Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/221

 12 S. IV. AUG., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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take notice of, as it hath occasioned a display of the droll humour of the people, who upon any particular occasion of festivity have from hence framed a proverb, ' We live as Jacob Dawson's wife died.' " Vol. i. p. 78.

J. W. FAWCETT.

Consett, co. Durham.

WB must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

RHODES : OLD CHIMNEYPIECE. Baron de Delabre in his ' Rhodes of the Knights ' (Clarendon Press, 1908), p. 104, writes : " The fireplace of the hall [of the palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John], a fine piece of carving, was bought and carried away by Col. Rose, then H.M.'s Consul-General at Beyrout."

The capture of Rhodes by Italy has given Christendom once more access to the former stronghold of the Hospitallers, and each Nation in particular interests itself in its own old auberge. Some desire is now felt to know what became of the chimneypiece which Col. Rose (afterwards famous as Sir Hugh Rose, Lord Strathnairn) " bought and carried away." If this letter appears in ' N. & Q.' it is quite possible that the ehimneypiece may be traced.

Curiously enough, another Rhodian relic of the Knights, which was removed about 1845, has been traced to its present resting- place, rightly enough in the home of that family from which sprang the high dignitary whose memory is perpetuated by that relic. I am told, by the way, that the name of Col. Rose, as British Consul-General, is still a power in Syria. He made his mark there, and the King of Prussia bestowed upon him the insignia of the Johanniter Orden, the Prussian branch of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. A. C. YATE, Lieut.-Col.

The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W.

" RUA NOVA," 1636-7. In a seventeenth- century MS. (India Office Records, Marine Records, vol. Ixiii.) which narrates a voyage to India and China in 1636-7 the following passage occurs : " There repaired abourd the shipps the Procurador of the Citty [Macao] . . . .This Filho de Rua Nova wanted not a tounge answerable to his head...." The term " Filho de Rua Nova " is evidently an expression of contempt. Can any reader give me its signification or tell me how it

arose ? Does it refer to a street in Macao or in Goa of bad repute ? It does not appear to have a proverbial significance in Portu- guese. The writer of the document, so far as I know, was never in Lisbon.

R. C. TEMPLE.

MADAME TAGLIONI. Can any of your readers inform me if any books have been written on this famous Italian danseuse, and, if so, by whom and when published ?

WHARTON.

Halswell Park, Bridgwater.

BEES IN THE TROPICS : Do THEY GENER- ALLY NOT STORE HONEY ? This is a question I should like answered, in view of a passage in ' Reminiscences of a War-Time States- man and Diplomat, 1830-1915,' by Frederic W. Seward, Assistant Secretary of State, U.S. of America (New -York, Putnam & Sons, 1916). Writing on Jan. 12, 1866, in the island of Santa Cruz (Caribbean Sea), on the subject of a perpetual hay-harvest there, Mr. Seward states :

" This reminded one of the gentlemen who accompanied us of an experience that a New Englander had, who brought a hive of bees here from the States, thinking they would make honey for him all the year round. But the bees, after the first year's experience, discovered that, where there was no winter, there was no need of laying up stores of honey, so they abandoned the habit of making any, except for daily use."

HENRY HOWARD.

Vevey, Switzerland.

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. I wonder if any of your readers could kindly assist me to get, or lend me, ' Extracts from the Nibelungenlied,' by H. B. Cotterill, M.A. I have inquired for it, and have been told that it is out of print. I believe a transla- tion of this poem into something like English hexameter verse has lately been published. Could any of your readers inform me of earlier translations of the poem, in part or in whole, that have poetical merit ? Those I have seen appear to be singularly wanting in it. Those by Thomas Carlyle in an essay on the epic in question seem specialty grotesque, though I know that admirers of that author a generation back received them with great reverence.

(Dr.) JOHN WILLCOCK.

Lerwick, Shetland Islands.

" PUG " DONALD. Can any reader give further information, from naval records or elsewhere, about this person ? He is stated in George Raymond's Memoir of R. W. Elliston, the actor, to have run away from school after being flogged by Dr. Roberts at