Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/473

 9 th S. I. JUNE 11, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

465

unmeaning texts. Though the fortunate owner of seven languages my self, I am entirely at a loss to delve the meaning out of such mystifying citations. How, then, can others not similarly blessed be expected to enjoy Mr. Le Gallienne's scholarship 1 ? Besides, when an author attempts a little Latin on his own account, one has a right to demand that it shall be correct. But the phrase at p. 105, " Incipit Vita nuova," is anything but correct. Mr. Le Gallienne was perhaps thinking of the ' Vita Nuova ' of Dante when he penned that unfortunate attempt at Latinity. The shallowest acquaintance with Eton's Latin grammar would discover to him his inaccuracy. J. B. S.

Manchester.

[There is a scarce work, printed in Paris in 1552> and more than once reprinted, called ' Recueil de tout Soulas et Plaisir.' We have not seen the word soulae, which has various forms in Littre, spelt with double I.]

THE THREE DUCHESSES OF PERTH. The following extract from the Perth Magazine of 12 February, 1773, contains an interesting notice of three noble ladies, the widows at one time of three successive Dukes of Perth :

" Perth. Jan. 30th. Died at Stobhall, in Perth- shire, in an advanced age, Jane, Dutchess Dowager of Perth, Lady of James, Duke of Perth, eldest son of John, Chancellor of Scotland, who followed the fortunes of James VII. and was created Duke by that Prince during his residence at St. Germains. She was daughter of George, first Duke of Gordon, and is great Grand Aunt to the present Duke.

" Feb. 4th. At her lodgings in Cannongate, Mary, also Dutchess Dowager of Perth, Lady of Lord John Drummond, also son to the Chancellor, who, on the death of James and John, Dukes of Perth, sons of James above mentioned (who were both engaged in the Rebellion, 1745), took the titles of Duke of Perth. She was daughter of Charles, fifth Earl of Traquair, and sister to John the present Earl. It is pretty remarkable, that another Dutchess Dowa- ger of Perth is still alive. She is Lady of Lord Edward Drummond, also son to the Chancellor, who on the Death of Lord John last above mentioned took the titles of the Duke of Perth and who died at Paris, 1760. She is daughter of Charles, Earl of Middleton, who in the 1688 likeways followed the fortunes of James VII. and resided at St. Germains till his death. This Lady still continues in France."

A. G. REID.

Auchterarder.

CHARLES INGLIS AND THOMAS PAINE. The circulation of Paine's pamphlet entitled ' Common (Sense ' at the beginning of the year 1776 had a very large share in setting the minds of the dominant party in the American colonies upon separation from the mother country, to which they were pre- viously opposed. Prof. Tyler in his recent work * The Literary History of the American

Revolution ' speaks very highly of an answer to it of which the title was ' The True Interest of America impartially stated, in Certain Strictures on a Pamphlet entitled " Common Sense." ' The first edition of the latter was stated to be by " An Englishman," and the answer purported to be by " An American." Prof. Tyler says that its author was un- doubtedly Charles Inglis, then assistant rector of Trinity Church, New York, and from 1787 to his death in 1816 the Bishop of Nova Scotia. He was the first bishop of that see, and, in fact, the first colonial bishop of the English Church ; his son became third bishop of the same see, and his son, Sir John Eardley Wilmot Inglis, defended Lucknow until Havelock's arrival during the Indian Mutiny in 1857. Where can one find a copy of the above pamphlet by Charles Inglis? Prof. Tyler says that the first edition, published in New York early in the spring of 1776, is said to have been seized and burnt by the Sons of Liberty there, but soon afterwards a second and a third edition were printed in Philadel- phia. The writer declares, amongst other things, that he disapproves as much as any one of the expedition to Lexington in April, 1775, but that "it was opposed both to the letter and to the spirit of the king's order to General Gage," so that there was no reason why it should render peace and reconciliation on constitutional grounds impossible. It is proverbially useless crying over spilt milk, and may seem to some absurd when the spilling took place more than a century ago ; but it is hardly possible even now to repress a sigh that Inglis's publication did not at least nullify the effects of that of Paine, and that what need only have been a temporary difficulty between the colonies and the mother country produced permanent separation, though assuredly not permanent alienation. I cannot find a copy of Inglis's pamphlet in the British Museum, and should be glad to know where one could be seen.

W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.

RECOVERING DROWNED BODIES. The fol- lowing recently appeared in the correspond- ence column of a popular weekly :

"O. B. D. writes: 'I have from time to time

E owever, whilst staying in Norway, I witne somewhat novel proceeding, and one which I was assured was frequently practised in certain parts of that country. A cock was put into a boat and rowed about a lake where a man had recently been drowned. The belief was that as soon as the boat passed over the place where the body lay the cock