Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/513

 9 th S. I. JUNE 25, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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posterous, and are evidently drawn from his imagination, and not from his experience : The chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds ; The wind-shaked surge with high and monstrous

main Seems to cast water on the burning bear.

' Othello.' The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking

pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. ' Tempest.'

The winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds.

'Second Part of King Henry IV.' All his descriptions of the sea are stuff of this sort. He knew that the sea was green, and that its sands were yellow ; but I doubt whether he ever saw it. E. YAKDLEY.

PEARL FISHERIES IN WALES. The tradi- tion at Con way was that after a bridge was built the ford was never used, so that the mussels did not get bruised, and ceased to secrete pearls. I have a box full of Con way pearls once belonging to my great-great- grandmother, which means they are over one hundred years old. Some are of good size, but discoloured ; they have not been polished or prepared. E. E. THOYTS.

BRITISH ART. "We shall never excel in decorative design." So wrote Ruskin nearly thirty years ago, and this, we must suppose from a republication of the lecture without alteration (' Lectures on Art,' p. 16, 1894), is his opinion still. But has the march of time justified this dictum 1 I venture to hold that it has not. True, the buttresses with which the eminent critic propped his assertion are with us still. They are these :

" Such [decorative] design is usually produced by people of great natural powers of mind, who have no variety of subjects to employ themselves on, no oppressive anxieties, and are in circumstances, either of natural scenery or of daily life, which cause pleasurable excitement. We cannot design, because we have too much to think of, and we think of it too anxiously."

But, now as formerly, these very reasons alleged make, in my judgment, for skill in art as in everything. Vanity and anxiety are the twin spurs which goad our sluggish- ness on to better things, and without which no true advance is possible. Far too much is said about the hurry and fret of modern life as the enemies of all real progress ; they are the merciful factors which prevent stagnation. Besides, being " careful about many things " does not always fritter away strength nor impede concentration. But as a matter of fact British artists do "excel in decorative

design," this notwithstanding. The expe- rience of the last few years demonstrates this beyond cavil. British workmen have vied (and still do vie) successfully with those of other times and other climes. Productions in brass and iron work, in wall papers and decorated ceilings and panelling, rival those of other countries and epochs. The whole life of William Morris is living proof of this. So when the dust of three decades is blown off the master's dictum it stands in naked contrast with the truth at least to-day.

J. B. S. Manchester.

'ENTERTAINING GAZETTE.' In *N. & Q.,' 7 th S. x. 228, I asked for information about a periodical of this name, published by Harding in Paternoster Row. The correct title is the New Entertaining Press and London Adver- tiser, and it was published by W. Harding, 3, Paternoster Row (London, 1832).

MATTHIAS LEVY.

SENIOR WRANGLERS. With reference to a popular belief that Senior Wranglers generally fail to be as eminent in usefulness to the com- munity as their attainments at graduation promise, a contributor to the School Guardian (4 J une), over the signature " Cantab," writes :

"I have been looking at the names of the first two Wranglers in an old calendar, from 1804 to 1860. It would be a better test to take the first ten, for on several occasions there has been little difference between their merits. However, the following were first or second: Ten bishops (five seniors), seven ereat judges (five seniors), Sir J. Herschell, Dr. ewell, Melville, Sir G. Airy, Prof. Challis, the

late Duke of Devonshire, S. Laing, Dean of Exeter, Leslie Ellis, Sir G. Stokes, Prof. Cayley, Adams, Lord Kelvin, Prof. Tait, Routh, Clerk Maxwell, L.

Courtney, and Archdeacon Wilson. Of the rest twenty-seven remained at the University, or became professors in other universities, and these all wrote excellent works on mathematical subjects. Of those still remaining some held important posts in the University, and several died before they had time to acquire any distinction."

F. JARRATT. BURMESE WEDDING CUSTOMS.

" In some parts of Burma, in out-of-the-way country villages, they still retain a curious custom of tying a cord across the road along which the bridegroom must pass on his way to his home. They then demand money from him before he is allowed to proceed on his way. Should he refuse this backshish, they break the cord with a curse on the newly married pair. They have yet an older and still more dis- agreeable custom, which is, that on the wedding night a party of gay young bachelors assemble round the house of the newly married pair and pelt it with stones and sticks, which is extremely detrimental to the flimsy bamboo structures, and often results in serious damage being effected to the house, and not unfrequently to the occupants. This custom is especially curious, as it resembles a