Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/414

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. MAY 21, '98.

himself of certain times, seasons, and inci- dents. He continues thus :

"I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a Summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey-plover in an Autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of Devotion or Poetry. Tell me, my dear Friend, to what can this be owing ? Are we a piece of machinery, that, like the ^Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing acci- dent ? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod ? "

Six years later, in 1795, Coleridge, in the exercise of an energetic Transcendentalism, rose into this fine rapture in 'The Eolian Harp':-

And what if all of animated nature

Be but organic harps diversely framed,

That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps,

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

At once the Soul of each, and God of all ?

Burns's letter was first published by Currie in 1800. THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, N.B.

" BLACK SANCTUS." (See ante, p. 37.) This phrase occurs in 'Ivanhoe,' chap. xx. Wamba says to Gurth, "Hearken but to the black sanctus which they are singing in the hermit- age." " They" are the Black Knight and the Clerk of Copmanhurst.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

A BELL WITH A STORY. The campanologist may find of interest the following note of a recent discovery, especially as copper seems rarely used in bells. The "very ancient" may be modified when the metal that was buried is considered :

"An interesting discovery was made by workmen engaged in excavating at Bury yesterday morning. When about twelve feet down they discovered a large copper bell, beautifully chased, and evidently very ancient. The bell weighs about a hundred- weight and a half, stands 2ft. 6 in., and is 2ft. 7 in. in circumference. Daily Graphic, 17 March.

HAROLD MALET, Colonel.

ARMY LISTS, 1642 TO 1898. It may perhaps not be out of place to mention in ' N. & Q.' that in the Army and Navy Gazette, No. 1984, some interesting notes are published anent the first appearance of an Army List. Accord- ing to the remarks of the editor on the sub- ject, both Cavaliers and Roundheads had their Army Lists, and they were printed in 1642 ; original copies of them are in the Bodleian Library. The Roundheads named their Army Lists "The List of the Armie, Officers general of the Field." Officers of the artillery are described as " Gentlemen of the Ordnance"; and in the list the name of Oliver Cromwell appears as that of an ensign of infantry. King James II., following his

father's example, when in the death struggle for the crown, published an Army List, and some fifty regiments composed his Majesty's army. It is a singular fact that there was no official Army List during the campaigns of Marlbprough ! Ireland, having a separate establishment, published, by permission of the Lord Lieutenant, its own Army List. The English Army List appeared annually from 1754 to 1868 : and the first printed Army List in the British Museum is dated 1754. Prior to 1779 the Army List was published by permission of the Secretary of State for War : but in 1779 it became a War Office official publication. The well-known monthly Army List was first introduced in 1814, and con- tinued without interruption up to Novem- ber, 1897. It did not appear, however, for the months of December and Januarj^ follow- ing, but was issued in a revised form for the month of February, 1898. Hart's Army List first saw the light in 1839, and is still with us. With regard to the size of the Army Lists : that of the Roundheads is a small pamphlet of 20 pages. Our Army List for October, 1852 which, by the way, had a mourning border on account of the death of the great Duke of Wellington contained 120 pages only. In 1860 there were 292 ; in 1881, 1000 ; and in the list for September, 1897, 914 pages, exclusive of advertisements. There is another Army List which deserves notice, namely, * Illustrations, Historical and Genea- logical, of King James's Irish Army List, 1689,' by John D'Alton, barrister, author of the 'History of Drogheda,' <fec. The first edition appeared in 1855, and a second and an enlarged one in 1861. These volumes, as stated in the preface of my copy,

" simply preserve in print brief annals of the par- ticular Officers commissioned on the Army List; their individual achievements in War; and those of the survivors and some of their descendants in the lands of their expatriation." Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars That make ambition virtue ! farewell ! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife !

' Othello.

HENRY GERALD HOPE.

JOAN OF ARC. It may not be out of place, in view of the contemplated canonization of the Maid of Orleans, a figure around which gather in no ordinary degree the elements of romance and controversy, to revert to the extract given by A. B. G. at 8 th S. xii. 265. Therein it is stated how a M. Lesigne in a recent book of his had put forward the some- what startling statement that the Maid of Orleans not only " never freed France from