Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/519

 9*8. XL JUKI 27, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the six ministers who were prisoners i Blackness, at Linlithgow, in December, 1606 Row in his ' Historie of the Kirk of Scotland (Wodrow Society publications, 1842, p. 239 says that Thomas Hope and Thomas Gra defended them. James Melville in his ' Diary (same publications, 1842, p. 621) puts it thus with much directness :

" The Ministers being inquirit Quhat Advocat tha wald haiff to speik for thame? they desyrit Mr Thomas Craig and Mr. Williame Oliphant : quh being calht for, it wes reportit that thai wald no plead for thame : Thairfoir it behovith thame t tak sic as wald, to witt, Mr. Thomas Gray, ane ol man, weill-willing, but not Skillfull, and ane uthe young man, quho nevir befoir pleadit any can befoir the Justice, yit provit notably weill a moved by God for that effect ; in whose acti'one nothing wes missed that the best could have done This was Mr. Thomas Hope quho conquisit to him sell that day the estimationne both of a guid man and of a guid advocat."

At the General Assembly held at Montrose on 18 March, 1600, Hope had been admitted ane sworn solicitor and advocate for the Kirk, in place of James Mowat, who demitted the office. J. L. ANDERSON.

Jiidmburgh.

PARALLEL PASSAGES (9 th S. x. 285 ; xi. 336) I suppose that H. C. refers to the lines : 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. If so, what he has written is true, but not new. Twice have I pointed out in ' N. & Q.' the resemblance between these lines and the passage which he has quoted from Con- greve's ' Way of the World.'

E. YARDLEY.

BLUE ASSOCIATED WITH THE BLESSED VIRGIN

(9 th S. xi. 388, 496). In France all children devoted to the Virgin are invariably dressed either in blue or in white, and the phrase is used " vowed to the blue or the white."

D.

"GALLANT" (9 th S. xi. 269). A quotation from Browning's ' Pippa Passes 'is given at the above reference, where gallantry must have the accent on the second syllable. Browning displayed in this passage such carelessness in using one word, of which he did not know the meaning, that he may have been equally careless as to the accent in another. See the Academy of 16 June, 1888, s.v. ' A Distressing Blunder.' To the diction- ary there mentioned, to which reference might have been made, I may add Bailey's, vol. ii., and Halliwell's. The information as to the source from which Browning got the word about which he blundered, which information appears to have been supplied

by himself, is very inaccurate, and displays great heedlessness.

As to his careless use of words, I give the following extract from one of the late G A fcalas 'Echoes of the Week' (see Sunday Times, 25 June, 1893) :

" Robert Browning was much addicted to usine the word 'Nautch,' and persisted in using it wrongly He called his 'Eifine' the 'European Nautch ' which is like calling a Hindoo danXn girl The Indian Ballet.' "

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" SLEEP THE SLEEP OF THE JUST " (9 th S. xi. 429, 475). For Racine's quotation see his Abrege de 1'Histoire de Port Royal ' (P. Mes- nard's edition of '(Euvresde J.Racine,' tome iv. p. 519, printed in 1865). The same proverbial expression as in English occurs also in Ger- man, "Den Schlaf der Gerechten schlafen." In Biichmann's 'Gefliigelte Worte' (eighteenth edition of 1895, p. 34) it is traced back to some Biblical reminiscences (Psalm iii. 6, 7 ; iv. 9, cxxvii. 2, or Proverbs of Solomon, iii. 24)

H. K.

QUOTATIONS IN JOHN OF SALISBURY'S POLICRATICUS ' (9 th S. viii. 104). As regards C. C. J. W.'s first question, Fulgentius, ' Mytholog.,' ii. 16 (p. 694 in Van Staveren's 'Auctores Mythographi Latini,' 1742), has " Libido enim honestatis noverca, dum quid expediat nescit, semper est maiestati con- traria." EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

"DELIVERED FROM THE GALLING YOKE OF TIME" (9 th S. xi. 369, 412). May I ask if any record exists of Wordsworth's reasons for reversing the doom of Laodamia ? The change appears to have greatly shocked both deacon Hare, who devotes nearly five pages of * Guesses at Truth ' to a discussion of it. 3is judgment is strongly favourable to the
 * he artistic and the moral sense of Arch-

riginal reading as more consonant to the whole scheme and tone of the poem. He regards Laodamia as one of the martyrs ather than of the guiltier victims of pas- ionate love, and Wordsworth's final judg- ment of her seems therefore to him harsh ind even unjust, since the poem itself as a

hole so represents her. C. C. B.

A SEXTON'S TOMBSTONE (9 th S. x. 306, 373, 34, 517 ; xi. 53, 235). In quoting old Scar- ett's epitaph at the last reference MR. ALEX. JEEPER states, "The spelling and punctua- ion of the original, the whole of which is written in capitals, have been reproduced ere." I am sorry I am unable to agree with explicit statement. I copied the lines rom the picture in Peterborough Cathedral