Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/118

 94 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.vm. JAN. 29, 1921. The version in ' Cole's Funniest Song Book,' p. 257, is the same except that the second line is : He died long ago, long ago. "That the song is some seventy years old or more is evidenced by Delane's 'Journal,' quoted at the first reference. What sort of bread or cake is or was a hoe-cake ? ROBERT PIEBPOINT. In an old volume of music I find this pathetic ballad, with a frontispiece portrait of the hero. It was published by the "Musical Bouquet," 192 High Holborn. No date, but the book itself was bound up some time in the fifties of last century. The -first verse runs : I once knew a nigger, his name was Uncle Ned, He died a long while ago, /He had no wool on the top of him head, Just the place where the wool ought to grow Chorus Hang up the shovel and the hoe, the hoe, Lay down his fiddle and his bow. There's no more toil for poor old Ned, He's gone where all good niggers go. S. PONDER. Torquay. Dar vas an old nigger, and dey called him Uncle Ned But he's dead long, long ago. He had no wool on de top of his head On de place where de wool ought to grow. Second verse : Uncle Ned he was married when he was berry young To a yaller girl dey call Lucy Lee, She died in tree week, by an alligator's tongue, On de banks ob de old Tenessee. There are five verses. Chorus after each ^as follows : Den lay down de shubble and de hoe, Hang up de fiddle and de bow, Dar's no more work for poor Uncle Ned, He's gone where de good niggers go. E. C. WlENHOLT. 7 Shooters Hill Road, Blackheath, S.E.3. THE FIRST LORD WESTBURY (12 S. ^viii. 51). My old friend the late J. B. Atlay in the section of his 'Victorian Chancellors ' which treats of Lord Westbury (Richard Bethell) in commenting on his overbearing demeanour, writes as follows : " No one was immune, not the Court itself, nor the solicitors who instructed him, least of all his juniors. One of these, Charles Neate, Fellow of Oriel, and in after years member for the City of Oxford, was goaded beyond endurance ' Shut up, you fool ! ' are the words which are said by the late Thomas Mozley to have been addressed to him and retaliated in a fashion which all but lost him (his gown, and did compel his disappearance from active work at the Bar, Whether he knocked Bethell down, as the Oriel tradition runs, or pulled his nose outside the Vice-Chancellor's Court, or, in a still more modified version, merely lunged at him with an umbrella, I am not prepared to decide." WlLLOUCHBY MAYCOCK. AN OLD SILVER CHARM (12 S. viii. 50). Can this be one of the old Italian charms against the evil eye, called, I believe, " sprig-of-rue " ? WALTER E. GAWTHORP. 16 Long Acre, W.C.2. TULCHAN BISHOPS (12 S. viii. 52). Tulchan is a Gaelic term meaning "a little heap," then, a stuffed calf -skin placed imder a cow's nose to induce her to give her milk, then, derisively, applied to the titular bishops in whose names the revenues of the Scottish sees were drawn by the lay barons, who thus had " ane tulchen lyk as the kow had or scho wald gif milk, ane calfis skinstoppit withstra " (Lindesay, ante 1578), quoted in 'N.E.D.' J. T. F. Winterton, Lines. Nominal bishops, not consecrated or even in priest's orders, who held office in Scotland at the time of the Reformation. So named as tulchan means a stuffed calf's skin set up in sight of a cow to persuade her to give her milk. See J. H. Blunt, ' Dictionary of Sects, Heresies,' &c., 187<L p. 543, and note. W. A. B. C. Grindelwald. In accordance with the Concordat at Leith (February, 1572) and the General Assembly at Perth (August, 1572) bishoprics were in the gift of lay lords who appointed to the bishopric those who would take the smallest stipend, while they themselves enjoyed the full emoluments of the see. These were called, in ridicule, "tulchan bishops." Tulchans is the Gaelic name for calf-skins filled with straw which were placed before cows to induce them to yield their milk more readily. C. G. N. I. F. will find in the late Bishop Anthony Mitchel's 'Short History of the Church in Scotland,' London, Rivingtons, 1911 ("Oxford Church Text Books Series "), the information he requires on pp. 60 and 61. It appears that after the Reformation in Scotland when, in 1560, Episcopacy was banished, and the superintendent system founded, there were two distinct parties in the Church of Scotland, one for Episcopacy,