Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/511

. N<> 25., JUNE 21. '56.]

NOTES AND QUEEIES.

503

tried to climb over the stone wall enclosure with his spoil. I do not know that any particular stone is marked as the one on which the sheep was rested for the convenience of the thief in trying to make his escape ; but the Jehu of the now ex- tinct Barnsley mail always told this story to any inquiring passenger who happened to be one of " five at top as quaint a four-in-hand as you shall see." ALFSED GATTY.

Quotation wanted (2 nd S. i. 455.)

" The rush of years

Beats down their strength : Iheir numberless escapes In ruin end. And, now, their proud success But plants new terrors on the victors' brow : What pain to quit the world, just made their own, Their nest so deeply down'd, and built so high ! Too low they build, who build beneath the stars! "

Dr. Edward Young, The Complaint, night 8, 1. 215.

J. J. B. W.

TJie Ten Commandments (2 nd S. 5. 440.) Merely for the sake of information, and not con- troversy, I wish to state that Professor Browne, as quoted by A. A. D., is not correct, when he says that the Catholic Church " teaches the com- mandments popularly only in epitome " in her catechisms. In the catechisms used by authority in this country, the commandments are taught at length, and the first, as in the verses 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Exodus, ch. xx. F. C. H.

" Sic transit gloria mundi" (I 8t S. vi. 100. 183. ; vii. 164.; xi. 495.) This seems to be taken from the De Imitatione, lib. i. cap. iii. 6. : " O quam citb transit gloria muncli ! "

HUGO.

Umbrella or Parasol? (1 st S. xii. 233. 313.) On one of the Layard bas-reliefs in the British Museum, is a slave holding over the head of the king as he rides in his chariot to the hunt a (what ?) parasol or umbrella ? Is it not " a little shade" (ffKiafiiov) ? If it be an umbrella, it cer- tainly is a somewhat ancient discovery.

Query, however, the distinction between the two articles ? Jos. G.

Inner Temple.

Origin of Fashions (2 nd S. i. p. 332.) The following items relating to fashion have fallen under my notice while looking over a volume of the Hull Advertiser :

" Hair Powder. London, and the circumjacent coun- ties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent have aireadv pro- duced for hair-powder licences, no less than 100,0007., one half the sum at which the aggregate of the tax through- out Great Britain was estimated.

"The number of hair-powder certificates granted in this town (Hull) is nearly one thousand. July 11, 1795."

"Straw Sonnets. The prologue of Reynold's new comedy of Speculation, which has been very favourably

received in London, contains some very humourous allu- sions to the straw ornaments at present worn by the ladies : " ' Of threatn'd famine who shall now complain, When every female fore-head teems with grain?

When men of active lives To fill their granaries need but thresh their wives.' "

Nor are the matrons alone prolific : " ' Old maids and young, all, all are in the straw.'

" Nov. 21, 1795."

"Feathers: the Height of Fashion. Lady Caroline Campbell displayed in Hyde Park, the other day, a feather four feet higher than her bonnet. January 2, 1796."

K. P. D. E.

MR. HACKWOOD asks to whom we are indebted for the curious and sometimes absurd change which takes place from time to time in our man- ners, customs, and personal adornments. If a short and general answer will satisfy him, I would say, to the French. From France, at least since the time of Louis XIV., most of our fashions have been derived. A paper by Gay, in The Guardian, No. 149, written before the death of the grand monarque, notices this :

" The most fruitful in genius is the French nation. We owe most of our gaudy fashions now in vogue to some adept beau among them."

The chimney-pot (or rather flower-pot) which we wear on our heads is of French invention.

"The cocked-hat in general survived till nearly the present century. It was superseded by the round one during the French Revolution." Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, vol. i. p. 84.

All that our countrymen can be fairly charged with is, that in borrowing fashions in dress from their neighbours, they have sometimes " bettered the instruction," have made ugliness more ugly. So that the French are in the habit of deriding our costume, though copied from their own. Thus Beranger sings :

" Quoique leurs ehapeaux sont bien laids, Goddam ! j'aime les Anglais."

F.

Burying without a Coffin (2 nd S. i. 455.) The note of E. H. on this subject has reminded me of the following passage, which I met with some time ago in the first volume of Testamenta Ebora- censia, published by the Surtees Society :

" Fest. S. Marg. Virginia, MCCCCVII. Ego Jo- hannes de Burton, Rector medietatis Ecclesias S. Elena)

infra muros in vico de Aldwerk Ebor corpus meum

sepulturse tradendum in loco per me nuper proviso, et pro sepultura, corporis mei ordinato, ex parte australi chori dicta? Ecclesiaj, prsecipiens et inhibens executoribus meis, ne corpori meo cistam ligneam vel alia indumenta pni'- parent, nisi tantummodo unum lintheamen pro corpore meo involvendo."

No doubt his executors strictly observed his directions, and committed his body to the grave with no other covering than a linen sheet. S. D.