Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/179

 9 th S II. AUG. 27, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

171

"Even at present, 1827, they may feel a repug nance in having it known that they, in the person o their ancestor if I may so speak, were accomplice in laying bare to the vulgar scorn the hypocritica interior of sceptred majesty, and in teaching th multitude to think and to speak contemptuously o kings."

My investigations, after learning tha Junius wrote privately to Lord Chatham establish a belief that he was no other thar Kichard Grenville, Earl Temple, and tha Lady Temple was his collaborateur anc amanuensis. Finis coronat ojms. In con elusion, let me recommend any dissentien to refer to vol. iii. of the ' Grenville Papers and compare the words have in the second anc fifth, and hand in the fifth line, of Junius': facsimile, with the same words in the first anc fifth lines of Lady Temple's writing, also the word others by both. He might also note their capital letters T and C in the origina; MSS. at the British Museum.

H. H. DRAKE,

WILD FOREST BULLS (9 th S. ii. 108). In Sir Walter Scott's fine ballad 'Cadyow Castle : are the following lines :

Mightiest of all the beasts of chase

That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race,

The Mountain Bull comes thundering on.

Fierce on the hunter's quivered band He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow,

Spurns with black hoof and horn the sand, And tosses high his mane of snow.

With regard to their colour, which is the point upon which MR. WALLACE wishes to be informed, Lesla?us, in a Latin note quoted by Scott, says :

"In Caledonia olim frequens erat sylvestris quidani bos, nunc ver6 rarior, qui, colore candi- dissimo," &c.

In the introduction Scott says : "There was long preserved in this forest [the Caledonian Forest] the breed of the Scottish wild- cattle, until their ferocity occasioned their being extirpated about forty years ago [according to the date of the ballad that would be, I suppose, circa 1760]. Their appearance was beautiful, being milk- white, with black muzzles, horns, and hoofs. The bulls are described by ancient authors as having white manes ; but those of latter days had lost that peculiarity, perhaps by intermixture with the tame breed.

Scott adds in a note :

" They were formerly kept in the park at Drum- lanng, and are still to be seen at Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland."

With regard to Chillingham, Chambers, in his ' Concise Gazetteer,' 1895, says :

"In the park, as at Cadzow [or Cadyow], are preserved a nerd of wild white cattle."

In a note to Scott's preface to his ballad, dated 1833, and signed Ed. (qy. Lockhart ?), it is stated that

"the breed had not been entirely extirpated. There remained certainly a magnificent herd of these cattle in Cadyow Forest within these few years."

Although the description a great favourite with the poet Campbell (see Lockhart's ' Life of Scott ') of " the Mountain Bull " in Scott's ballad is very spirited, and worthy of Scott, still these wild cattle undoubtedly owe their chief reputation to " The Bride of Lammer- moor," the beginning of whose fatal love was " along of " her rescue by Kavenswood from one of these animals. In chap. v. (iv. in more recent editions) Scott says :

'The bull had lost the shaggy honours of his mane, and the race was small and light made, in colour a dingy white, or rather a pale yellow, with black horns and hoofs."

See also note to chap. vii. of ' Castle Dan- gerous,' with a painfully realistic extract from a letter written to Scott appended. In this note Scott says :

'The wild cattle of this breed, which are now
 * >nly known in one manor in England, that of Chil-

lingham Castle in Northumberland (the seat of the Earl of Tankerville), were, in the memory of man, still preserved in three plaaes in Scotland, namely, Drumlanrig, Cumbernauld, and the upper park at Hamilton Palace, at all of which places, except the ast, 1 believe, they have now been destroyed on account of their ferocity. But though those of modern days are remarkable for their white colour, with black muzzles, and exhibiting in a small degree which the bulls in particular are distinguished, &c.
 * he black mane, about three or four inches long, by

JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Ropley, Hampshire.

HOCKTIDE CUSTOMS (9 th S. ii. 26). The macaroni supper at Hungerford on the ccasion of this holiday must have been a modern local custom grafted on a more ancient >ne. It was certainly not a Saxon custom, as uggested in the query. I find no evidence hat the Saxons were acquainted with this talian dish, and it is certain that they usually tatronized much more solid ones. There is Iso an absence of evidence to prove that the Saxons kept the Hocktide holiday. The jopular opinion appears to have been that t celebrated the massacre of the Danes on t. Brice's Day, 13 Nov., 1002, but there are ifficulties in accepting this opinion. Although be ' Saxon Chronicle,' Florence of Worcester, iraeon of Durham, and some other early lironicles, mention the massacre, none of biem mentions the Hokeday. & Moreover, the ates do not agree. The Quindena Paschas usually kept on the Tuesday after the