Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/322

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. m. APRIL 22, '99.

' Lena Rivers,' a tale by M. J. Holmes, 1857. This is in " roy. 32mo." (?).

RALPH THOMAS.

The author of 'Lena,' * Beyminstre,' &c., was Ellen Wallace. J. POTTER BRISCOE.

SLOUGH (9 th S. iii. 169, 198). There is a place called Slow House in the parish of Halstead, Essex. It is on the south side of the river Colne, which no doubt near this spot formerly spread itself in wet weather over the level meadow-land westward of the town. There can be no question that Slow = Slough; but it is spelt Slow by Morant (1768), and when I lived in the neighbourhood, ten years ago, it was pronounced so as to rhyme with mow. C. DEEDES.

Brighton.

"AERIAL TOUR" (9 th S. ii. 423 ; iii. 178). It is printed "tour" in the "English Classics" edition, London, 1824 ; "tower" in Willmott's ' Poets of the Nineteenth Century,' 1869.

W. C. B.

In a collection published by Dove, London, 1831, the reading is "tour." In the passage as quoted in ' Chambers's Cyclopaedia of Eng- lish Literature,' vol. ii. p. 44, it is " tower." As Beattie must have remembered Milton's

lark in ' L' Allegro,' "singing from his

watch-tower in the skies," it seems much more likely that he should have written

And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower than that he should have been led to prefer " tour " by the less familiar line in ' Paradise Lost,' xi. 185, where "airy tour" is used, not of the lark, but of the eagle. The note on that line in the " Clarendon Press Series " is :

" Tour may be either the French tour, the wheel of a bird in flight, or the towr* [sic] of the lark in 'L' Allegro/ 43."

"Tower" itself was formerly written "tour," as in French. See, under * Tower,' three ex- amples in Richardson, one of which is the very phrase " airy tour" in Milton, quoted by the querist arid referred to above. We can hardly, however, suppose Beattie to have adopted this antiquated spelling. But if he wrote " tow'r," the printer might easily have made it " tour." I suppose only an inspec- tion of the original MS. could settle the matter, in default of any recorded remark by the poet himself.

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.

Bath.

C. D ALTON, BLACK ROD, 1747 (9 th S. iii. 127) Sir Charles Dalton, of Hawkeswell or Haux- well, co. Essex, was the second son of Sir

[* " Towre" in 1673 edition.]

William Dalton and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, Bart., his wife, of the same place. He was Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, was knighted 18 May, 1727, and died unmarried 18 Aug., 1747, aged eighty - "T. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

" ILLUSTRATION " (9 th S. iii. 247). In an ad- vertisement in \ N. & Q.,' 1 st S. iii. 528, the word " illustration " is used in its present sense in an extract from the Architectural Quarterly Review, the sentence being as follows :

"It was necessary to the appreciation of the haracteristics and beauties of Gothic architecture that some more extensive series of illustrations should be given to the world."

Lower down on the same page there is ad- ertised a book entitled ' Illustrations of the Remains of Roman Art.' This volume, being dated 1851, carries the use of the word back thirteen years beyond the date given by DR. MURRAY. D. M. R.

DECOLLATION OF CHARLES I. (9 th S. iii. 124). Reproductions of Mr. Ernest Crofts's picture and those of contemporary artists were given in the Pall Mall Budget of 22 May, 1890. In the letterpress which accompanied the pictures evidence was adduced in support of the prone rather than the kneeling position.

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

ALL SOULS' DAY DITTY (9 th S. iii. 126). The fifth line of those repeated by the boys at the village between Harrogate and Ripley should be

Hip, hip, hoorah, sir, throw a. penny away, sir, &c. My memory failed me when I wrote out the lines. CELER ET AUDAX.

" COW-RAKE " (9 th S. iii. 205, 236). I ought to have mentioned in my note (ante, p. 205) that "cow-rake" is dealt with in the 'E.D.D.,' but in my haste to show that "cowl-rake" 3 "coal-rake," this was omitted. In mid-Derby- shire the dialect speech is full of mouth- filling letter sounds, which are most difficult to reproduce in writing, w being most ex- tensively used. As a lad, I never heard the word " cowl " ; " cow " was invariably used for a lump of coal : " Pur a cow on t'fire." Coke was " co wk." Although "cowl" and "cow" be dialectal forms of cull, to gather, "cull" was an unknown word fifty years ago amongst those who regularly spoke in the dialect. Not one in a hundred of the folks would know, if asked, the meaning of "cull." The word "cow" is expressive of the action of drawing or gathering things