Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/77

 9*s.x.JuLY26,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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physical failure of old age, occurs the sentence, " The almond tree shall flourish " (Revised Version "shall blossom"). I should like to ask -why the almond tree is chosen in this connexion, and if it be quite certain that the original word used indicates the almond. The peculiarity of the almond tree is that it flowers before the leaves appear rather an emblem, apparently, of precocious youth than of the failure of age. There appears, however, to be an Eastern tree which more fitly meets the requirements of the comparison. In Rudyard Kipling's story ' In Flood Time ' (' Soldiers Three, and other Stories ') occurs the following sentence, which struck me in this connexion : " The mind of an old man is like the numah-tree. Fruit, bud, blossom, and the dead leaves of all the years of the past flourish together. Old and new and that which is gone out of remembrance, all three are there ! " The aptness of the com- parison here is much more evident than in the Biblical illustration, and I cannot help wondering if there may not be a mistake in the translation of the latter.

W. SYKES, M.D., F.S.A.

BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA : THE LAST SURVIVOE. In the list of " Those who sy.r- vived the Black Hole Prison," printed in J. Z. Holwell's "Genuine Narrative of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentle- men, and others, who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal, in the Night suc- ceeding the 20th Day of June, 1756. London : Printed for A. Millar in the Strand. MDCCLVIII," now before me, p. 40, the only lady named is Mrs. Carey. In the Asiatic Journal, vol. ii. p. 99, of July, 1816, the obituary contains the following :

"Nov. 20 [? 1815J Mrs. Knox, aged 74 years she is the last of those who survived the horrid scene of the Black Hole in 1756. She was at that time 24 years of age, the wife of a Ur. Knox."

I do not find the name " Knox " in Holwell's list; but he mentions "John Meadows, and twelve military and militia blacks and whites, some of whom recovered when the door was open."

The case of Mrs. Carey is discussed by Dr. Busteed, ' Echoes of Old Calcutta,' second edition, p. 30. She was 58 years of age in 1799. She would therefore be about 15 years old at the time of the tragedy. May I ask if anything is known of Mrs. Knox?

W. CROOKE.

Langton House, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham.

ROCKALL. Has any scientific account ever been written of Rockall, an island or rock in

the North Atlantic 1 So far as I know the late Capt. Hans Busk was the only person who had landed thereon. Is it a volcanic peak ? ASTARTE.

AUSTRIA AND THE ISLE OF MAN : HISTORY OF BERWICK. In an opinion, Rex v. Cowle, 1759, Burrow's 'Reports,' p. 851, Lord Mans- field alludes to "a complaint of Austria claiming the Isle of Man," referring to Rymer, 608. What claim was this? The opinion contains a valuable collation of the history, the constitution, the charter, and the laws of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

Portland, Oregon.

LADY ELIZABETH PERCY. Lady Elizabeth Percy i*> said to have been married to the Rev." William Nicholson, M.A., rector of Derrybrusk (Derrybrughas), co. Fermanagh, who was murdered at Taulbridge, co. Down, in 1641. The only 'Lady Elizabeth Percy I can trace at the period, the daughter of Thomas, seventh Earl of Northumberland,- was married' to Thomas Woodruffe, of Woolley, Yorkshire, whom she may have survived. The family tradition represents her as a member of the Northumberland family. Is there any evidence (documentary or otherwise) of La4y Elizabeth's marriage with Mr. Nicholson 1 ?

THEODORE MAXWELL, M.D.

29, Woolwich Common, Kent.

MICHAEL BRUCE AND BURNS.

(9 th S. vii. 466 ; viii. 70, 148, 312, 388, 527 ;

ix. 95, 209, 309, 414, 469, 512.)

IN my last communication on this subject I adduced certain passages from other poems of Bruce as illustrations of the thought and style exemplified in the ' Ode to the Cuckoo.' It seems necessary now to say that in doing so I had no' intention of claiming for the poet a monopoly of the ordinary words of the English language. I trust that very few readers, received such a fantastic impression as that this was the purpose of what I wrote. The poems from which the citations were made were in the volume published by Logan in 1770 as ' Poems on Several Occasions by Michael Bruce,' and he did not afterwards claim them publicly as his own.

In his preface to the little book to which he gave the title just quoted Logan wrote as follows :

"Michael Bruce, the Author of the following Poems, lives now no more but in the remembrance