Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/454

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vii. NOV. e, 1020.

chorus differed somewhat from that quoted and seems to me now more effective, I venture to quote it for the benefit of those who may be interested in preserving the words of negro ditties, which, as Delane remarked, "some Southerners oddly enough consider to be their national airs." It ran .-as follows :

Hang up the shovel and the hoe, hey-ho, Hang up his fiddle and his bow ; For there's no more work for poor old Ned He's gone where the good niggers go, hey-ho He's gone where the good niggers go. (Andante) Poor Uncle Ned.

I may add that the Christy Minstrels in those days professed to give the genuine words of the melodies they sang.

J. E. HARTING.

THE '"UMBLE COMMONS " (12 S. vii. 170, 195, 236, 277, 318). SIB HENRY HOWARD'S statement that in French the letter h is ever silent is rather too sweeping. Apart from the fact that the ' Dictionnaire de 1 ' Academie ' gives upwards of 200 words, to which the term h aspirate is given, there is the far more cogent evidence of French actors, the arbiters of elocution for at least two cen- turies. For fifty years or more I have attended French theatres, and can assert that not only in the classical dramas but down to those of Ponsard and Augier, the aspiration of the letter h was distinctly audible. How can such words as la harpe, le heros, le Havre be pronounced without sounding the initial letter ? L. G. R.

QUOTATION FROM CARTWRIGHT (12 S. vii. 291). The lines to which Southey was referring are

A great Exactor of himself, and then, ~i ' ) By fair Commands, no less of other men.

They are 27 and 28 of the piece headed 'Upon the death of the Right valiant Sir Bevill Grenvill Knight,' and beginning Not to be wrought by Malice, Gain, or Pride, To a Compliance with the Thriving side."."] See pp. 303 sqq. of 'Comedies, Tragi- comedies, with other Poems,' by William Cartwright, London, 1651.

EDWARD BENSIA.

CAISTER, NORFOLK (12 S. vii. 291). Some of the names for which references are desired take one into the thick of the Paston Letters. It appears from the notes in Gairdner's edition that Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Roth.enhale, was the daughter of Sir Philip Branch and had. been previously

married to John Clere of Ormesby. We are told that she died at Caister in 1440.

" By her will, which was dated at Caister, 16th October, 1438, she bequeathed all her goods at Ormesby to her son Robert Clere, and all her goods at Horning Hall, in Caister, to her son Edmund."

References are added to Blomefield's 'Hist, of Norfolk,' iv. 35; vi. 392; xi. 210. An abstract is given of a letter in the Paston MSS. in the British Museum addressed to William Paston and beginning "Dear and well-beloved Cousin," which was apparently written by her. It is dated from " Castre. "

For John Daubeney there are something like sixty references in text and introduction of Gairdner's 1904 edition of the Letters.

For "Hegg " in 1. 3 of the query read Flegg. EDWARD BENSLY.

MAYALL SURNAME (12 S. vii. 290). This name occurs in the Registers, under Baptisms, of Kensington Church, for the year 1616: Baptized, Ann, daughter of James MayalJ.

According to Bardsley's authority the name is synonymous with May hall, Mayell and Miell, and may have originated from "Michael." W. JAGGARD, Capt.

See Harrison's ' Surnames of the United Kingdom,' 1918, vol. ii. p. 18 under "May hall." S. A. GRUNDY-NEWMAN.

WalsalL

JOHN WILLIAM ROSE AND CONTEM- PORARIES (12 S. vii. 249). John William Rose, Recorder of London, was knighted Nov. 24, 1790. See Shaw's 'Knights of England,' ii. 301.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS (12 S. vii. 251). The author of 'Notes ' in The Tablet of Sept. 25, 1920, writes as follows :

" The term ' Pilgrim Fathers ' is a kind of fake, a sort of modern antique. An American student, a Mr. Albert Matthews, has published an elaborate monograph on the subject, in which he shows that the phrase cannot be traced further back than the year i799, and that it arose out of certain convivial gatherings which took place at Fly- mouth (U.S.A.) and Boston to celebrate what was at first most commonly called ' Forefathers' Day ' or ' Old Colony Day ' ; but even these com- memorative banquets only started in 1769. The term ' Pilgrims ' first came into use, not at Plymouth but at Boston, and though Governor Bradford does happen to use the term of the Leyden exiles, he obviously has nothing more in his mind than a reference to the " strangers and pilgrims on the earth " of Hebrews xi. 13. It is quite certain that for more than a century and a