Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/191

 ii s. VIL MAR. s, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

187

I think there has been a recrudescence of swear-words among women of that kind in these degenerate times. In ' The Social Fetich ' Lady Grove states that she preferred to hear them from feminine lips to hearing them from those of men. She says :

" Another good illustration of autre temps, autres mceurs, is afforded in the matter of expletives. A dignified old friend of mine of the old-fashioned type told me that he was walking one day with the carefully brought-up daughter of a ducal household when she dropped ner umbrella. As she stooped quickly and quietly to pick it up, a * damn !' came as quickly and quietly to her lips. Not with any anger or violence, but in the same manner that an ' On dear ! ' would have come from her predecessors under similar circumstances. She had probably lisped out a baby oath over her first broken toy.'"

P. 31.

ST. SWITHIN.

LOUISE DE LA RAMEE ( QUID A) .In the Second Supplement, vol. i., of the ' D.N.B.,' under the heading * De la Ram4e,' the writer of the biographical sketch has fallen into several errors. w T hich should be corrected.

He says, first, that Ouida's first stories came out in The New Monthly Magazine'. They appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in

1859, and came to an end in 1862. Secondly, that" they were, by the end of

1860, seventeen in all. They were eighteen, and counting two of two parts in 1859, and one of two parts in 1860, they were twenty-one in all. To the end of 1862 she wrote thirty- one stories, or, counting the parts, thirty- seven in all.

Thirdly, that these stories were never reprinted. In America they were, about 1868 or 1872, in two volumes, one called ' Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, and Other Stories,' the other ' Beatrice Boville, and Other Stories ' ; by whom published, and where, I do not know.

Fourthly, that her first novel, * Granville cle Vigne,' was published in The New Monthly Magazine. It was not ; she in a Preface says it was published in a military magazine.

Fifthly, that with this novel she first assumed the name of " Ouida." In all of her stories in Berkley's Miscellany, from the first to the last, she signed them Ouida.

The following is the number of stories in the Miscellany : In 1859, seven tales, two in two parts ; 1860, eleven tales, one in two parts ; 1861, seven tales, one in three parts, one in two parts ; 1862, six tales : total, thirty-one tales in all, of which one was in three parts, and four in two parts.

All of these must have been written, I believe, before she joined the Miscellany in 1859. EL SOLTERO.

New York.

HOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST. (See 10 S. v. 483 ; vi. 52, 91, 215, 356.) It is gratifying to note that to the long list of houses marked with a commemorative tablet must be added the one in which Benjamin Disraeli resided for about thirty years, 29, Park Lane, with its entrance in Upper Grosvenor Street. The London County Council does not possess the authority to erect memorial records upon houses on the Duke of West- minster's estate. His Grace, however, has himself undertaken this appropriate, if tardy, recognition. It will be recalled that he also had a neat tablet placed upon the walls of 10, South Street, Park Lane, as a tribute to the memory of that " minister- ing angel " Florence Nightingale, who lived there for some years, and died there in 1910. As an erroneous impression would seem to prevail as to the powers in this respect possessed by the London County Council over the Duke's property, its good services in other quarters of the metropolis may well be emphasized. As evidence we have those useful explanatory booklets issued from time to time by the Committee of the Council which deals with this matter entitled ' The Indication of Houses of His- torical Interest,' sold at the modest sum of one penny. Long may like researches continue ! CECIL CLARKE.

Junior Athenaeum Club.

EASTER DAY. Easter this year (23 March) occurs on the earliest calendar date but one. It happened on the 22nd of March in 1818, and will not fall again on that day during the present century. I have often seen the directions for finding Easter misstated. The following doggerel will assist in getting the date right :

Firstly the Equinox, then the Full Moon If both come at once, Full Moon ain't too soon. The Sunday following is the Feast Day Known as our Easter, when all souls are gay.

J. S. MCTEAR.

6, Arthur Chambers, Belfast

[Easter and the full moon, and the question of a fixed date for Easter, have been much discussed in 4 N. & Q.' ; see, for example, 9 S. v. 281 ; xi. 182, 258 ; 10 S. iii. 281 ; iv. 136, 195.]

" MORS LILIA SENTIBUS JEQUAT." The

more familiar saying " Mors sceptra ligoni- bus sequat " was the subject of a query and replies at 10 S. xii. 448, 494. No mention, however, was made of the above variant or adaptation, which is recorded in Nathan Chytneus's ' Delicise,' 3rd ed., 1606, p. 351, as one of the mottoes on a monument at Liineburg. EDWARD BENSLY.