Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/502

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii>.ii. DEC. is, 1916.

THE KIKO OF ITALY'S DESCENT FROM CHARLES I. (12 S. ii. 267, 358). Through the kindness of MR. A. FRANCIS STEUART I have now been supplied with the missing links in the pedigree. I accordingly subjoin the com- pleted table showing the descent, which mav perhaps interest some readers of ' Nl & Q.' :

TABLE SHOWING TJIK DESCENT OF THE KING OF ITALY FROM CHARLES I. OF ENGLAND.

Charles I. of England=pHenrietta Maria, d. of I Henry IV. of France.

Henrietta, of England-y Philip, Duke of Orleans.

Anna Maria=pVictor Amadeus II., Duke of
 * Savoy and King of Sardinia.

Mary Adelaide=f=Louis. Duke of Burgundy, I Or '

Grandson of Louis XIV.

Louis XV. of France-f Marie Leszczynska.

Marie Louise=f Philip, Duke of Parma.

Ferdinand, Duke of Parma Amelia, d. of Maria Theresa,

.-pAmeua, a. or Diana M.I
 * Empress of Austria.

Caroline of Parma=pMaximilian, son of Fredk. I Christian, King of Saxony.

John, King of Saxony^Amalia, d. of Maximilian I.,
 * King of Bavaria.

Elizabeth Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa, brother of Victor Em- manuel II., King of Italy.

Margherita=rHumbert I., King of Italy. Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy.

T. F. D.

AMERICANISMS (12 S. ii. 287, 334, 414). It seems odd that any one acquainted with English literature should have been first reconciled to the term " autumn " by a writer of these latter days. Shakespeare's " childing autumn " (' Midsummer Night's Dream,' II. i. 112) is a standard proverbial phrase, and there are two or three more in other plays that readily recur to the memory. Then Milton's " autumnal leaves that strew the brooks," &c., furnishes an illustrative reference that must have been used bv countless writers and speakers. The opening line of Thomson's ' Autumn ' :

Crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, i- only one of many finely pictorial touches with which the poet enriches his stimulating theme, and the poem with its due place as an integral member of ' The Seasons ' has been before the public for nearly two hundred years. Were it but for these three great

poets alone, the name associated with the- third division of the year should have been long familiar, but, as has been already said^. it receives due recognition from many others. As to " the Fall," it is in use in provincial Scotland at the present day in the charac- teristically contracted form " the fa' o' the year." Along with " the back end " it has held its place from early days to the present time. Thomas Smibert (1810-54) very effectively uses " the fa' o' the year " as refrain in his touching p^em, ' The Widow's Lament," which consists of eight melodious stanzas, of which this is the first :

Afore the Lammas tide

Had dun'd the birkeii tree In a' our water-side

Nae wife was bless'd like me. A kind gndeman, and twa

Sweet bairns were 'round me here, But they're a' ta'en awa

Sin' the fa' o' the year.

THOMAS BAYNE.

When a word or a phrase is found in an American book or paper at an earlier date than that of any known English example of the same sense, this is presumptive evidence of its being an Americanism. But the- converse, namely, that an earlier English use proves the word or phrase not to be an. Americanism, will not hold. The 'reason is, that many expressions which are obsolete in England, or which survive only in village dialects, are very much alive in the U.S., and, it may be added, ia Canada also, for the Canadians within the last thirty years have learned to " talk American."

By the way, I cannot agree with MR. DIBDIN (p. 414) that " English of the most anaemic kind is current " in the metropolis,, but let that pass.

Sir John Harrington, who died 1613> wrote thus :

There [in England]. ,we comyilaine of one reare

rested chicke ; Heere [in Ireland] viler meat, worse cookt, ne're

makes me sicke. 'Epigrams,' IV". 6 (1618).

Moufet and Bennet, 1655, write of " a rare Egg " ; and Dryden in 1717 gives us : New-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare.

No English poet within living memory would have written, as Lowell did in his ' Indian-Summer Reverie ' : Another change subdues them in the Fall, But saddens not ; they still show merrier tints, Though sober russet seems to cover all.

As to this word " fall," see 7 S. xi. 228,. 395. The full phrase is " the fall of the-