Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/191

 9* S. I. MAR. 5, 98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

183

NOTES ON THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.

IN reading 'Rob Roy' last year I was unused with the following parallel, which I lo not remember to have noticed before. In }hap. xx. Frank Osbaldistone, speaking of ,he " younger females " at the service in the irypt of Glasgow Cathedral, says :

" Some of them, Tresham (if my vanity did not ireatly deceive me), contrived to distinguish your friend and servant as' a handsome young stranger and an Englishman."

Compare Mr. Alfred Jingle's " high - souled daughter handsome Englishman," the " handsome Englishman " being himself ! Sir G. O. Trevelyan says, "The first touch which came home to him [Macaulay] was Jingle's 'Handsome Englishman.' In that phrase he recognized a master."

In chap. xiv. Andrew Fairservice says, " O for the bonnie girdle cakes o' the North ! " Andrew at that time was living in North- umberland, and by "the North" he, of course, means Scotland. I am not sufficiently ac- quainted with Northumberland to say if the Bernicians are familiar with these " bonnie " cakes, but had Andrew lived in the neigh- bouring county of Cumberland he need not have sighed for his beloved "girdle cakes o' the North," as they are well known there. Experto credite. In the rough but graphic Cumberland ballad ' The Worton Wedding,' by Anderson, we read how

Aunt Ester spoilt the gurdle ceakes ["c" hard], The speyce left oot was wrang, nae doot.

In 'The Monastery,' chap, xiv., Scott de- scribes worthy Dame Glendinning as "watch- ing every trencher as it waxed empty, and loading it with fresh supplies ere the guest could utter a negative." This very trouble- some, indeed aggravating, however well- meant, custom appears to nave survived in some parts of Scotland until a comparatively late period. I think it is Dr. Russell, the minister of Yarrow, who says that his mother kept up this hospitable (?) custom, and would heap up a guest's plate with a fresh supply of ' vivers " again, and yet again, before he was able to protect himself against such an unprovoked assault! (I dp not mean that Dr. Russell uses these ipsissinia verba.) See Swift's paper in the Tatler (not Steele's Tatler\ dated 6 March, 1710/11, describing how he was pressed, or rather persecuted, to eat and drink at a country-house, a descrip- tion which makes one feel almost man- slaughterous ! In ' Old Mortality,' chap, xii., Scott speaks of " the compulsory urgency of pressing to eat, to which, as to the peine forte

et dure, the ladies of that period were in the custom of subjecting their guests."

In ' The Abbot,' chap, xxxvi., Sir Walter, probably unconsciously, has quoted himself (not verbatim), as in the case of the "Fonta- rabian echoes " in 'Rob Roy ' (see 'N. & Q.,' 8 th S. viii. 90, s.v. 'Legends of Florence'). Henry Seyton says to Queen Mary, "Our goods, our castles, our blood, are yours. Our honour is in our own keeping." Compare old Bell-the-Cat's reply to Marmion's offer of his hand :

My castles are my king's alone From turret to foundation stone The hand of Douglas is his own; And never shall in friendly grasp The hand of such as Marmion clasp.

In 'The Talisman,' chap, xviii., Richard Cceur de Lion says to the nermit of Engaddi, "Without challenging your right to take charge of our conscience, methinks you might leave us the charge of our own honour." As some of your readers may not remember it, they may like to be reminded that Scott, twice at least, alludes to the " invisible " pro- perty of fern-seed, mentioned by Gadshill in

1 Henry IV.,' II. i. Dandie Dinmont, in 'Guy Mannering,' chap, xiv., says that people say that Meg Merrilies " has gathered the fern-seed, and can gang ony gate she likes, like Jock-the-Giant-Killer in the ballant, wi' his coat o' darkness and his shoon o' swift- ness." Erasmus Holiday, in ' Kenilworth,' chap, ix., says that Demetrius Doboobie, otherwise Alasco, amongst the wonders of his art, " gathered the rignt maddow [sic, but qy. madder] and the male fern-seed, through use of which men walk invisible." Demetrius Doboobie also " discovered stolen goods by the sieve and shears," anent which superstition see 'N. & Q.,' 7 th S. ix. 188, 332.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

Ropley, Hampshire.

ROBESPIERRE AND CURRAN, In the charm- ing series of essays given to the world by Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., and published in 1896 by Chapman <fe Hall, London, under the title of ' Napoleon,' the distinguished member for part of Liverpool, in referring to the authentic likeness of Robespierre in the pos- session of Lord Rosebery, states that the portrait of the " Sea-green Incorruptible," in the first volume of the ' Memoirs of Barras ' (London, Osgood, Mcllvaine & Co.),

" is that of a man with a short, rather chubby face ; the cheeks are full and round ; the nose is irregular, with broad nostrils, and with a slight tendency to snub ; the air is almost boyish, and is gentle, even tender, and rather sad. In short, if I had been shown the portrait, without knowing the name or