Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/68

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. JULY 22, 1911.

English poems published in New York under the title of ' The Household Book of English Poetry,' in which is given ' The Battle of Limerick.' The behaviour of Meagher "of the sword" in the original is thus adverted to :

" Cut down the bloody horde ! "

Says Meagher of the sword ; " This conduct would disgrace any blackamore."

But the best use Tommy made

Of his famous battle-blade

Was to cut his own stick from the Shannon shore. " ' Tommy,' however," writes DR. GARNETT, " subsequently took up his abode in the United States, where he became a general of volunteers, and Mr. Dana, preferring his reputation to Thackeray's, coolly alters the obnoxious stanza as follows :

But millions u-ere arrayed,

So he shaythed his battle-blade, Reihrauting undismayed from the Shannon shore."

DR. GARNETT, thinks " this emendation is sufficiently remarkable to be embalmed in 'N. & Q."

On the 31st of August, 1872, MB. JOHN BOTJCHIER asks when ' Little Billee ' was first published ; and W. T. M. replies on the 21st of September that it "was sung by Thackeray at an art-student's party in Rome," and printed in a volume of sketches by Bevan, called ' Sand and Canvas,' &c. " Thackeray subsequently sent a corrected copy to Mr. Bevan, and objected to having the use of such a term as ' be blowed ' attributed to him." The story, states W. T. M., with the corrected copy, is given in Wendell Holmes' s ' Wit and Humor,' J. C. Hotten, 1867. CLARRY the following week states :

" I knew both Thackeray and Samuel Bevan. Thackeray was very sensitive about his playful words being made public, and I well recollect his complaining to me of Bevan having published a song which was sung when they were supposed to be ' close tiled.' "

This is followed by MR. ARTHUR J- MTJNBY, who on the 2nd of November asks, "How about the impromptu itself?" and gives a gamin's song current in Paris some thirty years earlier :

II etait un petit navire.

" If it be the acknowledged original of our beloved ' Little Billee,' we must confess that Thackeray's genius has vastly improved it."

On the 1st of February, 1873, J. W. W. notes how often the words " prodigious " and " pink " are used in ' Vanity Fair ' :

" The former word is taken from the eighteenth- century writers of whom Thackeray was so fond. With regard to the second word, whenever any article of female attire is mentioned it is almost invariably described as being pink. That colour was no doubt a favourite one with Thackeray."

On the 21st of November, 1874, GREY- STEIL asks :

" What real occurrence does Thackeray relate in ' Barry Lyndon ' as happening at the Court of X. ? Who was the lady to whom he refers in the beginning of ' The Four Georges ' as having been * asked in marriage by Horace Walpole ' ? "

To this MR. D. BLAIR replies from Mel- bourne that " the lady to whom Horace Walpole made proposals of marriage was Miss Agnes Berry."

On July 16th, 1881, MR. EDMUND WATERTON states that he bought in Paris in 1865 a French version of * The Book of Snobs,' but that he had forgotten the name of the translator : " It is supremely amusing." On the 27th of August C. T. states that the translator is Georges Guiffrey, and that the first edition was issued in 1857.

On the 24th of December, 1881, MR. G. L. FENTON prints an unpublished letter of Thackeray's to Dr. Elliotson.

Among references in the Seventh Series is one from JAYDEE, who on November 27th, 1886, reminds readers that two years ago he had drawn attention to a verbal error in the 1879 edition of 'The Newcomes' (chap. xlix.). Thackeray speaks of "The Regent, Brummel, Lord Steyne, and Pea- green Payne." Mr. Hayne (not Payne) was nicknamed " Pea-green," and JAYDEE points out that in later editions the error remained uncorrected. No one knows his ' Ingoldsby,' as is very natural, better than our old friend R. B. of Upton, and he heads a reply on the llth of December with the lines : He was dress' d in pea green with a pin and gold

chain, And I think I heard somebody call him " Squire

Hayne." ' Jngoldsby Legends,' ' The Black Mousquetaire.'

" Mr. ' Pea-green Hayne,' as he was called from a light- green coat and waistcoat which he dis- played in the park, was a buck of the period. He made himself," continues B. B., quoting from the " Annotated Edition " of ' Ingoldsby,' vol. ii. p. 32, " especially conspicuous in the year 1825 by appearing as defendant in an action for breach of promise brought by the celebrated Miss Foote, afterwards Countess of Harrington. The lady got 3,OOOZ. damages."

The first note on January 7th, 1888, is- from COL. W. F. PRIDEAUX, dated fromt Calcutta, and entitled ' Bibliography of Thackeray's " Letters " ' ; and on the 24th of March MR. JOHN E. T. LOVEDAY gives a note on ' Thackeray's Col. Newcome ' :

" The following inscription has been placed or* a brass in Trinity Church, Ayr :

" ' Sacred to the memory of Major Henry-