Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/220

 214

NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 8. m. MARCH 17, 1917.

U the same subject on p. 690, beginning '

thus : ,

Bollandus nous assure que Ste. Btafbe.*,** inconnue aux anciens, aussi bien que Ste. Latne Tine, et qu'on n'a aucune histoire m de 1 une m de 1'autre dont 1'autorite ne soit peucertame, ou <jui ne paraisse meme fabuleuse. When scholars like Bollandus and Tillemont, greatest among the great, and devout Catholics besides, assert that nothing is known about a saint, an opinion contrary to theirs must be considered as unscholarly -nonsense " unless some document, unknown to them, shows the contrary. No such document is in existence. S. REINACH. Boulogne-sur-Seine.

I have been waiting to see if any one -would give the story of Santa Barbara, -which has been familiar to me for many years, though whence acquired I cannot iiow say. She is the patron saint of ar- tillery men, quarry men, and all who deal in explosives. Her father, a Roman soldier, invented gunpowder, or something similar, and left her the secret. She was Superior of a convent at Bone in Algeria, and, being liard pressed by the Arabs who were be- sieging the convent, blew herself up with explains her connexion with gunners, and is so entirely different from the other as to lead one to suspect there may have been
 * 11 her nuns. This story much better
 * two saints of the name.

G. S. PARRY, Lieut.-Col.

I venture to suggest that the custom described by COL. EDWABD NICHOLSON is connected with the " Gardens of Adonis, for which see Sir James Frazer, ' The Golden Bough,' ' Adonis, Attis, Osiris ' (vol. i. 236, ,et aqq.). EMERITUS.

Marzials, Goldsmith, Gosse, &c., and in single form in several keys. It may in- terest your readers to know that it was first sung by my sister Miss Kate Lawson at a large artistic, literary, and musical conversazione held at our neighbour Mr. W B. Scott's house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. The company numbered, among other distinguished folk of the time, the poetess herself, her brothers William Michael and (our next-door neighbour) Dante Gabriel, Mr. and Mrs. Holman Hunt, Alma and Laura Tadema, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Burne-Jones, Tom Woolner the sculptor, A. C. Swinburne, and R. H. Home, known as ' Orion ' Home from his epic (the farthing one), who was 80 years of age at the time, and who sang us a Spanish 1 song, and accompanied it on the guitar with great brilliancy. Among the younger men present, if my mind deceive me not, were Arthur O' Shaughnessy ,Theo. Marzials, Cecil Lawson, Edmund Gosse, Theodore Watts, and others. I am proud to remem- ber my sister's singing of the song in question met with universal applause, and had to be repeated. On my asking Miss Rossetti if my humble efforts at finding music for her beautiful poem pleased her, she smiled, and in her serene and saintly voice answered, " Do you really think the question necessary ? " This answer some- how pleased my young and anxious heart more than any direct word of approval could have done. The words I remember ; but who could translate the lovely way they were said ? MALCOLM LAWSON.

131 Upper Richmond Boad, Putney, S.W

Music TO SONG OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI <12 S. iii. 149, 192). I had the honour of setting to music Christina Rossetti's poem beginning " When I am dead, my dearest, some years ago, and it was published shortly afterwards, under the title of ' Hereafter, by Messrs. Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co On the dissolution of that firm the song passed into the hands of the present pub Ushers, Joseph Williams, Ltd., 32 Great Portland Street, W. The song has gone through many editions, and has been popular both at concerts and in private circles. It is published in vol. i. of my '* Albums of People's Songs and Ballads,' with others with words by Thomas Carlyle, Charles Kingsley, Marlowe, Suckling, Theo.

HERALDIC QUERY: SALAMANDER: FRANCIS I. (12 S. iii. 108, 192). It cannot be said that the salamander has any special meaning in heraldry, any more than the gryphon, cockatrice, or other fabulous being, but it has its meaning. F Bond in his ' Misericords says that tJ chief textbook of the mediaeval zoologist was Pliny's 'Natural History. ? The ' Physiologus,' or 'Book of Beasts, ' Bestiary,' which is at least as early as the fifth century, added the passages in the Bible which speak of the animal in question, blending and reconciling as well as might b the Biblical description with that of I and then drawing an edifying moral. Gradually all this crystallized into a colle tion of some fifty moral beasts. The writer remarks of the salamander that it is a larg lizard, the character of which is to put fire by passing into it, its skin having t