Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/202

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NOTES AND QUERIES. t9* s. n. SEP*. 3,

intrusion it makes little difference whether one looks backward to the evanished night or forward towards the coming midday. Night introduces the morning, as in Brown- ing's 'Easter Day,' xviii. :

'Twas the last watch of night. Except what brings the morning quite ;

or morning discomfits night (as in 'L' Al- legro'), and the shrill note of chanticleer "scatters the rear of darkness thin." A pastoral poet at the end of the fifteenth cen- tury would hardly estimate morning as the entire section of the day that precedes dinner, thereby holding himself free to employ the formula of " Good morning " till 6 P.M. or later. Henryson, with fine poetic instinct and pastoral sympathies, appreciated the natural divisions of the day and the Scottish seasons. He deserves our regard and admiration, not only as an accomplished Chaucerian narrator, in some respects superior to his great ex- emplar, but as the writer of our best fables, and (in his sprightly ' Robin and Makyne ') as the pioneer of the romantic pastoral.

THOMAS BAYNE. Helensburgh, N.B.

SLABS IN ST. MARGARET'S CHURCHYARD, WESTMINSTER (9 th S. ii. 127). Has MR. MASON applied to the Rector of St. Margaret's for the list of the gravestones he requires ? In 'N. & Q.,' 6 th S. v. 351, I read :

" Before the surface of the ground was disturbed a complete map was drawn and a copy taken of all the inscriptions that could be deciphered on the stones ; and in due course these lists will be de- posited in the church safe, to be accessible to any one who may hereafter be desirous of consulting them. At the same time it must be understood that the remains of the bodies buried in the ground were not disturbed, although many reports were falsely spread to the contrary."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

" JACK-UP-THE-ORCHARD " (9 th S. ii. 27). J. H. has voiced an inquiry which has on several occasions presented itself to me, but with this difference. The phrase whicn has been present in my mind is " Johnny-up-the- Orchard " which possibly is only a variation of that which he gives. It was recalled to my mind some four or five years back by a ques- tion concerning its origin and signification which appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. To this no reply was made. But upon reading it, I had a distinct recollection of having heard it several times in London, twenty years ago, perhaps even longer. So far as I can remember, it used to be intro- duced something after this fashion " and then it will be ' Johnny-up-the-Orchard.'"

The meaning seemed to be of pending trouble in the case of something happening. J. H. seems to have given me the clue. That "pending trouble" appears to have been a possible "good trouncing." With J. H., I would ask for an explanation of its etymo- logy. C. P. HALE.

The connexion of this phrase with a threat of chastisement suggests that the idea was derived from the flight of the ignis fatuus, or Jack-a-lantern, and that it denotes not the punishment, but the effort to escape it. In Brand's 'Popular Antiquities,' vol. iii. 345-57, there is an article of some length on this wandering meteor, "Will (or Kitty) with a wisp, or Jack-a-lanthorn," in which occurs the following statement, strongly reminiscent of an active youth dodging his opponent :

" We gather that a respectable person in Hert- fordshire, presuming upon the knowledge of the grounds about his house, was tempted one dark night to follow one of these lights, which he saw flying over a piece of fallow ground. It led him over a ploughed field, flying and twisting about from place to place. Sometimes it would suddenly disappear, and as suddenly appear again. It once made directly to a hedge ; when it came near it mounted over, and he lost sight after a full hour's chase. On his return home he saw it again, but was already too much fatigued to think of renewing the pursuit."

B. H. L.

ROBERT FERGUSSON (9 th S. i. 186 ; ii. 134). In addition to the inscription given by MR. JOHN HEBB from the front of the grave- stone in Canongate Churchyard placed to the memory of Fergusson, the following is on the back of the memorial :

"By special grant of the Managers to Robert Burns, wno erected this stone, this burial-place is ever to remain sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson."

I copied the inscription about twenty-five years ago. WILLIAM ANDREWS.

The Hull Press, Hull.

THE DUKE OF YORK'S CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS, 1793-4 (9 th S. ii. 27). Though it is forty-five years since Dean Mansel, writing to the Times on the subject of the successful, but long- forgotten Balaclava in which his grandfather lost his life, observed that " the true history of the campaign has yet to be written," I am not aware that any systematic attempt has been made to make good the deficiency. It can all be gathered from Jomini, from the 'Victoires, &c., des Fran9ais,' from Alison's ' History of Europe,' and from Gust's ' Annals of the Wars.' Among works devoted to the Duke of York's campaign are Sir Henry Cal-