Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/82

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NOTES AND QUERIES. rn s. iv. JULY 22, 1911.

summer either of ! these experiences is worth having, while a stimulating quest appreciably enhances its value.

In an absolutely casual fashion I once became a witness of what must have been a cuckoo congress. Passing one day through a picturesque glen with which I have long been familiar, I approached a lonely cottage fronted by a little garden, which in its turn was flanked by two large elm trees clothed in the rich greenery of June foliage. There would be, perhaps, thirty yards between cottage and trees, each sphere forming a centre of activity with which the other appeared to have no connexion. In and about the cottage the " eident housewife" and her children were diligently attending to their own affairs, while a dozen cuckoos or more were conducting some urgent business with the trees as head-quarters. Every now and then three or four birds shot forth some distance into the air, shouting lustily both in going and returning, and then for a time there were calls amid the branches, till presently the scouting operations were repeated. There was but one fascinated onlooker, for the comely matron and the members of her family had no time to give to the proceedings of cuckoos.

THOMAS BAYNE.

SPIDER STORIES (11 S. iv. 26). In an account of the West Indies written to Charles V. of Spain, Oviedo remarks :

" There are also spiders of marvellous bignesse, and I have seen some with bodies and legges bigger than a man's hand extended every way, and I once saw one of such 'bignesse, that onely her body was as bigge as a sparrow, and full of that laune whereof they make their webbes : this was of a darke russet colour, wi th eyes greater then the eyes of a sparrow, they are venemous, and of terrible shape to behold." Purchas, vol. ii. p. 970.

Probably both this account and those quoted by N. M. & A. refer either to scor- pions or tarantulas. W. B. GERISH.

ST. PATRICK AND THE SHAMROCK (US. iii. 467 ; iv. 16). The shamrock was used as food (probably famine-food) in Ireland in the seventeenth century, not later than 1682, and as a badge or emblem first in 1681. The story connecting it with St. Patrick does not appear in any of the early or mediaeval lives, nor in the Life by John Colgan, the date of which is 1647. There- fore it may be supposed to have sprung up in the latter part of the seventeenth century. There was a correspondence on the subject in 'N. & Q.,' in which the late Dr. Husen-

beth took part, in and about 1864, but no- exact date was given for the first appearance- of the legend.

The above dates are taken from an article^ on ' The Shamrock in Literature,' by N. Colgan, M.R.I. A., in the Journal of th Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland,, Fifth Series, vi. 211 and 349. J. T. F.

Durham.

[The references to ' N. & Q.' are 3 S. i. 224 319 ; iv. 187, 233, 293, 422 ; v. 40, 60, 79, 104.]

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S iv. 28). The lines,

Move swiftly, Sun ; and fly a Lover's Pace : Leave Weeks and Months behind thee in thy Race,.

are at the end of the second part of 'Th Conquest of Granada.' The lines are cited by Johnson in his life of Dryden from a pamphlet by Settle severely criticizing Dryden's heroic plays.

WM. E. BROWNING.. 63, St. James' Street.

The first two lines given by J. M. will'

be found close to the end of Dryden's 'Alman-

zor and Almahide, or th Conquest of

Granada by the Spaniards, the Second Part.*'

EDWARD BENSLY.

The quotation from Dryden beginning " Amariel flies " is an incorrect and much abbreviated one. The correct form is as follows :

Amariel flies ; a darted mandate came From that great will which moves this mighty

frame ;

Bid me to thee, my royal charge, repair To guard thee from the daemons of the air ; My flaming sword above them to display, All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.

It is from ' Tyrannic Love,' Act IV. sc. i.

WALTER W. SKEAT. [J. M. and TOE REA also thanked for replies.}

BELLY AND THE BODY (11 S. iv. 9). In Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's ' Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans,' under Coriolanus (who is compared and contrasted with Alcibiades), this fable is put into the mouth of Menenius Agrippa, an aged Senator. By this means he is said to have averted a threatened secession of the Plebs, the Senate granting that " ther should be yearly chosen five magistrates, which they now call Tribuni plebis, whos office should be to defend the poor peopl from violence and oppression." Shake- speare reproduces the incident in his- ' Coriolanus,' I. i. 90-160.

A. R. BAYLEY.