Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/261

 9 th S. II. SECT. 24, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

253

as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. It may be presumed DR. SPENCE disagrees with Gibbon's opinion of Christianity ; may I not have the same liberty to disagree with Gibbon in another matter ?

Genial old Fuller says :

" Granted there were giants in those days, yet even dwarfs can see further when they sit on giants' shoulders."

(N.B. Lest any reader on the pounce to put me right should remind me that this had been said generations before Fuller, I beg to assure him 1 am well aware of it ; but Fuller will do for my purpose just now.)

I see in the Church Times notices to corre- spondents that Dante is the originator of the sentiment now under discussion ; so the very able editor of that paper does not know his Boethius. K. R.

LADY BAB FRIGHTFUL (9 th S. ii. 209). See

J. Townlev. She was a waiting-maid who assumed the airs of her mistress, Lady Bab. One of her conspicuous features was her un- clean teeth. She had one of the attributes of Jenny Greenteeth, without being at all supernatural. ARTHUR MAYALL.
 * High Life below Stairs,' 1759, by the Rev.

IVRY (9 th S. i. 306). It is recorded in the

great actions which Gaspard de Coligny per- formed in his life were against his God, his religion, his country, and his king. How- ever, did this great admiral of France, who was fully aware of what was about to happen, condescend to exclaim, on the approach of his assassin, "Respecte ces cheveux blancs, jeune homme " ? I doubt it ! The first Huguenot selected for slaughter at the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, on 24 August, 1572, was the illustrious Coligny (whose blood ran in the veins of King William III. of England), said to have been "the most consummate politician and greatest warrior that ever appeared." Ac- cording to M. Guizot in his 'History of France,' vol. iii. pp. 396-8 (Sampson Low & Co., London, 1874),
 * Memoirs of the Duke of Sully ' that all the

"when Coligny was awakened by the noise round his house, he jumped out of bed (it was about two o'clock in the morning), and said to the clergyman, Merlin, who was sitting up with him, ' M. Merlin, say me a prayer ; I commit my soul to my Saviour. To one of his gentlemen, Cornaton, he remarked, 'I have long been ready to die ; but you, my friends, save yourselves, if it is still possible.' All ran up- stairs and escaped (! !). The door of the room was forced: two men entered first; one of them, Behme, came forward, saying, 'Artthounot the admiral?' Young man,' said Coligny, ' thou comest against a wounded and an aged man. Thou'lt not shorten my

life by much.' Behme plunged into his stomach a boar spear, and then struck him on the head with it. Coligny fell, saying, ' If it were but a man ! But 'tis a horseboy. The murderers threw the body out of the window. A servant of the Duke of Nevers cut off the head and took it to the Queen- mother, the King, and the Duke of Anjou."

With regard to the statement that Coligny's head " was embalmed with care, to be sent, it is said, to Rome," may I be permitted to inquire in ' N. & O.' if it really reached its destination viz., the Eternal City because Guizot entertained the belief that no in- formation can be found anywhere on the subject ? However it may be, the remains of the great Frenchman and patriot, " after having been subjected, in the course of three centuries, at one time to oblivion, and at others to divers transferences these sad relics of a great Christian have been resting in the very castle of Chatillon - sur - Loing where, in all probability, Coligny was born."

HENRY GERALD HOPE.

Clapham, S.W.

MEDLEY AL LYNCH LAWS IN MODERN USE (8 th S. xii. 465; 9 th S. i. 37, 116, 298, 477; ii. 56). Your correspondent MR. UDAL, after- giving the quotation from Sir Walter Scott's letter as to " riding the stang," states that Sir Walter referred to the fact that Burns had composed some verses on the subject not in his collected works, and inquires where these verses are to be seen. I think Sir Walter's memory must have been at fault in attribut- ing these verses to Burns, there being no reference to the subject, so far as known to me, occurring in his poems. He must have been thinking of Allan Ramsay, who gives a graphic account in 'Christ's Kirk on the Green ' of the punishment of a female delin- quent who had struck her husband :

A gilpy that had seen the faught,

Iwat he was nae lang, 'Till he had gather'd seven or aught

Wild hempies stout and strang ; They frae a barn a kaber raught,

Ane mounted wi' a bang Betwisht twa's shouders, and sat straught

Upon't, and rade the stang

On her that day. The wives and gytlings a' sprang'd out

O'er middings and o'er dykes, Wi' mony an unco skirl and shout,

Like bumbees frae their bykes ; Thro' thick and thin they scour'd about,

Plashin' thro' dubs and sykes, Arid sic a reird ran thro' the rout,

Gart a' the hale town tykes

Yamph loud that day.

A. G. REID.

Auchterarder.

WALKER FAMILY (IRISH) (7 th S. iv. 108 ; 8 th S. ii. 298, 373, 457 ; 9 th S. ii. 130). In Burke's