Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/141

 12 s. iv. MAY, i9i8.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

135

BYRON'S VALET WILLIAM FLETCHER. <3an any reader help me to trace wha became of William Fletcher, Lord Byron' L valet, after the poet's death ? I have a comprehensive library of Lord Byron' Life and Works, but I cannot find an- trace of Fletcher after 1824. I should likL to know where he lived after his return to England, when and where he died, anc where he was buried.

HERBERT C. ROE.

Sunnyholme, Alexandra Park, Nottingham.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. 1. Cito hac relicta aliena quam struit manus

JEternam inibimus ipsi quam struimus domum These lines were inscribed on a house ; bu whether they were composed by the owner, o were a quotation, I do not know.

2. Refraining his illimitable scorn.

3. Blessed little feet that have not yet trodden the dark paths of desire. B. A.

4. The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips.

In 'The Ignorance of Man,' written in 1862 Walter Bagehot (' Literary Studies,' ii. 410 quotes the lines :

The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips, Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair ; The Grecian gods are like the Greeks,

As keen-eyed, cold, and fair.

This is also the form in which they are quoted in Hain Friswell's 'Familiar Words*' (1877), where they are said to be anonymous. For other form: see 7 S. ix. 9 and 8 8. xi. 169.

Is it likely that Bagehot was himself the Author ? He certainly wrote verse.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

Nobis meminisse relictum. Etiam tentasse decorum.

Gifts then seem

Most precious when the giver we esteem.

G. H. J.

[7. Ac these lines a rendering of Ovid, ' Heroides,' 17, 71 ?

Acceptissima semper Munera sunt, auctor quae pretiosa facit.j

8. Where does the following quotation come

t has long haunted my brain, but I

annot place it, and quotation books do not help:

Farewell, my heart's queen,

Farewell, my wife. . ..

Giver at once and ender of my life.

What wanten men to have ?

. . . .descend into cold grave Alone withouten company.

JOHN LECKY.

9. Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I.

GEO. CLULOW.

[9. Wm. Oldys (1696-1761), ' On a Fly drinking out of a Cup of Ale.']

LAYING A GHOST. (12 S. iii..504; iv. 31.)

I BELIEVE I can furnish a more recent instance of exorcism than that quoted by MRS. COPE. I had it at first hand from a young woman who attended me as a trained Nauheim nurse, but as I cannot communicate with her and ask her leave to give names, I may not state where the exorcism took place. The teller of the tale is a highly respectable person, and was born in the very pretty village, well known to Marl- borough boys, where her people still live. Her father is a tenant on a large estate where the fine old manor house has been said to be haunted for generations. From a certain window, opening on a terrace, a lady was seen to leave the house and follow a shrubbery path to the lake in the grounds, where she vanished. Possibly the family who owned the house were in- different to the story, but when they let it, their tenants found the nuisance so in- tolerable as servants were too frightened to stay that they got the owner's leave to organize a service of exorcism. My in- formant gave a very vivid account of it, although she was not an eyewitness. But her father was asked to attend, as were the other chief tenants and heads of families ; and the ministers of all the different de- nominations for miles round were also invited.

The service took place at night. The tenants were gathered in the courtyard, and when the procession of clergy appeared Tom the manor house they fell in, and 'ollowed the churchmen, feeling greatly solemnized. The route was through the ong French window, down the path, and to the lake. The processional singing ceased at the lake-side, and prayers were said here.

I am not sure, but I am inclined to think ,hat the tenant's daughter believed that .he " ghost's " path was followed without any information being given to guide the clergymen who organized the whole thing.

It is a pity that so elaborate a rite did not ay the troubled lady's spirit. After telling ne the story the young nurse went for her jrief holiday to her home. Standing in the Tillage street by the pretty stream, she saw

wagonette laden with luggage dash down