Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/214

 172 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.ix A. 27,1921. Cheat or wheaton bread, so named bicause the colour thereof resembleth the graie or yellowish wheat. Baueled or raueled cheat is a kind of cheat bread, but it reteineth more of the grosse and lesse of j the pure substance of the wheat. Browne bread, of two sorts, one baked up j as it cometh from the mill, so that neither the j bran nor the floure are anie whit diminished. I The other hath little or no floure left therein I at all. Miscelin, bread made of mingled corne, albeit | that diuerse doo sow or mingle wheat & rie of set , purpose at the mill, or before it come there, and sell the same at the markets vnder the afore- j said name. In the preceding paragraph Harrison ! writes : Their [the gentilitie's] household and poore neighbours in some shires are inforced to content , themselves with rie, or barleie, yea and in time of dearth manie with bread made either of beans, peason, or otes, or of altogither and some acornes among. . . . The artificer and poore laboring man ... is driuen to content himselfe with horsse- corne, I meane, beanes, peason, otes, tares and lintels. ROBERT PIERPOINT. i ST. SWITHIN is not dreaming. In my boy- hood " penny bread " that is, bread in little | penny loaves was quite common. The loaves were baked in tins of the usual shape, | and the bread was of a superior quality. C. C. B. CHARLES DICKENS IN CAP AND GOWN (12 S. ix. 112). This inquiry appears to refer to the silhouette a reproduction of which was published in The Connoisseur of December, 1910, representing a youth in cap and gown facing to the right, with " Charles Dickens " written below the likeness. A reproduction- of the same portrait appeared in The Graphic, July 29, 1911, together j with another more than doubtful portrait of j " Dickens " as a boy. Some few years after the piiblication ofj these I had a parcel of silhouettes handed to me for examination and identification of any interesting portraits it might contain. Among them was one identical with the likeness in The Connoisseur. The silhouette was painted on the card, not cut out of paper, and there was no signature below it, and nothing to show whose portrait it was. The form of the letters in the signature in The Connoisseur does not correspond with the writing of Dickens at any period of his life ; he was never at college, and I have no hesitation in considering the portrait spurious. I have in my collection practically every known portrait of Dickens, and the features of the youth in the silhouette are quite un- like those in any authentic likeness of the novelist. There is a reprehensible tendency, of late years, to label the portrait of any unknown ,boy, or youth, especially if in Early Vic- torian dress, "Charles Dickens." There are dozens of such traps laid for unwary collectors ; even The Graphic seems to have fallen into one of them, for the other por- trait I referred to as appearing with the silhouette in that paper * is an obvious reproduction of a photograph, and the surly -looking boy called " Charles Dickens ; " is about fifteen years old. Dickens was fifteen in 1827, some years before the first photographic portrait was taken ! If your correspondent would care to compare his silhouette with a photograph of the original I mentioned above, I shall be pleased to show him a print if he will communicate with me direct. T. W. TYRRELL. St. Elmo, Sidmouth, Devon. NAUTICAL SONG (12 S. ix. 112). The lines quoted are, very nearly, the words as I re- member them of the chorus of a song which I recollect being commonly sung in the Navy over 40 years ago. The stanzas were a skit on the ships" officers (com- missioned and warrant) and made fun of each individual's attainment or rather lack of attainment. I never saw the song in print and do not know what it was called. The only verse which I can remem- ber in its entirety is the one relating to the chaplain, and this with the chorus ran as follows : The Parson's both holy and Godly, And sets us for Heaven agog, But to my mind it sounds rather oddly When he's swearin' and drinkin' of grog. When he took on his knee Betsy Bouncer, And spoke of her beauty and charms, Says I, " What's the way to Heaven now, Sir ? " Says he, " Why, you dog ! in her arms ! " CHORUS. Then it's pull away, haul away, jolly boys, In search of our fortune we go, And if we miss it why, damme ! what folly, boys, To be downhearted you know. In the last verse the poet explains that he has written only in fun, and that if neces- sary he would be prepared to defend any one of the officers, for he says of anyone attempt- ing to assail them : Why, damme ! I'd tickle his ribs.