Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/163

 ii s. iv. AUG. 19, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Englishman long resident at Boulogne lately tolling me that he remembered the circumstance to have been generally talked of in the place."

The title of the poem is ' Napoleon and the British Sailor.' A. R. BAYLEY.

"WAIT AND SEE" (11 S. iii. 366, 434; iv. 74). At the last reference W. B. H., turning from the political to the literary history of the phrase, gives a quotation of 1871 from Trollope. It is older than that. Christina Rossetti first published ' Goblin Market, and other Poems,' in 1862, and one of these other poems begins :

Shall I forget on this side of the grave ?

I promise nothing : you must \vait and see, Patient and brave.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

A much earlier example of this expression than any of those cited occurs in one of Carlyle's letters. When he became a celebrity after the publication of ' The French Revolution,' and with great reluc- tance struggled to dine out occasionally and otherwise to take his place as a society man, he experienced great sufferings in consequence of his thoroughly uncongenial ventures. In his Journal, in letters to relatives, and so forth, he characteristically describes the proceedings, and dwells on the consequent

gangs in a vivid and singularly impressive ishion. Writing in March, 1840, to Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, he refers to the situa- tion in these terms :

" Time does not reconcile me to this immeasur- able, soul- confusing uproar of a life in London. I meditate passionately many times to fly from it for life and sanity. The sound of clear brooks, of woody solitudes, of sea-waves under summer f uiis ; all this in one's fancy here is too beautiful, like sad, forbidden fruit.' Cor irrequietum est. We will wait and see." ' Life in London,' i. 178.

THOMAS BAYNE.

MILITARY EXECUTIONS (11 S. iv. 8, 57, D8). I think it should be made clear that yo ur last three correspondents apparently describe what took place in musket days of perhaps thirty to fifty years ago, whereas my personal experience applies to the modern Lee-Metford rifle. It would be interesting to hear from some one present at a military execution in a recent war.

WILLIAM JAGGABD.

If soldiers do not know the law or the regulations affecting military executions, the ignorance of a civilian may be excused. The wide discretion of commanding officers seems to have been brought into a system of late years, but there appears to have been

handed down a deal of tradition that, as far as I know, has never been embodied in print, such as salutes, punishments, &c. ; and executions seem one of those subjects.

The punishment of death by shooting was always considered due to a soldier, unless he had been guilty of some degrading crime under the civil law, when he suffered hanging like any other malefactor. As is well known , Admiral Byng was shot " to encourage the others " on board a man-of-war in Ports- mouth Harbour on 14 March, 1757. There are two views of the execution in the British Museum ; the views are identical, but at the bottom of one is a lot of descriptive letterpress. In this it is stated that the admiral gave ten guineas to the Marines who carried out the sentence. This agrees with the picture, where the squad is under the charge of a sergeant, who stands with his halbert in the rear. All have fixed bayonets : the front rank of three is kneeling ; the next of three is standing with the muskets levelled ; the third of three is standing with their pieces at what I call "port arms." The letterpress says that there was a volley from six marines, " five of whose Bullets went through him."

I have, as concisely as possible, given a description of the event, and add no com- ments. A. RHODES.

" BLUE PETER " : " BLUE FISH " (11 S. iv.

108). H. B. has confused the verse and

refrain of " Fare thee well, my own Mary

Ann." It should run thus : A lobster in a lobster-pot, Or a blue fish wriggling on a hoo 1 ?, Do suffer some, but oh no, not What I do feel for my Mary Ann.

Refrain

So fare thee well, my own Mary Ann,

Fare thee well for a while ; For the ship is ready and the wind is fair And I am off to the 'sea, Mary Ann. And I am off to the sea, Mary Ann.

F. R. RUSHTON.

I think the verse quoted by H. B. is somewhat mixed, for in a song-book up- wards of half a century old it appears as

A lobster in a lobster-pot,

A blue fish wriggling on a hook,

May suffer some, but oh no, not

What I do feel for my Mary Ann.

The last two lines quoted by H. B. form

really part of the chorus, thus : Fare you well, my own Mary Ann,

Fare you well for a while ;

For the ship it is ready, and the wind it is fair, And I am bound for the sea, Mary Ann.

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS.