Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/419

 us. in. MAY 27, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

413

The first volume (Comedies) of Halliwell's projected American edition appeared at New York in 1854, but further issue was abandoned on account of Tallis & Co.'s action. The pirated edition described will not bear comparison in any way with Halli- well's privately subscribed Shakespeare in 16 vols. folio. How many copies Tallis & Co. printed it is not now easy to determine, but their issues undoubtedly commanded a large sale, to judere by the number of sets met with in antiquarian bookshops.

WILLIAM JAGGARD. Stratford-on-Avon.

THE COLLAR OF SS : THE FORGET-ME- NOT (ll^S. iii. 361). The wardrobe of ' N. & Q.' has given more shelf -room to the Collars of SS than to any other article of dress. The press marks are :

1 S. ii. 89, 110, 140, 171, 194, 248, 280, 329, 362, 393, 475; iii. 42; iv. 147, 230, 236, 345, 456 ; v. 16, 38, 8J, 182, 207, 255 ; vi. 182, 352 ; vii. 297, 584 ; viii. 398 ; x. 357.

2 S. xi. 438 ; xii. 35.

3 S. viii. 414, 485 ; ix. 23, 206, 335, 532 ; x. 350, 424.

4 S. ii. 485 ; ix. 527 ; x. 93, 280. 6 S. ii. 225; iii. 86, 231.

9 S. vi. 149.

10 S. xi. 310, 418; xii. 348, 418.

The following explanations have been suggested : Soverayne, Simplicius, Soissons, Salisbury, Souvenez, Senescallus, S-shaped lever or link, Sanctus, Silentium, S. Sepulcre, Simon, SS fermes, Soupir, Souci.

W. C. B.

At the coronation of the Castilian kings the newly crowned monarch was presented to the populace with the cry of " Ese es, ese es " (" This is he "), and several Spanish nobles (Cardenas, &c.) have SS upon their escutcheon, the pronunciation of which letters resembles that of the exclamation.

What is more likely than that John of Gaunt, titular King of Castile and Leon, adopted this rebus ? ALFRED RODWAY.

MR. Cox in the course of his interesting paper refers to Henry IV.'s " fancy for the forget-me-not (fleur de soveigne}" It is to be noted that, whatever plant was known as fteur de soveigne in the fourteenth century, it was not what we call forget-me-not (Myosotis). That was popularly known in England as " mouse-ear " (a translation of "Myosotis"), from the form of the leaves, or " scorpion-grass," from a fancied resem- blance in the curling raceme of unopened

flowers to the body of a scorpion. Mr. Prior has explained that " forget-me-not " has only been applied to Myosotis since the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was transferred from the bugle (Ajuga), which had borne that name in Britain, France, and the Netherlands for more than 200 years (' Popular Names of British Plants,' pp. 83-5). He further shows that Fuchs in his ' Historia Plantarum ' (Basle, 1542) gives the name " Vergiss-nit-mein " to the cut-leaved germander (Teucrium botrys), of which he provided an excellent figure at p. 870 of that work. All British botanists, however, from the middle of the fifteenth century down to Gray in 1841 apply the name " forget-me-not " to the bugle, after which the poem about a drowned lover appeared, and caused it to be appro- priated for ever by Myosotis.

Mr. Prior gives good reason for believing that the true fleur de soveigne was the common speedwell (Veronica chamcedrys), which was known to Danish herbalists in the sixteenth century as " Forglemm-mig- icke." The German popular name for this little herb " Ehrenpreis," prize of honour is consistent with Mr. Prior's suggestion that it was the flower woven into the collars of knights. HERBERT MAXWELL.

' RALPH ROISTER BOLSTER ' (11 S. iii. 367). Nicholas Udall died in December, 1556, and was buried in St. Margaret's, West- minster.

Prof. Charles Mills Gayley of California in his * Representative English Comedies ' (Macmillan, 1903), pp. 103-94, favours the old theory which ascribes the writing of this play to the years between 1534 and 1541, the Eton period of Udall' s life. The unique printed copy in the possession of Eton College is dated by Arber " ? 1566 " ; but there was probably an earlier edition of " 1552 ? "

The prayer on behalf of the Queen (V. vi. 47-59) must have been added by the un- known hand who prepared the play for the press under Elizabeth.

In * The Cambridge History of English Literature,' vol. v. p. 105, however, Mr. F. S. Boas says :

"The inference is that the play had been per- formed for the first time between 1552 and 1554, probably by the Westminster boys. That it is in any case later than 1546, and therefore cannot have been written when Udall was head master of Eton, is suggested by his frequent use of phrases which appear in John Heywood's ' Proverbs,' published in the above year."

A. R. BAYLEY.