Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/574

 472 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. ix. D EC. 10, 1921. It may interest ST. SWITHIN to know that i Paul Verlaine was French teacher at the | Ramsgate Grammar School during the i Franco-German War (1870-71). The pro- 1 prietor and headmaster was a Church of | England clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Druce, who, I understand, was a relative of the founder ' of the Baker Street bazaar. Verlaine was a great favourite of my eldest brother, the ' late Georges de Ternant, and the poet and ,' pupil even undertook a "pilgrimage" on! foot to Canterbury Cathedral. My brother, j who subsequently entered the service of the Eastern Telegraph Company, was killed during the bombardment of Alex- andria (July, 1882). When the poet read of his old pupil's death in a Parisian newspaper he wrote a most sympathetic letter to my uncle, Alcide Ludovic de Ternant (Superin- j tendent of "~ the Marseilles branch of the! Company), and stated he would never I forget his " dearest and devoted pupil j Georges, and his most regular corre- spondent." ANDREW DE TERNANT. 36, Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W. The answer to this may be best given in : the poet's own words, in a letter to his j biographer, M. Edmond Lepelletier, dated i April 10, 1875 (Mr. Wilfrid Thorley, in his little book on Verlaine, gives the date as | 1876 ; this is, I think, incorrect), and i written from Stickney : Cher ami, Me voici professeur, au pair, dans i un village anglais. Personne autour de moi qui i parle un mot de frangais, un traitre mot. j J'enseigne le francais, le latin . . . et le dessin ! j Je me tire assez bien de ces trois besognes. Et j J'enseigne en anglais, ce qu'il y a de plus fort. ! Quel anglais ! mais depuis huit jours que je suis ici, j' 'improve (je fais des progres). Vie en famille. M. Andrews [the headmaster] est un jeune homme qui lit le franc. ais comme je lis 1'anglais, mais qui ne le parle pas. . . . Mes Sieves sont des enfants tres bien eleves et assidus, qui m'apprennent 1'anglais comme je leur apprends le franc, ais, et c'est ce que je cherche precisement. Combien de temps resterai-je ici ? j Trois ou six mois, selon que je saurai parler et entendre. Puis verrai serieusement a gagner la vie en ce pays-ci, ou probablement maman, j'espere, finira par se fixer presque. Je n'ai aucune distraction, et n'en cherche pas. Lectures immenses, promenades avec eleves (pas en rang, tu sauras, rien du pionisme ici) a travers de magnifiques meadows (prairies) pleins de moutons, etc. Depuis huit jours c'est etonnant comme je me porte bien, moralement et physiquement. . . . M. Lepelletier adds : II vecut ainsi apaise, laborieux, regulier, dans cette pension familiale. . . . Ce furent des mois de recueillement, d'abstinence materielle et spirituelle.J After a year and a half spent at Stickney,. ennui and the desire to see his mother again caused him to leave there. He returned to England in 1877 and took up his quarters at Boston, near Stickney, with the intention of giving private lessons, but,, whether for want of pupils or introductions, he did not succeed ; he next entered a school kept by a Mr. Remington at Bourne- mouth. Several of the poems in the volume ' Sagesse ' were written there. W. A. HUTCHISON. 32, Hotham Road, Putney, S.W. See Edmond Lepelle tier's ' Paul Ver- laine ' (1907), p. 404, and Ernest Delahaye's 'Verlaine' (1919), p. 216. DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE. GRAVE TO BE TURFED AND "BRYERED" (12 S. ix. 389, 431). Is it not possible that the covering of graves with briars or willow twigs may be a survival of an ancient superstition ? In a small village in North Wiltshire a man had lost his wife, but a few weeks afterwards consoled himself with another, much to the disgust of his neighbours^ and the following conversation took place between two dames oi the village : " I hear they have put the withy sticks over poor Sarah's grave. If they hadn't she'd walk." " The Lord forbid ! " " Ah ! and if it were me He might forbid, but I'd up and at un if 'twere varty times ! " The numeral " forty " was in constant use in the village. A man would declare he would go forty miles the other way to- avoid an unpleasant meeting. EDWARD H. DOBRE. Udney Hall, Teddington. DEVONSHIRE HOUSE GATES (12 S. ix. 231, 391). It is desired to know when these gates arrived at Chiswick, whether in 1740 or 1838. As it appears that Lord Burlington removed the gates to Chiswick House, we can surely determine the date, more or less, by finding out when Lord Burlington died. The latter is an ancestor of the Bedingfelds of Oxburgh, Norfolk, as Lord Burlington's sister, Lady Elizabeth Boyle, married, in August, 1719, Sir Henry Arundell Bedingfeld, 3rd Bart., of Oxburgh. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Richard Bedingfeld, and in an old journal of the latter I find the following : Dec. 3, 1753. My uncle Lord Burlington died of a dead palsey. 1754, Dec. 8. Lady Hartington died of