Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/508

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. m. DEC., 1917.

315), by Lina Duff Gordon. I feel that a revival of it from my notebook is seasonable, and that it will be acceptable to some of the readers of ' N". & Q.'

Here is the " Paternoster " repeated by Tomasino, with a translation due, as I sup- pose, to his reporter :

Pater Noster di Natale

Beato chi 1'impara,

L'impara San Martino,

Lo scrive San Pellegrino,

San Pellegrino lo porta in Cielo

Per veder chi c'era :

C'erano le tre Diane,

Che suonavan le tre campane,

Da tanto che suonavano

Le corde si schiantavano.

Prende Ik per una viottoletta

C'era la Santa Colombetta.

"Santa Colombetta, ove vai tu ?"

" Vadp a battezzare il Bambin Gesu,

Con bianca pezzola

E senza fasoiola,

Col nomed 'argento

Che vale cinque cento.

Cento cinquauta."

La pecorella canta,

Canta il gallo, risponde la gallina.

Madonna ricciolina

S'afFaccia alia fineatra

Con tre corone in testa.

Passan tre fanti

Con tre cavalli bianchi,

Bianca la sella,

Bianca la donzella,

Bianco il parasole.

Gesu ci manda il sole !

II cole verra,

Gesu lo manterra."

" The Pater Noster of Christmas blessed is he who l_earns it, San Martino learns it, San Pellegrino writes it, San Pellegrino carries it to heaven to see who, was there. There were the three Dianas, who were ringing the three bells, and from their great ringing the bell-ropes broke. Then he went by a side-path. There was Santa Colombetta. ' Santa Colombetta, where art thou going ? ' ' I am going to baptize the Infant Jesus, with a white napkin, and without swaddling clothes, with a silver name [on a medall, which is worth five hundred and a hundred and fifty.' The lamb sings, the cock sings ; the hen answers. Curly- haired Madonna comes to the window with three crowns on her head. Three children pass on three white horses. White is the saddle, white the maiden, white the parasole. Jesus send us sunshine. The sunshine will come. Jesus will maintain it."

ST. SWITHIN.

THE PORT OF LONDON AND THE STATES. It is announced that American bluejackets belonging to vessels now in various British ports are being given 48 hours' leave, arriv- ing in batches of 200, to enable them to see something of London in war-time ; and these smart seamen are now daily to be seen in the neighbourhood of the great dock

system of the Thames as well as in all the- accustomed showplaces of the metropolis. The ingenuity of the London Omnibus Combine in engaging the intelligent in- terest of the rapidly increasing parties of friendly strangers, soldiers, seamen, airmen, and civilian volunteers who tour around before passing on to take their places in the- fields of the Great War, is laudable ; and it is probably remunerative. It is also educational, even to most Londoners. Exit it is sometimes too artlessly overstrained^. It is a little absurd, for instance, to attach Hendrik Hudson (whose legendary fate is immortalized in Washington Irving' s ' Rip Van Winkle') to St. Ethelburga's Church in Bishopsgate, and yet to ignore the asso- ciation of the great navigator-discoverei- with Ratcliff Cross Stairs the seaman's " jumping-off " place in Tudor times, and very near to Henry Hudson's long-reputed birthplace in what was afterwards to be- the parish of Limehouse, formed out of ancient Eastern Ratcliff, as Shadwell parish,. &c., was formed out of Western Ratcliff.

It seems that the literary advisers of the omnibus and railway combines might very usefully learn that East London i& full of association with the beginnings of American history, navigation, discovery, and heroic adventure on land and sea ; and that its ancient hamlets and villages forming the Port of London, the Stepney " Nursery of English Seamen " sent to the Thirteen Colonies of the Atlantic seaboard many pioneers whose descendants played parts in the events which culminated in the establishment of the now great Republic ; and sent, moreover, many mariners and gunners who took service in the first American navy. The old church records- and most of all those of the venerable mother church of St. Dunstan, Stepney furnish memories for the educated American citizen not less than for the British student of research ; and there are places on eastern and north-eastern main lines of bus routes in Great East London which are identifiable with the birth and the youth of fathers of the States of the Stars and Stripes. Some- day Ratcliff Cross, Stepney Churchyard (full of Georgian captains who escaped the- ocean bed), and other such historic places, will cease to be regarded with stolid neglect or ignorant indifference by the governing authorities of London ; in the meantime the astonished American visitors are de- pendent upon the scanty advertising of a business organization and a private enter- prise. Mo*