Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/14

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 S. IV. JAN., 1918.

he would value highly this distinguished decoration, would much prefer to wear it at the neck, with the high class of the Com- mander of the Legion of Honour, rather than have to place it on the breast, where the fourth and fifth classes of decorations only are worn. The new British Orders with their five classes also assisted the argument, as none could hold that the decorations of the Companion class were inferior to the third or Commander class of the Victorian and British Empire Orders.

So the proposal has at last been accepted, and although the old designation of Com- panion is retained, the members of the third class of the Orders of the Bath, Star of India, St. Michael and St. George, and Indian Empire, now wear the decoration at the neck, arid have precedence of the Com- manders of the junior Orders. This change has only been secured after repeated representations carried on during many years, as was the case in the long-fouglit effort to secure to the Briton the right to fly the Union Jack a struggle in which I had, ultimately, the support of my good friend the late Mr. John Collins Francis in carrying the long-denied claim to a victorious conclusion. J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC.

Vevey.

' TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS ' : A LITERARY ERROR. At the heading of chap. iv. of part ii., ' The Bird-fanciers,' the following quotation appears :

I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the wood pigeons breed ;

But let me the plunder forbear

She would say 'twas a barbarous deed.

This is attributed by the author to Rowe. Many of your readers will no doubt recognize the lines as being by Shenstone (Pastoral II., 'Hope'). The remainder of the verse is worth repeating :

For he ne'er could be true, she aver'd [sic], Who would rob a poor bird of its young ; And I loved her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

Thomas Hughes, the author of 'Tom Brown,' had a great literary reputation. He was a Bencher of this Inn, and Master of the Library in 1889. It is an astonishing fact that in his well-known work, which must have been read by an enormous number of people of all ranks, the error I mention should never have been corrected. The author no doubt quoted from memory, as the words given by him are not exactly correct. J. E. LATTON PICKERING.

Inner Temple Library.

' PIERS PLOWMAN,' v. 500 :

J>e sonne for sorwe J>erof- les syjte for a tyme Aboute mydday, - whan most lijte is* and mtle~ tyme of seintes.

Skeat noted :

" This seems to refer to the sacrifice of the mass, when the saints feed upon Christ's body, literally, according to the Romish belief. . . .The expression must directly refer to the time of the crucifixion, when Christ's blood was shed upon the cross."

Yet he puzzles over this recondite matter as to the hour for mass, and cites Rock to support the information that " midday was, however, not the usual time for celebration ; it was generally much earlier."

But is not all this annotating beside the question ? For is not the meaning simply that saints broke their fast about midday ? So in Passus vi. 147 the saints of Piers's bequest are ascetics with modern Trappist fare :

Ac ancres and heremytes' )>at eten nojt but

at nones,

And namore er morwe' myne almesse shul t?ei haue

nones being at earliest about midday.

Does not vi. 147 explain or illustrate v. 500 2 W. F. P. STOCKLEY.

Cork.

"MR. EDMONDS" OF LADY FANSHAWE'S ' MEMOIRS.' In Appendix B, devoted to " the issue of Sir Richard Fanshawe and Ann his wife," we read :

" 9. Margaret Fanshawe was born at Tan- kersley Park hi Yorkshire, on Saturday, at 2 o'clock afternoon, on the 9th day of October^ 1653. She was baptized by Mr. Graves, parson of that parish, Mr. Edmonds her godfather, the Lady Rookeby and my cousin Boswell her godmothers." P. 216.

This is quoted from the edition of the ' Memoirs ' published in 1907, so fully and excellently annotated by Mr. H. C. Fan- shawe. In his note on this passage, after identifying Lady Rookeby and Mr. Graves, and offering a doubtful identification of Cousin Boswell, the editor fails altogether with Mr. Edmonds, of whom he says, " The name has not been found in any public or family papers of the time " (p. 594). Surely this would be Thomas Edmunds of Worsborough Hall, formerly secretary to the first Lord Strafford, from whose son Sir R. Fanshawe had rented Tankersley Hall, distant about 3 miles from Wors- borough Hall. Both families were Royalist and attached to the Straffords ; they would naturally be drawn into friendly association. Much may be read of Thomas Edmunds both in " public and family papers of the time." See Hunter's ' South Yorkshire,'