Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/282

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9< s. XL APRIL 4, 1903.

of St. Mary ; " their robes were white, the mantle sable, and the arras a white field and red cross with two stars." Villani goes on to say that, instead of being impartial arbitra- tors, they merely used their official position for their own private advantage, which accounts for their infernal position in Dante.

J. DORMER.

Scartazzini ('Enciclopedia Dantesca,' 1896, verbo Gaudente) refers to ' Inferno,' xxiii. 103, and says that the name was originally given, popularly or in jest, to the frati cavalieri di Santa Maria, a religio-secular order, of noble and rich persons, instituted by Urban IV. for the defence and service of religion and morality (del buon viver civile). Under Godente the dress of the members of the order is described, and an ' Istoria de' Cavalieri Gaudenti,' by Federici (Venice, 1787), is mentioned. O. O. H.

"SWBLP" (9 th S. xi. 149). This is not an onomatopoeic word, though at first sight it might seem so, but a nautical corruption ; and Lucas Cleeve, in using it, shows her familiarity with sailors' slang. Let me ex- plain. In a court of justice the witness calls God to testify to the truth of his statements in the formula "So help me God." The cockney witness says, "So 'elp me God." The sailor, fond of strong asseverations and what may be called powerful language, uses the phrase "So 'elp me" to intensify any assertion as I have often heard him do. This easily becomes corrupted into " swelp," and forms a verb or an adjective, as the case may be. Thus, " The wreck lay swelping in the roscid ooze" means simply that the wreck was past man's aid, and lay helplessly rolling in what the author calls " the roscid ooze" a phrase not to be imitated.

H. J. D. A.

' VICAR OF WAKEFIELD ' (9 th S. xi. 187). "JOURNAL or A POOR VICAR.

"I have to-day, December 15, 1764, visited Dr. Snarl, and received from him 1QI., the amount of my half-year's salary. The receipt even of this hardly earned sum was attended with some uncom- fortable circumstances.' [Here follows the rest of the story ; at the end is this note.] This singularly touching narrative of certain passages in the life of a poor vicar in Wiltshire is translated from the German of Zschokke, who took il from a fugitive sketch that appeared in England from seventy to eighty years ago, and which probably gave Gold- smith the hrst hint towards his ' Vinar of Wake- field.' The present translation from Zschokke. who has improved considerably on the original, is (some emendations excepted) by an American writer, by whom it was contributed to the Gift for 1844 pub- lished by Carey & Hart, Philadelphia. To dis- arm prejudice, it is necessary to add that no vicar or curate can be exposed in the present day to hard-

ships so great as those endured by the hero of the piece ; and we hope that men of the Dr. Snarl species are now extinct." Chambers's Miscellany, 844, vol. ii. No. 17.

Forster ('Life of Goldsmith') ignores this story, and there is not much resemblance be-
 * ween the 'Journal' and Goldsmith's 'Vicar.'

As to priority, the ' Vicar,' though not pub- lished till 27 March, 1766, was begun in 1762, and sold to Newbery in 1764. I hope some reader of ' N. & Q.' will succeed in tracing Zschokke's English original, the opening of which may have an earlier date than 1764. ADRIAN WHEELER. [Zschokke was not born till 1771.]

CORNISH WRECKERS (9 th S. xi. 126, 196, 233). I used the term " Cornish wreckers " of the inhabitants of Appledore, first, because the inhabitants of this part of the Devon coast are geographically near neighbours of the

Cornish wreckers," and we know how " evil communications corrupt good manners"; secondly, because they are ethnologically identical with the Cornish Celts, the Saxon invaders not having seriously affected the dwellers on this part of the coast ; and, thirdly, because "Cornish wreckers" is a well - known and understood term, while " Devon wreckers '' would be an impertinence and a libel.

I cannot refer YGREC to any account of Cornish wreckers, in the narrow sense of those who exhibited misleading lights on the cliffs to delude vessels on to the rocks. This, being a crime, would naturally be concealed and denied. But in the wide sense of those who gloated on wrecks as a desirable harvest, who refused to go out to their help, and who threw half-drowned wretches back into the sea to perish, he will find many suggestive details in the Rev. S. Baring-Gould's 'Life of the Rev. S. Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstowe.' WILLIAM SYKES, M.D., F.S.A.

Exeter.

MISQUOTATIONS (9 th S. x. 428 ; xi. 13, 93). I think that I agree with C. C. B. in his later communication. He says that Byron's finest poetry rarely has perfection of form. But it sometimes has it. There are many passages in ' The Giaour ' which are very fine besides that to which I referred. It has been pointed out, I believe, in 'N. & Q.' that something in the stanzas of * Childe Harold ' to which I referred was borrowed from Madame de Stael. This dims their splendour more or less. My own opinion is that the most beautiful poems of the last century are ' The Eve of St. Agnes ' and ' The Ode to the Nightingale,' by Keats ; ' The Giaour,' by Byron ; and ' O'Connor's Child,' by Camp-