Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/440

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. JUNE 3, ion.

concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have con- cluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap.'"

The remark, as it may be observed, is within inverted commas ; and a foot-note gives the reference to Lincoln, ' Complete Works,' vol. ii. p. 532, with the addition : " The remarks are somewhat differently given in Applet on' s ' Annual Cyclopedia,' 1864, p. 789." J. R, FITZGERALD.

After Lincoln had been nominated by the "Union and Republican Convention" for re-election as President, a deputation from the " Union League of the Loyal States " waited on him on 9 June, 1861, and assured him of their support. In replying he said :

" I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country ; but I am reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that ' it was best not to swap horses when crossing a stream.' " Raymond's ' Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln,' New York, 1865, chap, xviii. (p. 560).

JAN KUYPER.

The question asked by POLITICIAN is easily answered. In his * Reply to a Dele- gation from the National Union League,' 9 June, 1864, Lincoln said :

" But I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap." Nicolay and Hay's 'Abraham Lincoln : Complete Works,' 1894, ii. 532.

But while this proves that Lincoln used the expression in 1864, it does not follow that he was the first to use it ; and my impression, though I am unable to support it with proof, is that I have met with it earlier. ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

"WAIT AND SEE" (11 S. ' iii. 366). In Keene's cartoon ' Indian Curry,' referring to the trouble with Afghanistan, which appeared in Punch on 12 October, 1878, Beaconsfield says to John Bull, " Rather hot, sir," and the reply is, " Well, yes, I think I'd better wait and see what's coming." W. H. DAVID.

If it is not a colloquial commonplace, this expression wears in its aspect some- thing suggestive of an old acquaintance

It is so obviously suitable as an effective form of retort, that one feels it must have done duty long before it received Parliamentary favour. A literary example occurs in Robert Buchanan's ' Poet Andrew,' which appeared in the * Idyls of Inverburn ' in 1861. A tribute to the author's friend, David Gray, the poem takes the form of a monologue delivered by the father of its luckless sub- ject, and contains this passage on the old weaver's attitude towards his neighbours and their ridicule of his adventurous son's dallying with literature :

sir, the thought of this spoil'd many a web In yonder tingling, tingling, in my ears, Until I fairly threw my gloom aside,

Smiled like a man whose heart is light and young,

And with a future-kenning happy look

Threw up my chin, and bade them wait and see.

Since writing the above, I recall, what

1 should have been able to do before, Buchanan's ' Tom Dunstan ; or the Poli- tician,' with its apposite refrain :

He prophesied men should be free ! And the money-bags be bled ! " She's coming, she's coming ! " said he ; " Courage, boys ! wait and see ! Freedom's ahead ! "

THOMAS BAYNB.

WALL CHURCHES (11 S. iii. 287, 377). I do not know how the case may be with respect to St. Mary at the Wall, Colchester: but' I believe that the church at York mentioned in Drake (p. 315) as St. Helene, super muros, Aldwark, was not actually incor- porated with the walls. Mr. Davies, discoursing of a street called Aldwark, says that " the name was in use as early as the time of Edward III., but the church which stood in the street and was afterwards known as ' St. Ellen ad Muros ' was at an earlier period called ' St. Elene in Werk-dyke.' This leads to the conjecture that the street was originally formed on the line of the dyke or ditch, and werk or wall of the city, and took its name from that circumstance" (' Antiquarian Walks through York,' p. 37).

In his * Historical and Descriptive Account of Valladolid, &c.,' Mr. A. F. Calvert says of Avila (p. Ill) :

" Built into the city wall at its eastern end is the

noble cathedral of San Salvador It is perhaps

the finest example extant of the fortress church of the Middle Ages. The oldest part is the apse which makes a pronounced bastion or projection in the

cit y walL " ST. SWITHIN.

Exeter has its Allhallows-on-the- Walls, or, as Stapleton's Register describes it, "Omnium Sanctorum juxta, muros Civita- tis Exoniensis." The ancient Saxon church