Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/314

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. OCT. 15, '98.

tion? (c) "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three" (1 Cor. xiii. 13). Surely it is only the rhythmic melody of the words, combined with solemnity of association, that hides from us the glaringly false grammar of such a form of expression, (d) " Whom do men say that I the Son of man am 1 " (Matt, xvi. 13.) It surely cannot be said that the interrogative is governed by say. (e) "For Thy dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ our Lord " (Second Collect for the Queen in the Com- munion Service). If composed in the six- teenth century, the language of this prayer may represent the grammar of the time; but I believe it would be hard to find a parallel to it in Shakspere, Milton, or the other clas- sics of our literature. VITENI.

PAUL JONES. Many years ago I heard from an old tar a song about Paul Jones, which then struck me as dating from the time of that famous " sailor of fortune." It was de- scriptive of the duel between the Serapis frigate and the Bon Homme Richard, off the coast of Yorkshire, which, as is well known, ended in the capture of the Serapis, Paul Jones's own vessel, however, having been so mauled in the encounter that she went down not long after her crew had taken possession of the English ship. Readers of Carlyle will recall a characteristic passage in his ' French .Revolution' with reference to the fight in question :

" Flamborough reapers, homegoing, pause on the hillside : for what sulphur cloud is that that de- faces the sleek sea : sulphur cloud spitting streaks of fire? A sea cockfight it is. and of the hottest; where British Serapis and French-American Bon Homme Richard do lash and throttle each other, in their fashion; and lo the desperate valour has suffocated the deliberate, and Paul Jones too is of the Kings of the Sea! "

I can remember only the opening verse of the ballad, and a few fragmentary lines besides; but I will give them, in the hope that some contributor to ' N". & Q.' may be able to supply the rest :

An American frigate, called the Richard by name, Mounted guns forty-four, and from Havre she came To cruise in the Channel of old England's fame, With a noble commander, Paul Jones was his name.

We were not cruising long when a sail we espied.

We braced up our yards, and to win'ard we bore. While the convoy stood in for the old Yorkshire shore.

Then Paul Jones he made answer, in the height of

his pride,

" If We can't do any better, boys, we '11 sink along- side."

M. McM. Sydney, New &

EPITAPHS. The following is on a stone that was found in rebuilding the churchyard wall at Winter-ton, co. Lincoln, some years ago:

Hear Ly The Body of ioiln RHodes dy. . Sep 21 day 172. fair WCLL vain w. .Ld i seen anouh of y c an now i am Gone i care not what They can say of me.

These " characters uncouth and spelt amiss" are rudely carved on a stone 16 in. by 11 in. and 6 in. thick, and evidently the work of an amateur. In the parish register I find (1728), " Sep r 22 d John Rhodes Sen r bur d September y e twenty second." There is still standing in Winterton Churchyard a plain headstone inscribed as follows :

Sacred | to the Memory of | Margret the Wife of | John Ross, who departed this | life January the 6 th 1817 | Aged 56 Years.

Farewell vain world I Ve had enough of the [sic], And now I 'm careless what thou say'st of me, Your smiles I court not nor your frowns I fear, My cares are past, my head lies quiet here : What faults you see in me take care to shun, And look at home, enough is to be done. Also the Body of Catharine | the Wife of the aforesaid John | Ross, who departed this Life | the 18 Day of March 1820 in | the [illegible] Year of her Age.

Both these burials are entered in the register, in which we find that Catherine, the second wife, was only twenty -six when she died.

Now the second epitaph is evidently an expansion of the former one, and very credit- able, I think, to Winterton, if a local com- position. Is it known elsewhere?

J. T. F.

Winterton, Doncaster.

BOSWELL VERSUS LocKHART. (See ante, p. 206.) I beg to thank the Editor for insert- ing my friend's little essay, as I call it. My friend's remarks in acknowledgment, in a letter which I have just received from him, are both valuable in themselves and inter- esting as showing his power of seeing both sides of a question. And, indeed, it would be^ strange if a man of his wide reading were; not able so to see. He says :

"I cannot but be deeply gratified by your pre- liminary remarks, though I fear that some readers of my very brief effusion may not unreasonably think you far too complimentary. However, I

thank you most sincerely I hope that what I

have said may induce some partisan of Lockhart to take up the cudgels vigorously on his behalf, and show how much can be said for him even against so formidable a rival as Boswell. And much can be