev. W. Henley Jervis, Pre- bendary of Heytesbury, in his work entitlec ' The Gallican Church and the Revolution, gives at pp. 201-2 an account of the massacres which " was not the result of any accidental collision or unforeseen effervescence o: popular passion, but was minutely arrangec and organized beforehand by persons in authority." He estimates the priestly victims at Paris as " something less than three hundred." They included Archbishop Jean M. Dulau of Aries, and the two brothers Francois J. and Pierre Louis De La Roche foucauld-Bayers, Bishops of Beauvais anc Saintes. Father Hebert' s place as roya confessor was taken, as is well known, by he Rev. Henry Essex Edgeworth, first cousin once removed to Richard Lover Edgeworth, mentioned ante, p. 191.

JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.

CHARADES BY COL. FITZPATRICK (11 S. iii. 307). I suggest the following solutions:

1. In concert, song, or serenade, My first requires my second's aid. To those residing near the pole I would not recommend my whole.

Answer: "Lutestring." The point of the last two lines is illustrated by this quotation from Horace Walpole (given in the ' N.E.D.'): " a pretty lutestring administration, which would do very well for summer wear." 2. Charades of all things are the worst, But yet my best have been my first. Who with my second are concerned "Will to despise my whole have learned. Answer : " Hardships."

M. A. M. MACALISTER.

The answer to the first is " Lutestring." A fairly well-known instance of the mention of this as a typical material for summer wear is quoted from Horace Walpole himself by the ' H.E.D.' It is surprising that Wal- pole writes in his letter to Conway : " I have not come within sight, of the easy one."

Lady Upper Ossory's remark that the second is very difficult should make one cautious, and Walpole was certainly right in rejecting " Spelling-book," which at one time he had thought it might be. For my own part, I was almost convinced that the solution was " Versemen." It may be submitted as a guess. Johnson supplies examples of the " ludicrous " use of this word, though he f ail& to^cite the familiar line

of Pope. The touch of contempt in it seems enough to give point to the contrast with "men." EDWARD BENSLY.

My guesses may be bad, but here they are: 1. "Areas" (air-ears); 2. "Hardships."

ST. SWITHIK.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND DREAMS (11 S, iii. 247, 296). The notion that Franklin, who never (even after a long residence in France) wrote French fluently, could have written in French a book published as early as 1746, may be dismissed as an impossibility. The title does not occur in the late Paul Leicester Ford's 'Franklin Bibliography* (1889), either among the genuine works of Franklin or among those attributed to him.

Nevertheless, MR. ELKINMATHEWS'S query raises an interesting point. The American Museum (Philadelphia) for February, 1792, xi. 67-70, contains " The art of procuring pleasant dreams. By Dr. Franklin. In- scribed to Mis& ****** Being written at her request." This duly appears (under date of 1772) in Sparks's 'Works of Franklin/ 1836, ii. 171-6, and in Bigelow's * Works of Franklin,' 1887, iv. 526-32; and (under date of 1786) -in Albert H. Smyth's ' Writings of Franklin/ 1907, x. 131-7. Dr. Smyth first showed that it was written to Miss Catherine Maria Shipley, a daughter of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph's ; for on 13 November, 1786, Miss Shipley replied :

" I have particularly to thank you for the 'Art of procuring pleasant Dreams,' indeed it flatter'd me exceedingly that you should employ so much of your precious time in complying with my request, but where do you read that Methusalah slept in the open air ? "

Franklin has frequently been accused of plagiarism. In 1798 John Davis came to this country, spent several years in travelling about, and in 1803 published his ' Tra\els/ on pp. 210-18 of which will be found a lerce attack on Franklin. Unluckily for lis purpose, Davis picked out for animad- version the famous ' Parable against Per- secution/ declaring that " it all came to Franklin from Bishop Taylor." Now on 2 November, 1789, Franklin \vrcte to B. Vaughan :

" Your mention of plagiarism puts me in mind of a charge of the same kind, which I lately aw in the British Repository, concerning the Chapter of Abraham and the Stranger. Perhaps his is the attack your letter hints at, in which fou defended me. The truth is, as I think you >bserve, that I never published that Chapter, tnd never claimed more credit from it, than what elated to the style, and the addition of the con-