Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/168

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 a. vi

MBQ.

improbable but that an Antelope was on one of the captured colouis, and that Col. Harrison obtained Her Majesty's permission for his regi- ment to bear the badge of an Antelope in com- memoration of the event. No documentary evidence has, however, been met with to sub- stantiate the tradition.

" Later in the year, Dec. 7, Lieut. -Col. John Ramsay and about three hundred officers and nien of the regiment were made prisoners at Brihuega, when surrounded in a small village by a numerous army, 2,000 brave men were forced to surrender themselves prisoners of war, after a gallant defence, and consigned to surveillance and prison ; but their honour was preserved untarnished."

TOUJOURS PRET.

' ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN ' (12 S. vi. 90). In his introduction to this novel Scott wrote : '' I have to confess on this occasion more violations of accuracy in historical details than can perhaps be alleged against others of my novels. ' ' But it was not only in historical details that the author was at fault. Einsiecleln always appears as Einsiedlen, and Pilatus as Mount Pilatre. The legend of Pontius Pilate's suicide as related by Antonio, the Italian-speaking lad " from the Orison country," is very different from that usually recounted, and " the dismal lake that occupies the summit " of Pilatus existed only in Scott's imagination. The site of the pool, now dried up, is on the Briindlen Alp, about ten minutes' descent below the Widderfeld, which is not the highest, but only the third in height, of the seven summits of the ridge. So much to point out that absolute accuracy is not to be found in the novel.

As for the queries :

1. In ch. i. Antonio " proceeded to recount the vow which was made by the Knight of Geierstein to Our Lady of Einsiedlen." So when in ch. ii. " Seignor " Philipson says to Arthur : " Our Lady and our Lady's Knight bless thee, &c.," he would seem to be referring to the Knight of Geierstein.

2. Ischudi is probably a mistake for Tschudi. I know nothing of Albert Tschudi or his ballads, but the family is a well-known one in Canbon Glarus. ^Egidius (Giles) Tschudi ( 1505-72) was (according to Murray's ' Switzerland ') " one of the earliest writers on the topography of the Alps and of Switzerland, and the father of Swiss history."

5. Offringen is probably Oftringen, a village to the east of Aarburg ; but I know nothing of the hermit. The " rich abbey of Konigsfeldt," mentioned hy Scott in the same chapter is the nunnery of Poor Clares at Konigsfelden near Brugg, founded 1310

by the Empress Elizabeth, and Agnes, Queen of Hungary, on the spot where, two years before, their husband and father, the Emperor Albert, was assassinated (Murray's 'Switzerland,' ed. 1904, p. 455). Both Oftringen and Konigsfelden are in the Canton of Aargaw. Murray's ' Switzerland ' at p. xcvi identifies Konigsfelden with the Roman Vindonissa, but at p. 455 remarks that the name of Vindonissa is " preserved in the village of Windisch," and quotes Gibbon thus :

" Within the ancient walls of Vindonissa the castle of Habsburg, the abbey of Konigst'eld, and the town of Bruck have successively arisen."

6. In Fanfani's ' Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana ' I find, as one of the meanings of the word bar one : " Titolo che gli antichi davano a' Santi." St; Anthony of Padua is probably the saint intended. He was born at Lisbon, in 1195 and died at Arcella in 1231.

8. When Charles the Bold is made to speak of Margaret of Anjou as his cousin, is anything more meant than that he recognizes her as a reigning queen '! All sovereigns are " cousins." He also is made to speak of " brother Blackburn."

11. Somewhere abroad I have seen a- picture called ' Carita Romana,' representing a young woman suckling her starving father in prison. The story was originally told about a mother, not a father, and in this earlier form is to be found in Valerius Maximus (v. 4) and in Pliny ('Nat.. Hist.,' vii. 36). The change is said to have been made by Festus. I do not remember where I saw the picture ; but I think it was by one of the Caracci.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

12. The gate with dreudjul faces thronged and!

fiery arms

is the last line but five of ' Paradise Lost,' Milton being inspired probably by Virgil's -

Apparent diice facies, inimicaq'ue Trojae Numiria magiia Deiim.

De Quincey concluded his ' Confessions of an> Opium Eater ' with quoting Milton's line.

C. R. MOORE. Ellesmere.

SLATES AND SLATE PENCILS ( 12 S. vi 67). Within living memory at Eatington, co.. Warwick, the school attached to the Nonconformist chapel \ised sloping desks filled with sand, to teach scholars the ait of writing, the instrument being a pointed stick of wood. This would seem a natural susvivab of the use of the stylus, and had at o-nee the merit of cheapness and cleanliness. Slates,.