Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/577

 12 s. vii. DEC. 11, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

477

.sented to General Wolfe by his fiancee, Miss Katharine Lowther. Mr. Newton states that he does not know what its price was, but he fancies some gilt-edged securities had to be parted with. One of the most in- teresting association books recently offered in booksellers' catalogues is Shelley's copy of the ' Iliad ' of Homer, with a few slight pencil marks. This appears in Messrs. IDobeil's catalogue, Nc. 295, priced 95Z.

Mr. Everard Meynell's third catalogue mentions many books under this heading, including ' Line upon Line,' vol. ii., with alterations in Mrs. Browning's autograph, priced a-t 21. 2s. In both these instances the association is not with the author of the book in question, and the book itself is of small value. It is questionable whether special editions of books autographed to order by their authors could be correctly described as "association books," but it is probable that they are so regarded by some collectors. W. PAGE- WOOD.

This clumsy phrase seems to be an American invention. I noticed it recently in 'The Amenities of Book Collecting,' a- volume by an American bibliophile, Mr. A. Edward Newton. Chapter iv. is devoted tc 'Association Books and First Editions.' No definition of the former is given, but I gather that the phrase means (1) books which are signed presentation copies, and frequently contain "a note or a comment- which sheds biographical light on the author," and (2) books in which the owner's name or other marks recall some point of particular interest. The examples given include the copy of Gray's ' Elegy ' read and underscored by Wolfe ; Shelley's ' Queen Mab,' with an inscription and pencil note to Mary Godwin, and a note by her of her love for him ; and the ' American Notes ' of Dickens, inscribed with Carlyle's name, Oct. 19, 1842. How famous a man must be before his marks in a book make it an -expensive item, an "association" book worth boasting about, I cannot say. This sort of eminence is, I suppose, decided by fashion and the American book-dealers.

V. R.

PEACOCK'S FEATHERS (12 S. vi. 334; vii. 137, 277). At 9 S. iii. 484 MR. FRANK REDE FOWKE described some people in England occasionally using the peacock's feathers in decoration of their houses and mantel-pieces, and suggested that the choice of the feather was originally due to its

heart-shaped " eye " assumedly powerful in counteracting fascination. In the same belief appears to have originated its exten- sive use in Chinese decorations. Li Shih's ' Siih Poh-wuh-chi,' written in the eleventh century, torn, ii., contains Li Wei-kung's say :

" The swan frightens demons, the peacock averts evils, and the bittern charms fire."

According to the forty-ninth book of Li Shi-Chin's ' System of Materia Medica,' 1578, certain barbarians in China esteem the peacock's flesh as an antidote against all sorts of poisons. It is very probable that such folks consequently hold the peacock's feather as auspicious.

Charles de Kay's t * Bird Gods in Ancient Europe,' New York, 1898, contains the following passages :

But at a very early period the splendor of the exotic peacock made the ancient inhabitants of Greece associate that bird with a representative of the sun, such as Pan was. Later he had to part with his eagle to Zeus and his peacock to Hera ; but we can guess that the peacock was first assigned to him, because in Europe, with few exceptions, its name is a variant on that of Pan, and generally keeps the initial P, even when as in Latin pavo, Esthonian pabu, it drops the n "P. 132.

" Perhaps with the relegation of Pan to the devils by the Christians the peacock became thatsynomyn for the lusts of the flesh which we find it [sic] in the Middle Ages. That must also account for the idea that peacock feathers are unlucky ; they were badges of the heathen when Christianity was still fighting for its life in northern Europe." P. 146.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

THE APOCRYPHA AND CORONATIONS (12 S. vii. 408). The earliest coronation at which the presenting of the Holy Bible took place was that of 1689. As will be remembered the first Lord Clarendon when on a visit to Oxford, of which University he was elected Chancellor in 1660, accepted from the hands of Henry Wilkinson, Principal of Magdalen Hall, a presentation Bible, but with a very ill grace, telling him that "he thanked him, but did not intend te follow him and relin- quish the Common Prayer-Book," the said Bible having no Common Prayer bound up with it, as was then usual, and not con- taining the Apocrypha. A. R. BAYLEY.

THE BELFRY AT CALAIS (12 S. vii. 409,

454). An account of the carillon in the

Belfry at Calais, as it existed in the year

1880, may be found in the collection of bell

I inscriptions at the Library of the Society of


 * Antiquaries. It comprises 12 bells, together