Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/361

 ii s. vii.

3, 1913.J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

357

Tallentyre (S. G.), * The Road to Knowledge a Hundred Years Ago' (Gornhill Magazine, vol. Ixxxii. pp. 815-27), 1900.

Thackeray (William Makepeace), ' On some Illus- trated Children's Books' (Fraser's Magazine, vol. xxxiii. pp. 495-502). 1846.

Waters (Alice), 'Some Old Children's Books' (Strand Magazine, vol. xv. -\ pp. 32-40, illustrated), 1898.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.R.S.L.

Bolton.

Six articles on this subject, by Mrs. Berkeley of Cotheridge Court, Worcester, appeared in The Evesham Journal in 1907 (Notes and Queries columns, Nos. 56 to 61). Mrs. Berkeley has a collection of 600 chil- dren's books published between 1740 and 1830. I have the articles referred to.

A. C. C.

There is a capital paper on ' Books that Amused and Taught the Children of Olden Days,' by Mrs. Berkeley, in the ' Associated Architectural Societies' Reports and Papers,' 1903, vol. xxvii. part i. pp. 149-78.

G. L. APPERSON.

OLD CHARING CROSS (11 S. vii. 288). The passage quoted is misleading. There is no evidence that the Cross stood awry. It was demolished in 1647 by the Cromwellians ; vide Mr. J. Holden MacMichael's ' Charing Cross,' p. 71. " The Last Will and Testa- ment of Charine Crosse, printed in the yeare 1646," provides some useful references :

" Though (like my other sisters) I have been (by age of time ould and decayed) and never like my sister (some few yeers since departed in Cheapside) reedified."

"But all this while I poor weather-beaten, I Charing Crosse, have still stood, and to this day remain in perfect memory ; and yet seeing death approaching now at last, with pick-axes, mattaxes, cleavers, spades, shovels, to bury my ruines in the dust, do make this my last will anil testament in form and manner as foiloweth."

This ends " Signed this 31 of August, 1646, being the 356 yeare of my age."

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

LIONS IN THE TOWER (US. vii. 150, 210, 272, 316). It would be interesting to trace, in connexion with this subject, the history of the long-practised April Fool's Day jest of sending innocent visitors to the Tower on 1 April " to see the lions washed." A very early mention of this is to be found in Dawks" s News-Letter for 2 April, 1698, wherein it was noted that, " Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed." ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

ONIONS PLANTED WITH ROSES (US. vi. 509 ; vii. 232). The practice is a very old one. Plutarch, ' De Capienda ex Hostibus Utilitate,' 92 B, mentions the belief that roses and violets* were improved by planting garlic and onions next them, as these absorbed anything in the nourishment (rpo<>; : " food - sources " is, I believe, the modern gardener's term) that was pungent or evil -smelling. In like manner, he con- tinues, our enemy, by engaging what is envious and malicious in us, may render us more kindly and agreeable to our pros- perous friends. Betsey Prig, it is plain, was no disciple of Plutarch's :

" The best among us have their failings, and it must be conceded of Mrs. Prig, that if there were a blemish in the goodness of her disposition, it was a habit she had of not bestowing all its sharp and acid properties upon her patients (as a thoroughly amiable woman would have done), but of keeping a considerable remainder for the service of her friends."

Montaigne by his own confession no sooner cast an eye on Plutarch but he purloined either a leg or a wing, and we may feel sure that he had taken a helping when he wrote :

" Encore s'il aduenoit, comrne disent aucuns iardiniers, que les roses et violettes naissent plus odoriferentes pres des aulx et des oignons, d'autant qu'ils succent & tirent a eux ce qu'il y a de mauuaise odeur en la terre : Aussi que ces deprauees natures, hum assent tout le venin de mon air & du climat, k m'en rendissent d'autant meilleur & plus pur, par leur voisinage : que ie ne perdisse pas tout." ' Essais,' III. 9, p. 981, ed. 1608.

Joachim Camerarius, in No. 53 of the first century of his ' Symbola et Emblemata,' has, under the heading ' Per Opposita,' a picture of a rose-bush between two plants of garlic, with the couplet : Livpr iners stimulos generosis mentibus addit,

Si per foeda rosis allia crescit odor. He quotes from Plutarch in the accompany- ing explanation.

Southey, ' Common-Place Book,' Fourth Series, p. 437 (1850), has part of the passage of Montaigne, and on p. 456 this : ' ' They say those roses are sweetest which have stinking weeds grow 1 near them.' Reynolds, vol. v. p. 192."- The Reynolds is Edward, Bishop of Norwich (1599-1676), a writer of whom Southey says elsewhere : " There is in his manner a resemblance both to Burton and Barrow." Southey's son-in-law, the Rev. J. W. Warter, who edited the ' Common- Place Book,' has a note on p. 456 : " I quite recollect when a boy to have seen Rue planted under the double yellow Rose."

EDWARD BENSLY.

I give the traditional translation of la.