Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/81

 ii s. iv. JULY 22, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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merit in a tempest of ridicule, and was solemnly prohibited by the Lord Cham- berlain :

Finale to Part First. Darine (Miss Bella Moore). By playing fast and loose I will govern them, be sure ; The talisman of all good luck at last is ours. We '11 happy be at last, For ever, evermore.

Three Rt. Hons. (Mr. G-., Mr/L., Mr. A.).

Chorus.

We '11 happy be at last, \ r> Not never any more. ) Repeated.

Zayda (Miss Lottie Venne). I shall dreaded be, Wait and you shall see, Everlasting snubbing,

Drubbing.

Pulling nation's nose, Treading on its toes ; Wait and you shall see How I '11 dreaded be.

Lady St. Helier in her ' Memories of Fifty Years,' published not long ago, writes that 41 Lady Waldegrave always declared that Mr. Gladstone's downfall was due to the burlesque." C. S. HARRIS.

" Wait and see " occurs in Anthony Trollope's ' Ralph the Heir,' published in 1871, chap, xlviii. : "A girl wasn't like a man, she said, who could just make up his mind at once a girl had to wait and see."

W. B. H.

'KENILWORTH': "MANNA OF ST. NICHOLAS" (11 S. iii. 488). There can t>e little doubt that Scott has here been guilty of an anachronism. Looking back over past history, he has failed to preserve the proper historical perspective. There were cases of poisoning far earlier than those referred to in the query, but the phrase " manna of St. Nicholas " fixes a definite /late on a transaction which happened long subsequent to the time when Queen Eliza- beth paid her memorable visit to Kenilworth. A, novelist is, however, allowed a certain licence, and is not bound to the same chronological accuracy as an historian.

W. S. S.

HENRY VII. AND MABUSE (US. iv. 7).

Mr. H. B. Wheatley says in 'Historical Portraits ' (1897), p. 138 :

" The painting which Walpole styled ' The Marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York,' and wrongly attributed to Mabuse, is an inter- esting picture, and is engraved in the ' Anecdotes

of Painting.' It was bought for 200Z. by

Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, and

hung for some years at Easton Neston, Northants. The Earl of Oxford (according to Walpole) offered 500Z. for the picture, but his offer was not accepted, and Walpole bought it at Lord Pomfret's sale for 84Z. Mr. J. Dent bought it at the Strawberry Hill Sale in 1842 for 178Z. 10s., and Mrs. Dent of Sudeley lent it to the Tudor Exhibition hi 1890. There is really no marriage at all, but the arms (if genuine) show that Henry and Elizabeth are represented hi it. The saint walking with the queen appears to be intended for St. Thomas the Apostle, and the other figure for St. Thomas of Canterbury. It is probable, however, that the arms have been added, and the figures converted. Mr. Cust believes the original to have been a Madonna and saints, of which the central part has been painted out."

A. R. BAYLEY.

[MR. W. SCOTT also refers to Walpole's * Anec- dotes.']

AVIATION IN 1811 (11 S. iv. 5). Supple- menting its remarks of 9 June, 1811, quoted at the above reference, The Observer of 30 June, 1811, said :

" The taylor Bublinger [sic] has been unsuccess- ful in his promised attempt at flying with the wings he had made. On the 1st inst. he placed himself on the Walls of Ulm, at the edge of the Danube, for the purpose of flying over that river ; but no sooner had he leaped from the wall, than one of his wings broke and he fell into the water, and must have been drowned had not some boats gone to his assistance.'*

CECIL CLARKE.

THE CUCKOO AND ITS CALL (11 S. iii. 486 ; iv. 30). Although we are getting rather beyond the season for discussing the "mes- senger of spring," it may not be amiss to supplement MB. E. MARSTON'S remark at the last reference that " the cuckoo can frequently be seen if watched and waited for."

There 'are districts which the bird par- ticularly affects moorlands, hillsides, remote coppices, and so on, where it finds nests convenient for the depositing of its eggs and in such places the cautious and patient observer need have no difficulty in seeing it and noting its habits and vagaries. As in every department of nature study, the essential thing in tracking the cuckoo is to be systematic and quietly resolute. It may come into the garden at early morning in quest of appropriate food, and the alert inhabitant may both see it and hear it when it is on such a foraging expedition, As a rule, however, one must be a-field to watch the bird to advantage, and to be able to speak authoritatively with reference to its attractive and haunting voice. It may be necessary to sit long and pensively on a stile, or to wander for hours knee -deep in heather, but on a glorious afternoon of early