Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/526

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

. NO 26., JUNE 28.

ventured, timidly it may be, to suggest, " That Hengist and Horsa were myths : names of men, types possibly of qualities, but of men who had never existed!" I cannot describe the scene which ensued. There was an awful silence ; from amid the depths of which a deep, loud, rough voice exclaimed : " Here is a young man present who doubts the existence of Hengist and Horsa." Every word was duly poised and emphatised, and fell like drops of molten lead upon my soul. I attempted to maintain it was useless. I felt as one living stretched upon the anatomist's table ; resigned my spirit, and bore my martyrdom like the whole " Book of Martyr's."

And now, Hengist and Horsa are declared myths ! This brings me to the 'point at issue, the deficiency of the philosophical study of early j historic periods. We accept as truths the details of periods which had no historians. The lettered knowledge of an ignorant and barbaric people is al ways imaginative or traditional. Incapable of abstract ideas, they conceive only, or realise only through ihe medium of symbols and types. The next tendency is to exalt and deify tradition. Moral truths, religious ceremonies, great mental qualities, are in general personified ; and hence arise the fabulous stories of the deities, and the heroes who take unto themselves names, and be'- come the assured chiefs and great men of a later generation.

The "banner and the arms" have, I submit, a greatly similar origin. What is more delusive, even in our own day, than the origin of heraldic bearings ? It is not long since I received a letter, with a lion very rampant, clawing a banner veiy flowing. The grandfather of this was a valet. It is very probable the crest was drawn from the buttons which he bore or wore. In the same manner, what were probably the banner and the arms of the chief of a barbaric horde ? The rudest symbol comprehensible to an ignorant tribe, around which to assemble, the sign of power, the distinctive bearing of a clan.

Associated with ihe acts and deeds, Ihe very position of the chief or his followers, they retain iorce, as the heraldic bearing of a family, or of the county which formed his domain ; and around them tradition soon weaves a halo of vapoury glory. Some well-ascertained event gives them a local habitation, and poetry a pleasing name. Then conies the sterner vigilance of a later age. The altar and the god sink from before it : the chief is resolved into his original Ossianic essence, and his name, if it were possible to submit it to any exact analysis, would be found to be rude symbol of some quality which had commanded and controlled the minds of an ignorant, imagina- tive, and superstitious people. SPENCER HALL.

ta Minor

Diana and Actaon (2 nd S. i. 290.) I beg to say that the original picture of " Diana and Actgeon," painted by Vandyck, nine feet by seven, in excellent preservation, is now in the possession of Mr. Saunders of the Castle Hotel, Lime Street, Liverpool. FREDERICK HINDE.

21. Rodney Street, Liverpool.

The Bustard (2 nd S. i. 314.) I have shot a bustard (Otis tardd) on the frontiers of Russia. But we must well distinguish between a bird which hatches in a country, and which does not. Formerly the bustard was probably an indigenous bird in England, but has now become a mere straggler. Even birds indigenous in America are thus occasionally met with here and on the con- tinent. J. LOTSKY.

15. Gower Street.

The Rev. R. Lubbock, in his Fauna of Norfolk (Norwich, 1845), says of this bird :

" The few which remain in Norfolk are said to be all females : at least in the case of one shot lately at Lexham, the person who shot it said there were several others in the vicinity, but all hens. One bustard three years back was observed in the parish of Bridgham, near Harling."

This makes the bustard occur in Norfolk in 1842. I myself saw a dead male bird at a poul- terer's in Norwich in the winter of 1834-35.

E. G. R.

" Samuel Johnson's Deformities " (2 nd S. i. 408.) The author of that clever and severe pamphlet entitled, Deformities of Dr. Samuel Johnson, se- lected from his Works, Edinburgh, 1782, 8vo., is generally understood to have been John Callandas, of Craigforth (near Stirling), editor and author of various works which display great scholarship. He died at a good old age, in 1789. T. G. S.

Edinburgh.

. Lord George Gordon's Riots (2 nd S. i. 287.) In Barnard's History of England, pp. 694, 695., there is an engraving representing " the devas- tation occasioned by the rioters of London, firing the New Gaol of Newgate, and burning Mr. Akerman's furniture, &c., June 6, 1780." The historian states that

" Great numbers of these deluded people (rioters) were taken up, and afterwards by a special commission granted for that purpose, tried for their lives, a general view of which is as follows :

" In London and Middlesex.

" Tried 84 ; found guilty 34 ; respited 14 ; executed 20 ; acquitted 50. Totai.118.

11 In Southteark.

"Tried 50; found guiliy 21; respited 17; executed 7; acquitted 26. Total 74."