Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/45

 9 th S. II. JULY 9, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

37

was due to Moorish influence. This is scarcely credible in view of recent investigations, which have traced the change through vari- ous French dialects right up to the Walloon in Belgium, where, as I found out on the spot, the guttural exists in full strength in the dialect of Liege, that of Namur retaining the sibilant. It is noteworthy that in the French dialects there are two gutturals, as there were two sibilants, the initial of champ, for instance, changing into a voiceless guttural, while that of Jean changes into a voiced one. JAMES PLATT, Jun.

GOETHE'S ' MASON-LODGE ' (9 th S. i. 428). MR. J. C. BURLEIGH will find the poem, part of which was quoted (and translated) in Carlyle's ' Past and Present,' in Goethe's ' Gedichte.' Under the title of ' Loge ' the great poet has written nine poems, and the very first of these, entitled 'Symbolum,' is the one MR. BURLEIGH is looking for. Car- lyle's translation is a rather free one, Goethe's last stanza being :

Hier winden sich Kronen In ewiger Stille, Die soflen mit Fiillc Die Thatigen lohnen ! Wir heiszen euch hoffen,

or in English :

Here crowns are wound In eternal stillness, To reward with plenty All active workers ! We bid you hope.

K. TEN BRUGGENCATE. Leeuwarden, Holland.

MR. J. C. BURLEIGH will find the original, which Carlyle translated somewhat freely, in that large section of Goethe's poems, ' Alles an Personen und zu festlichen Gelegenheiten Gedichtete,' of which the first sub-section is 'Loge,' i.e., 'Masonic Verse'; and in this section as the first poem, with the title ' Sym- bolum.' In the edition in six small quartos, Cotta, 1854, the poem occurs in vol. i. p. 408. In other editions, too, it will be found im- mediately following ' Reinecke Fuchs.' It is, perhaps, characteristic of the two men, and an unconscious self-confession of the sturdy translator, that he renders Goethe's words, "We bid you hope" ("Wir heissen euch hoffen "), by " Work and despair not." The idea of work, it should, however, be added, occurs in Goethe's preceding line.

Eu. OSWALD.

49, Blomficld Road, Maida Hill, W

MISERERE CARVINGS (8 th S. i. 413, 481 ; ii. 9, 113, 214, 235 ; iii. 14, 78 ; v. 98 ; xii. 514). Oil the south side of the chancel of St.

Alban's Cathedral, Pretoria, in the Transvaal, are some charming old fourteenth -century remains of carved oak, most wretchedly "made-up" into a bishop's throne. The most interesting fragments have foeen put together by some rough packing-case maker, fastened with French nails, and "made good," where necessary, with native wood and "match-boarding." A small brass plate re- cords that these venerable historical relics consisting, in the main, of part of an ornate crocketed canopy, an emoattled cornice, angle-pinnacled buttresses, miserere, &c. all came from Ely Cathedral, and were "pre- sented by the Dean and Canons to the Right Rev. Henry Brougham, first Bishop of Pre- toria, 1878." The miserere, which is in a splendid state of preservation, bears upon its lower side a carved corbel, representing a man fondling a woman. He is in the act of placing his left hand under her chin, whilst his right arm is around her head, and his right hand pats her forehead. One termination shows (west) a well-carved pack- horse, and the other a mule, the assumption being that the two riders have met on the road side, and have alighted to exchange con- fidences. On the north side of the sanctuary, fixed unmeaningly within a mysterious sort of dwarf screen, is a carved oak fifteenth- century miserere. It is somewhat decayed, and has a central corbel carved as a grotesque head, with simple foliage terminations on either side. It bears no inscription.

HARRY HEMS. Mafeking, Bechuanaland.

"A CHALK ON THE DOOR" (9 th S. i. 408).

Chalking of the door is in Scotland a legal form of warning burgh tenants to remove, by a burgh officer giving verbal notice and then chalking on the door the initials of the reigning sovereign with the year of our Lord forty days before the term of Whitsunday, thus: "V.R. 1898." This, being certified, en- titles a landlord to a summary warrant of removal from the burgh magistrate at the lapse of the term. This legal solemnity of giving notice to quit may have given rise to the saying referred to as indicating a desire of parting company with a particular indi- vidual. It is also common in Scotland on the evening before burgh or town fairs to chalk the doors, probably to put people in mind of the event of the following day.

A. G. REID. Auchterarder.

This expression, with some variants, is old, and used to be a common one in Derbyshire. I have heard old Derby folk say that it