Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/31

 12 a. IV. JAN., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Oxford. The lines which Browning has quoted, with a modified punctuation and with the fourth line omitted, are these : Ivy and Violet what do ye here,

With blossom and shoot in the warm spring

weather ?

Hiding the arms of Monchenci and Vere On the lonely gate ye are met together.

EDWARD BENSLY. [E. W. also thanked for reply.]

JAN WEENIX (12 S. iii. 506). Through the courtesy of MR. ARCHIBALD SPARKE, I have been enabled to consult the pages of ' Painters and their Works,' by Ralph N. James (L. Upcott Gill, 1897). The book contains much valuable information as to the pictures by Jan Weenix and by his father, Jan Baptist Weenix ; also a specimen of the former's signature to his many canvases, with records of sales by auction of the productions of! both artists. Jan so closely followed the style of his father and instructor, Mr. James tells us, that it is sometimes difficult " to decide by which of them a picture was executed." This is a pity, and involves much research.

CECIL CLARKE.

Junior Athenasum Club.

ADMIRAL VAN TROMP'S ENGLISH DE- SCENDANTS (12 S. iii. 478, 520). Capt. Usher Tyrrell of Jamaica, formerly of St. Kitts, by a daughter of Admiral Van Tromp had a son and heir John Tyrrell, a planter in 1738. William Van Tromp* Tyrrell of Stockbridge, Hants, sometime of Jamaica, died Mar. 25, 1837, aged 75. V. L. OLIVER.

Alderman H. J. Van Trump is the present Mayor of Taunton, and not for the first time. He has collar factories in Taunton and Bridgwater. WEST SOMERSET.

STALLIONS AT FUNERALS (12 S. iii. 505). The reason stallions are used at funerals in England is twofold.

In the first place, the horses used are the black Dutch horses (the same as black or dun-coloured are used for State occasions by the English royal family). This breed of horses looks best when stallions are used, they being fuller in body and larger, and the breed is so quiet that stallions are no trouble to drive.

Secondly, and probably the chief reason why they are used in funerals, the stallions of all breeds are the only horses which* are pure black. A gelded black horse turns a rusty brown.

WALTER WINANS.

Carlton Hotel, Pall Mall, S.W.I.

GERMANS AS " HUNS " (12 S. iii. 383,, 427). Probably it was Mr. Rudyard Kip- ling who brought into vogue the name Hun for German. His poem ' The Rowers,' which appeared in The Times of Dec. 22, 1902, was written concerning the joint attack made by English and German cruisers on Venezuela in December, 1902. The following stanzas are particularly in- teresting now :

Last night ye swore our voyage was done,.

But seaward still we go ; And ye tell us now of a secret vow Ye have made with an open foe !

There never was shame in Christendie

They laid not to our door- And ye say we must take the winter sea

And sail with them once more ?

Look South ! the gale is scarce o'erpast That stripped and laid us down,

When we stood forth but they stood fast And prayed to see us drown.

Of evil times that men could choose

On evil fate to fall, What brooding Judgment let ye loose

To pick the worst of all ?

In sight of peace from the Narrow Seas

O'er half the world to run With a cheated crew, to league anew

With the Goth and the shameless Hun ! It should perhaps be noted that the Germans whom Byron called " Huns " were Austrians :

"... .the Huns opening all letters. I wonder if they can read them when they have opened them ; if so, they may see in my MOST LEGIBLE

HAND, THAT I THINK THEM DAMNED SCOUNDRELS AND BARBARIANS, and THEIR EMPEROR a FOOL,

and themselves more fools than he ; all which they may send to Vienna for anything I care." Moore's ' Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,' Letter 400.

" ' Letters opened ? ' to be sure they are, and that's the reason why I always put in nay opinion of the German Austrian scoundrels." Letter 412 t Byron uses the name " Hun " in the para- graph preceding Letter 423.

Under date Jan. 12, 1821, he expresses a liking for Germans, after reading and translating some of their writings, and remembering what he has seen on the Rhine of the country and people : " all, except the Austrians, whom I abhor, loathe and I cannot find words for my hate of them,, and should be sorry to find deeds correspondent to my hate ; for I abhor cruelty more than I abhor the Austrians."

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" THERE HAS BEEN DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS " (12 S. iii. 509). I heard the phrase " dirty work at the cross-roads " first at the Front many months ago, and imagined that it referred to the shelling always carried