Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/257

 9* S. XI. MARCH 28, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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living in England or elsewhere. Can any of your readers give information on this head, which I have failed to obtain from other sources 1 Commander Drew was on half-pay of the navy and settled in Canada when the rebellion of 1837-8 occurred, and distin- guished himself by cutting out the steamer Caroline from under the protection of Fort Schlosser, and sending her on fire over the Falls of Niagara. The undertaking was a very hazardous one, owing to the fact that any boat injured by shot, or loss of an oar, was practically sure to be carried over the Falls. C. W. R.

'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.' Can any of your readers throw any light on the allusion to the "Joiners' Company" and the "Bedford Corporation" in Act II. in the above play?

R. A. POTTS.

"WAIK," "WENE," AND " MAIKE." Can any of your readers give me the meaning of the Scotch words " waik," " wene," and "maike," in the sense in which they are used by Hogg, as I cannot find a satisfactory meaning for them 1 They occur in ' Kilmeny ' thus :

In yon green wood there is a waik,

And in that waik there is a wene,

And in that wene there is a maike,

That neither has flesh, blood, nor bane ;

And down in yon green wood he walks his lane.

In that green wene Kilmeny lay,

Her bosom happed wi' the flowerits gay.

' Queen's Wake,' pp. 178-9, fifth edition, Edin., Blackwood, 1819.

"Waik " may be a derivative of " to vaik," to be unoccupied, and mean an unoccupied space, and in the same way " wene " may be derived from " venall," a lane or alley. Those meanings agree with the context in the same way as "maike" seems to denote a gnome or brownie, though I think that all the words have a distinct meaning in Ettrick Forest. H. J. GIFFORD.

[A o^iiery on these three words appeared 7 th S. v. 148. Replies followed at v. 276 ; vi. 75 ; vii. 33.]

this ballad been discussed in ' N. & Q.' 1 Have "the three kings" who " went out into the East" anything to do with the season of Epiphany, which seems very early for the sowing of the old less hardy kinds of barley, except in climates as mild as that of Palestine?
 * JOHN BARLEYCORN.' Has the meaning of

T. WILSON. [See 6 th S. xi. 368, 409. J

THE CHRISTENING DOOR. A burgess of Northampton, by his will dated 1527, left his body to be buried in his parish churchyard "before y e crystynyge dore." Can any of

your readers explain this term 1 In the church in question there are three doors in close proximity to the font.

R. M. SERJEANTSON.

St. Sepulchre's, Northampton.

THE EXPERIMENTAL GARDENS, CALEDONIAN ROAD. Thomas Coull ('History and Tradi- tions of Islington,' p. 115) records the found- ing of this Socialistic colony by Peter Henry Joseph Baume, and informs us that when he wrote in 1861 the leases had almost expired and the property become much dilapidated. I believe the large block of model lodging- houses in Randell's Road now covers the site, but shall be pleased to have further data identifying their exact situation. Several of Cruchley's large - scale maps are of some assistance. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

39, Hillmarton Road.

SHAKESPEARE'S SEVENTY-SIXTH

SONNET. (9 th S. x. 125, 274, 412, 495, 517 ; xi. 96.)

IT appears that we are getting more than we expected out of this great sonnet. MR. WILSON takes me to task for my criticism of Ben Jonson's varying but, he thinks, natural testimony to Shakespeare's learning, and assures me that, although Jonson abused Shakspere during his life, " he came to know the man and had a better opinion of him after his death." But, unfortunately, Jonson continued his severe strictures on Shakspere after his death, when he informed Drummond that Shakspere " wanted art, and sometimes sense," and wished that " he had blotted out a thousand " of his lines. Certainly Jonson varied his criticism with such opinions as Shakspere being " the wonder of our stage." To more than Jonson was he the " wonder of our stage" in the days of ''Eliza and our James," and even to Shakes peareans, let alone Bacon- ians, he has remained a " wonder " ever since. If Ben Jonson, a Latin scholar himself, believed that the author of the classical dramas had "small Latin and less Greek "and that " he wanted art " in the construction of the dramas, he may have known the man Shak- spere, but he knew very little about the plays or their author. Aubrey, Shakspere's first biographer, says " he knew Latin very well," and recently Canon Ainger, a fervid Shake- spearean, maintained that Shakespeare must have known Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, and Plautus, from the last of whom he derived his plot of * A Comedy of Errors.' If Shake-