Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/443

 us. vii. MAY si, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

435

In illustration of the antiquity of the hand both as a religious emblem and as a tribal or family badge, I may mention that in the Old Jewish Cemetery in the Lauriston Road, South Hackney, belonging to the Hambro' Synagogue, " a number of the tombstones have carved upon them clasped hands, this hand-in-hand being, I under- stand, the crest or badge of the Cohen family, who. according to popular tradition, are descendants of the tribe of Levi.

G. YARROW BALDOCK. South Hackney, N.E.

In an article by George Petrie on the ' Coronation Chair of the O' Neils of Castle - reigh,' which was published in The Dublin Penny Journal of 22 Dec., 1832, this eminent authority wrote :

" We shall have frequent opportunities in our future numbers of returning to the history of the illustrious family of the O'Neils, and in the mean- time present our readers with an engraving of their the silver signet ring of the celebrated Turlough Lynnoch. It was found a few years ago near Charlemont, in the county of Armagh, and is at present in the possession of a gentleman of that 'County."
 * arms the bloody hand from an impression from

It is the right hand which is shown in the engraving. J. DE L. S.

" IF -NOT THE ROSE " (11 S. vii. 349, 397). A translation of the " elegant fable of Sadi on the advantages of good company " will be found, with the Persian text, in Sir William Jones's ' Grammar of the Persian Language.' See his ' Works,' London, 1799, iii. 237. He Jiotes that the Persians perfume pieces of clay with essence of roses, and use ^them in the "bath instead of soap. The clay says :

"I was a despicable piece of clay; but I was some time in the company of the rose; the sweet quality of my companion was communicated to me; otherwise I should have been 6nly a piece of earth, as I appear to be."

The passage comes from Sadi's ' ' Gulistan ' ('Rose Garden'). Another version, by -Capt. Eastwiak, is given in Claude Field's " Dictionary of Oriental Quotations,' Lon- don, 11933, p. 103, with the original Persian in JRomaa characters. Sir John Malcolm in his "HBbetches of Persia,' chap, x., quotes Sir Y\Y r iIliam Jones's translation. In the English version of the ' Gulistan ' printed by the Kama Shastra Society (Benares, 1888) the fable occurs on p. 8. STEPHEN WHEELER Oriental Club.

Did Benjamin Constant really write, or say, " Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vecu avee elle " ? According to one of the late

Lady Dorothy Nevill's amusing volumes of anecdotes, Abraham Hay ward, when repeating the expression as given above, was silenced by the retort. " And if you have, it 's not good manners to boast of it." With all submission to the editor of Bartlett's ' Familiar Quotations,' I suggest that " Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vecu pres d'elle," is the correct form ; and this is borne out by PROF. BENSLY'S contribution. R. L. MORETON.

The idea of association with the rose is amplified in the concluding lines of one of Moore's ' Irish Melodies ' : You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you

will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

The reference is, of course, to a vase in which roses have been distilled.

J. FOSTER PALMER.

8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

[The lines come from ' Farewell ! But whenever you welcome the Hour.']

EDMUND CARTWRIGHT (US. vii. 349). There is a short memoir of Cartwright in Bennet Woodcroft's ' Brief Biographies of Inventors of Machines for the Manufacture of Textile Fabrics ' (London, 1863). The book named by MR. J. W. SCOTT was written by Mary Strickland. If your correspondent is compiling a new life of Cartwright, he may care to be referred to the ' Journals of the House of Commons ' for 18 March, 1794, p. 347, where he will find a petition from Cartwright relating to his woolcombing machine.

It is w r orthy of note that when Lord Masham purchased Donnisthorpe's well - known woolcombing patents, he had no idea that Cartwright had been engaged on the subject as far back as 1789 and 1790. Lord Masham made this statement in the course of a speech at the weekly dinner given by the Mayor of Bradford, 11 May, 1898. a report of which appeared in most of the papers on the following day, as it contained the announcement of an offer to found a Cartwright memorial at Bradford.

R. B. P.

As far as I know, the ' Memoir of the Life

of Edmund Cartwright,' 1843, is the

only complete biography of this divine and inventor. The initials " M. S." stand for Mary Strickland, his daughter, and, as might be expected, the book deals very inadequately with Cartwright's inventions.

H. W. DlCKTNSON,