Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/42

 34

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xii. JULY n, 1903.

Campbell-Bannerman, have also had breaks in the continuity of their attendance at Westminster. It may be added that Sir William Hart Dyke, who has sat without interruption since 1865 first for West Kent, secondly for Mid-Kent, and since 1885 for the Dartford Division now comes next in point of seniority to Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the 'Father' of the House of Commons. The oldest Parliamentary veteran, however, is Sir James Fer- gusson, who entered Parliament as far back as 1854 whilst serving in the Crimea, being elected for Ayrshire in succession to Col. Hunter Blair, who fell at Inkerman. Sir Francis Powell was first returned in 1857 ; but neither he nor Sir James Fergusson can boast of an unbroken period of Par- liamentary service of more than 17 years and a few months, whereas Sir Michael Hicks Beach has nearly 39 years to his credit. Other old Parlia- mentary hands are Mr. Finch, who has represented Rutland since the succession of Mr. Heathcote (now Lord Ancaster) to the peerage (as Lord Ave- land) in 1867; Mr. James Lowther, Col. Saunderson, and Mr. Jasper More (1865) ; Sir John Gorst (1866), and Sir Charles Dalrymple (1868). All of these, however, except Mr. Finch, have gaps in the con- tinuity of their service. Mr. Balfour entered the House of Commons in 1874 and Mr. Chamberlain in 1876."

POLITICIAN.

"TRAVAILLER POUR LE Roi DE PRUSSE" (9 th S. xi. 289, 392, 437, 496). I had expressed astonishment at the above phrase not being mentioned in any of the current collections of historic sayings, to which MR. LATHAM replies that there is no reason for such wonder, as they are not concerned with proverbs. But it is anything but a pro- verb. This is the summing-up of the similar experiences of unnumbered thousands of successive generations ; it is the crystallized wisdom of the million. How many ages it took to form a proverb nobody can tell. Mr. Walter Robert - Tornow (1852-95), to whose care Georg Biichmann's * Gefliigelte Worte' were entrusted after the author's death, gave this definition of a " winged word " : a winged word is a saying, expres- sion, or name, no matter of what language, which is constantly and generally quoted, and of which neither author nor origin can be traced. Now, it should be generally known that the first Prussian king began to reign on the 18th of January, 1701, from which terminus a quo we must infer that our expression cannot be older than two centuries. Secondly, a genuine proverb can only be couched in the

Our phrase is French in form ; thus, if it were a real adage, the French nation must have had numerous opportunities of working for a Prussian king, wherein they had their labour for their pains. If nothing else, the very form would show that it must have had a purely literary origin, being the product of

a French esprit, and, further, it is clear that he belonged to 'the eighteenth century. And to which king does the phrase refer 1 The founder of the Prussian royal dignity, Frede- rick I., is out of the question. He spent more than he had, and rewarded the services rendered him over-munificently, to the ruin of his country. To him succeeded Frederick William L, a coarse man, but whose quiet greatness his own countrymen have come only lately to appreciate, who as an adminis- trator was superior to all his successors, even to his great son, who learnt all that he did in that line in his father's hard schooling. He who studies the reign of that reviled and railed-at monarch recognizes with a feeling of reverence that never a prince deserved more the title of pater patrice. He had to be economical and mind every penny if he wished to heal the wounds of his little king- dom, cruelly wasted by plagues, fires, and, above all, the reckless dissipation of his pre- decessor, mimicking Le Roi Soleil. From a superficial point of view he may be styled stingy ; but as he never allowed a Frenchman, or, in fact, a foreigner, to work for him, politically or otherwise, they had no occasion to complain of his stinginess. So only Frederick the Great remains as the possible object of the squib under discussion. He was economical, too, but not to Frenchmen, whom he paid very handsomely ; Voltaire received a princely remuneration for deigning to reside at the Prussian Court. Therefore, it can only have arisen in his political rela- tions with France, and it is highly probable that, as has been supposed, it was applied to the Due de Soubise, who, by allowing himself to be beaten so piteously at Rossbach, may be said, in a mariner, to have worked for the Prussian king. In conclusion, MR. FRANCIS KING is perfectly right in his suggestion that the source may be hidden among the political memoirs of the eighteenth century.

G. KRUEGER.

Berlin.

UPRIGHT BURIAL (9 th S. xi. 465, 514). In Oliver Hey wood's 'Register' is the following entry: " Oct. 28, 1684. Captain Taylor's wife, of Brighouse, buried in her garden, with head upwards, standing upright, by her husband, daughter, and other Quakers."

In Marvin's ' Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women ' (edition of 1902, p. 44) is a notice of Mrs. Norton, of Pawling, N.Y., who was buried sitting upright in a rocking-chair.

S. Baring-Gould, in 4 Curiosities of Olden Times' (also quoted by Marvin), gives an account of a man in Normandy who was