Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/376

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vn. MAY 10, wis.

worthy of the best days of the Judges, for the dog, duly proud of his office, would fly off and skirt the hedge, and sweep the cows up in a twinkling true to his name and keep them together, by yapping at their heels, until they converged on the gate, through which they would troop tumul- tuously, straddle - footed, dew - breathed, divine, as in Homer, but without saying aught and in absolute silence, to the barton. Then, after milking, when there was no urgent necessity, they would return, as it always seemed, of their own accord, in Indian file, back to the meadow for the night, and the leader would, as she entered the field, raise her voice and low and low, lusty and loud and long, again and again. It was therefore with curious interest that I recently witnessed a dairy of forty cows being driven home for milking, when the very same tactics and behaviour were repeated for half a mile down the road, and the well -remembered scenes of child- hood were recalled in a moment. That, by way of commentary, was good, but there was better to follow, for on crossing the river, and proceeding through the fields, I met four cows being driven out after milking, and, behold ! they too were in Indian file, and the leader was lowing, lowing, loud and long. E. C. MALAN.

Bournemouth.

The answers at the second reference are full of interest, but I doubt whether they throw much light on Gray. He was, I fancy, more concerned for the composition of his picture than for truth of detail, and in this particular line, as in what follows, he can hardly be said to have had his eye on the object. We could not, in any case, be sure of his exact meaning unless we knew the customs of the neighbourhood, the season of the year, the time of day, and we know none of them except the last, and that only approximately. Was it spring, summer, or winter ? The beetle's " dron- ing flight " seems to indicate summer, but not so the " drowsy tinklings " from " the distant fold," for, in our day at any rate, sheep are not folded in Summer. But if it were summer, it is unlikely that the "herd" would be milked at home. My mother, who was one of four daughters of a well-to-do yeoman farmer in the Midlands, has often told me how she and her sisters, when young, used to milk the cows in the fields all through the summer, and carry the milk home on their heads ; and my father said the same of the farmers' daughters of his village. When he was a lad much of

our parish was still unenclosed. This com- mon land lay mostly on the wolds above the village, and even in my time, when it was enclosed, and some of it in my father's occupation, it was still called " The Pasture." There was a lane, called from its dirty condi- tion " Pudding Lane," which ran up behind the village to the edge of the Pasture, and there the women used to milk the coWs, which were left out all night. The spot on which this was done was, in my boyhood, still known by the scurrilous name of " Tattlef t Hill." The most we can say of Gray's line is, I think, that he wanted a herd of cows for decorative purposes, not too near, and leisurely in movement, and it did not matter to him (nor does it to us) whether they were coming to be milked or seeking their sleeping-ground. Curfew-time would be late for milking. And is not the passage imitated from a classical author ? There is a note to that effect in the Aldine edition. Anyway, there the herd is in the verse, " a thing of beauty " and " a joy for ever." C. C. B.

The heading is not a correct quotation. Gray wrote

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea. It is correctly printed in two recent editions, those of W. L. Phelps and D. C. Tovey. Both editors draw special attention to the common error. It is curious that later on in the ' Elegy '

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour is one of the most frequently misquoted lines in the English language.

EDWARD BENSLY.

ROYAL EAST LONDON VOLUNTEERS (11 S. vii. 288). In the use of this expression I am afraid that we must charge Dickens with the error of committing a double anachronism. In the first place, in the days of Gabriel Varden such a company of volunteers as this, and bearing this name, never existed. Secondly, the very term East London is certainly a com- paratively modern expression, and could surely have had no significance in those days. For East London, as a compre- hensive term covering a number of parishes east of the Tower, was not in existence.

At the period preceding the Gordon Riots there was no Royal East London Company of Volunteers. The volunteer companies to which Dickens refers are most probably those which owed their origin to the public- spirited action of the Committee of the Westminster and Middlesex Subscription