Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/23

 us. vii. JAN.

NOTKS AND QUERIES.

17

MILTON'S ' LYCIDAS ' (US. vi. 328, 395, 476). To my mind the six lines beginning with the one quoted by TRIN. COLL. CAMB., and ending with

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes, are very suggestive of the Revelation. The line I quote above is much like the final sentence of chap. vii.

Solomon's erotic song seems hardly in accord with the ascetic teachings " of Him that walked the waves." In the second book of ' Paradise Regained ' Belial, speaking at the demonian council about the tempta- tion of Jesus, says : S<-t women in his eye and in his walk

Women, when nothing else, beguiled the heart Of wisest Solomon.

Part of Satan's reply to this is : But he whom we attempt is wiser far Than Solomon, of more exalted mind, Made and set wholly on the accomplishment Of greatest things. What woman will you find, Though of this age the wonder and the fame, On whom his leisure will vouchsafe an eye Of fond desire ?

I take the Song of Solomon to be a poetical drama, its chief characters being Solomon, a Shulamite girl (whom Solomon desires for his harem), a shepherd of Shulem (the girl's lover), and the ladies of the harem (daughters of Jerusalem), who form a. kind of chorus. W. H. PINCHBECK.

A WRESTLING MATCH IN FICTION (11 S. vi. 467). The incidents described by COL. HAINES occur, but not quite in the same order, in ' Clara Vaughan,' a West-Country novel by R. D. Blackmore. C. M.

VVarrington.

THE CURFEW BELL (11 S. vi. 466). I have pleasant recollections of the curfew rung every night at Keynsham, near Bristol. It is not now rung, and I do not know why it was stopped. H. N. ELLACOMBE,

Bitton Vicarage, Bristol,

In the old Royal Burgh of Jedburgh, the county town of Roxburghshire, the curfew bell is rung every evening at eight o'clock. A bell is also rung at ten o'clock, and one in the morning at six o'clock. The bell is situated in the town's steeple, in which there are three bells altogether, viz. (1) that presented to the kirk by Robert, Lord Jedburgh, in 1692 ; (2) that popularly called the "Court' bell; and (3) the alarm bell. James Watson in his excellent " History of the Abbey of Jedburgh ' says :

" While collecting material for the first edition vjf this work (1877) we had occasion to visit the

town steeple for the purpose of examining Lord Jedburgh's Bell. At the same time we made an examination of the alarm bell, and were agree- ably surprised to find what had not been suspected before, that it bore the following inscription in beautiful old characters ' -j- Campana : Beate : Margarete : Virginis : the Bell of the Blessed Margaret the Virgin.' The bell is 18 inches in diameter at the mouth and 14 inches high.

"The Rev. H. T. Ellaeombe, The Kectory, Clyst St. George, Topsham, an authority on the subject of old bells, had his attention called to this interest- ing discovery by a communication in ' N. & Q.,' and having had a rubbing of the inscription submitted to him, he gave it as his opinion that this was a Sanctus bell, and probably belonged to the Abbey.

" The words [he says] were intended for a leonine verse, but the founder has made a blunder, and placed two words out of order. Founders often made such blunders, putting letters upside down. The correct line would be thus : ' Cam- pana: Margarete: Virginis: Beate,' or made so that 1 Beate ' and ' Margarete ' should run in rhyme. The date of the bell is the fifteenth century."

Watson adds :

" It is right to say that other authorities have fixed the fourteenth century as the probable date."

Regarding the bell on which the curfew is rung, it may at once be said that no sweeter- toned bell could be desired : one of the many memories taken with them by thbsy who have left their native town is the recollection of that musical note which in their early years reminded them of the westering of the setting sun in the long evenings of the summer days.

J. LINDSAY HILSON.

Bonjedward, Jedburgh.

SECRET SERVICE (US. vi. 370, 430). I now find that the contribution to the third series of " Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History," referred to in my reply, is by Mr. A. W. Ashby, a son of Mr. Joseph Ashby, who wrote the original articles in The Warwick Advertiser.- A. C. C.

HARVEYS OF WHITTINGTON, STAFFORD- SHIRE (11 S. vi. 449). Burke probably took these arms from Shaw's * Staffordshire,' vol. i. p. 377, where it is stated, s.v. * Whit- ting ton,' that* " the other two seats described in Plot's map are

The other for Harvey, Esq. Arms :

Arg., on a bend Sable three trefoils slipt Or, with a crescent in chief Azure. Their respective houses I cannot now ascertain, but there are two, one opposite Babington's, picturesquely shaded with elms, now inhabited by Mrs. Dabbs."

This would lead to the inference that a seat of the Harveys is described in Plot's * Staf- fordshire,' but this is not so, the number on the map merely indicating that the family of Harvey, whose arms are there engraved,