Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/180

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. JUNE, 1918.

'The sockets inside lamps and lanterns were made to hold such candles. A few were made up to forty years ago at a small candle factory in this town. THOS. RATCLEFFE. Worksop.

[Several other correspondents support the bedroom -candles tick explanation.]

GRAMMAR SCHOOL REGISTERS (12 S. iv. 78, 145). Two editions of the Register of the Grammar School at Durham, now called " Durham School," have been pub- lished in recent years. The King's Scholars signed the Treasurers' Books at the Chap- ter's Record Room when they received their quarterly payments, and the published volumes contain a plate of facsimiles of some of their signatures from 1588-9, a copy of which I enclose. J. T. F.

Winterton, Doncaster.

[We have forwarded the facsimiles to the querist.]

ROTTPEI/L FAMILY (12 S. iv. 103). Speak- ing for Jersey, I do not think this family originated there. It is not mentioned in my father's ' Armorial of Jersey.'

DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE.

AUTHORS OP QUOTATIONS WANTED (12 S. Iv. 106, 146).

3. Words are easy, like the wind ;

Faithful friends are hard to find. This couplet certainly appears in ' The Passionate Pilgrim,' but is MB. WIIXCOCK correct in stating that it is Shakespeare's ?

It is known that ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' is one of Jaggard's piracies, published in 1599 under the name of Shakespeare, and that the volume contains little of his, the majority of the pieces "being by Marlow, Raleigh, Barnfield, and others. I understand that the lines in question are by Barnfield, to whom also belongs the sonnet " If music and sweet poetry agree."

J. MAKEHAM.

Crouch Hill, N.19.

(12 S. iv. 135.)

6. " Nobis meminisse relictum " is from Statius, 4 Silvae,' Book II. i. 55. The poet is condoling with his friend Atedius Melior on the death of a iavourite slave. EDWARD BENSLY.

No. 8 is from Chaucer's ' Knight's Tale.' It is Arcite's dying speech : Alas, min hertes quene. alas, my wif ! Min hertes ladie, ender of my life ! "What is this world ? What axen men to have ? Now with his love, now in his colde grave Alone, withouten any compagnie.

Chaucer, ' Poetical Works,' ed. Tyrwhitt, 1877, p. 21.

L. I. GUFNEY.

[Mns. M. T. FORTESCUE also thanked for the reference.]

0tt

A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. By Col. W. F. Prideaux, C.S.I. A new and revised Edition, edited and supple- mented by Mrs. Luther S. Livingston. (Hollings, 12s. 6d. net.)

WE are grateful to Mr. Hollings for sending us a book which is as near perfect in its way as a Bibliography can hope to be, and, further, a record of the accomplished bookman who was for so many years a keen supporter of ' N. &, Q..' Col. Prideaux, after an adventurous life in the East, enjoyed Prospero's dukedom at home the possession of a fine library. He was one of the most accurate of men, and did not like the vagueness or good guesses of other people. He required managing, and we know on > editor of the past who, he confessed, would have taken first-class honours in diplomacy. Col. Prideaux was the very man to compose a Bibliography ; and the one before us will remain, we hope, as a permanent tribute to his industry, knowledge, and enthusiasm.

That he was wrong in any important detail we find it difficult to believe, but discov ries have been made since his time, especially on that side of the Atlantic where millionaires are common, and where men of letters thanks to the superiority of the American magazine find a larger field for serious and thoughtful work than is open in this country. Mrs. Livingston is the Assistant Librarian of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library of Cambridge, Mass., and, doubtless, has had within easy reach the rarities which belong only to the possessors of long purses. What the actual literary worth of ' R.L.S. Teuila,' a volume of posthumously printed poems noted here, may be we do not know ; nor are we deeply interested in the first American edition, so long sought, of ' Macaire." But we recognize in the pages before us a good deal of valuable matter concerning Stevenson. Rarely he played the man of science, as in ' The Thermal Influence of Forests ' ; and frequently his ebullient youth is apparent, as in the " larky " productions which were published by S. L. Osbourne & Co., and described him as "the author of ' The Blue Scalper.' "

Books and articles on Stevenson have multi- plied since the eighties, when Henry James put him among his ' Partial Portraits,' and this section of the ' Bibliography ' gives it a. real value to the student of letters, supplying definite in- formation which it is not easy to get otherwise. We think that Mr. Frank Swinnerton's mono- graph, published by Mr. Seeker in 1914, shoxild have been included", though it shows clearly the reaction against Stevenson. We do not know why ' The Robert Louis Stevenson Originals,' by E. Blantyre Simpson, are credited only to their American publisher in 1913. The issue we are familiar with bears on the title-pag 71 " T. N. Foulis, London and Edinburgh, 1912." On the same p. 330 " Livington " lacks its *. Mr. Safroni-Middleton's ' Sailor and Beachcomber ' (1915) is mentioned, but not his later book, ' A Vagabond's Odyssey ' (1916), in which, in conse- quence of the interest aroused by his descriptions, he devotes two chapters to R. L. S. and his friends. Here again the English publisher is