Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/242

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

n. SEPT. 17, IB.

(e.g., pale yellow) that transmits sufficient colour to be appreciable on, for instance, white paper, and that any stronger tint, such as dark yellow, red, or blue, has only the effect of causing more or less shadow, which has no colour that can be recognized.

The adaptability of the eye to different intensities of light is so great that it is diffi- cult to appreciate the enormous disparity between sunlight and moonlight. Perhaps the best way of realizing it is to compare the moon as it is visible by day when it is really, of course, shining as brightly as it does at night with any ordinary light object e.g.. a flower in the sunshine. If sunshine could be stored as electricity is, a bed of scarlet poppies or geraniums might be utilized to illuminate a whole neighbourhood.

B. W. S.

" THE KEY OF THE STREET " (9 th S. ii. 88). This phrase occurs in ' Pickwick,' chap, xlvii. The French equivalent is " la clef des champs." See the dictionaries of Spiers, Gasc, and Roubaud. But query, Do the French use " avoir la clef des champs " in quite the same sense as that in which Mr. Lowten says to Job Trotter, " There, it 's too late now. You can't get in to-night ; you've got the key of the street, my friend ? Will M. Gasc kindly reply ?

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

A sketch by George Augustus Sala under the above name appeared in Household Words for 6 September, 1851. I doubt if Sala was the originator of the phrase, for in the sketch he says :

" The members of this class [i. e., those who have no beds to go to] a very numerous one are said, facetiously, to possess ' the key of the street.' "

It was this contribution that brought Sala into communication with Charles Dickens, and commenced a literary connexion and friendship which lasted to Dickens's death.

B. E. HODGENS.

I should think this is an adaptation to urban conditions of the French locution " la clef des champs "= freedom to go where one likes. I believe the articles so entitled appeared in Household Words or its continua- tion All the Year Round. ST. SWITHIN.

COL. WALL (9 th S. i. 508; ii. 129). In the ' Manual of Military Law,' to which I referred in my previous note, it is distinctly stated that Wall " was hanged at Tyburn." I ought to have known that this statement was incorrect, and I am sorry for having repro- duced it. Wall was executed outside New- gate Prison, over the debtors' door. I am

obliged to MR. ADAMS for having pointed out the error ('Executions at Tyburn,' ante?

E. 164). For the sake of indexing I should ke my apology to appear under the heading of the original query. GUALTERULUS.

" SUMER is Y-CUMEN IN " (9 th S. ii. 7, 109 r 176). Facsimiles of the original MS. (there the spelling is not " y-cumen ") may be seen in Chappell's 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' Grove's 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians,' iii. 269, and the publications of the Palseographical Society, Third Series, and of the Plain - Song and Mediaeval Music Society. One was also given away about three years ago with the new English edition of Naumann's ' Illustrated History of Music/ and it was reproduced at the time in the Sketch. Attention was first called to the- piece by Humphrey Wanley in the catalogue of the HarleianMSS.; it was first published by Hawkins, then by Burney, Forkel, John, Stafford Smith, Busby, and many others. There are several popular editions intended for performance. It is most charming music, but the bass, or burden, produces wrongjhar- monic successions and a certain monotony. There are editions without the bass.

" Klanwell " in my previous communication (p. 110) should have been Klauwell.

Hardiman's assertion that Burney " lifted >r the melody from an Irish tune is laughable. The MS. was written five hundred years before Burney was born ; the music was described by Wanley before Burney was born ; Burney was not even the first to pub- lish it. If such an assertion is a fair sample of Hardiman's works it certainly ought to- be "the fashion now to abuse Hardiman." Burney is, however, responsible for the mis- take that the piece is Northumbrian, though he gave it as a suggestion only.

H. DAVEY.

ENTRANCE INTO CHURCHYARDS (9 th S. ii. 126, 177). Having seen, many years ago, at St. Winnow, near Lostwithiel, Cornwall, one of the contrivances mentioned by MR. PEACOCK for keeping animals out of cnurch- yards, I wrote to a friend to inquire if it were still in existence. The following is the answer :

" There was a stile of stone such as you mention at the entrance of the churchyard, but when the churchyard was added to a few months ago the stile was taken away and not put back, as the stones were found to be much worn. There are two more that we know of : one at Tintagel Church- yard, and the other at Advent, near Camelford. We have also seen them in fields. '

My impression is, though I cannot remember exactly, that the pit was about 2 feet deep>,