Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/35

 ,

s. m. JAN. H, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

religious ballad the Virgin Mary is supposed to recite her seven troubles to her Son. The fourth trouble refers to Marv finding her Son in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing, listening to, and asking questions, and the doctors are referred to in the ballad as follows :

Em6 li Tirown de la lei, Em< li set Felibre de la lei.

The word Felibre, as little known as Tirown, having evidently the signification of doctor of law, was unanimously adopted by the Provencal poets as their future designation. An association was at once formed under the title of Felibrige Latin, for the revival and perpetuation of all the dia- lects derived from the Latin. The success of this society of Felibres has been beyond expec- tation in Provence, Catalonia, Aquitaine, and Languedoc, numbering more than two hun- dred poets, bards, troubadours, trouveres, and minstrels, who since 1854 have produced more than three thousand works, besides the outcome of a dictionary of Provengal and French, a splendid and valuable work in two large volumes, formed from the dialects of the Langue d'Oc by the celebrated author of vengal, Frederic Mistral, under the title of 'Lou Tresor d'ou Felibrige,' published 1879-86. In this dictionary various deriva- tions of the word Felibre, which has been a puzzle to many etymologists, are given. Space will not allow me to give all the deriva- tions in full. One derivation is said to be from felibris orfelebris, a word found in Solinus and Isidore de Seville, which Ducange interprets as meaning " nourishment," the poets being from all time the " nurses of the Muses." Again, Felibre is derived from <tA.eo-<aAos, a word found in the Hebrew grammar of Chevalier, 1561, a name used in very early time to designate " doctors of law " in the Jewish synagogues. Another derivation is from ^Aao-pos, "ami du beau." Felibre is also said to be derived from the Irish Celtic Jilia, poet, bard. A derivation is also given from the German word Filibert, the meaning not being supplied. The Felibrige Latin have their grand annual meetings called Jeux Floraux, similar to the Eisteddvod of Wales, at which prizes are awarded to the Felibres' compositions. In 1892 a prize was offered to the poets of Brittany for the best composition in Celtic, the subject being the "Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus." At my solicitation the privilege was allowed to the poets and bards of Wales, the following being the courteous reply of the Felibrige Latin :
 * Mireille,' ' Callencfau,' and other poems Pro-

Felibrige Latin, Montpellier, 25 Avril, 1892. MONSIEUR ET HONORE C9NFRERE, Les details que- vous nousavez f ournis ont vivement interess6 le comite du Felibrige Latin. II a done ete d6cid6 par lui : (1) Sur le sujet de 'Christoph Colomb' les idiomes. du pays de Galles seront admis avec reconnaissance^ au meme titre que ceux de Bretagne. (2) Nous vous prions de vouloir bien donner & notre concours- aussi augment^ une certaine publicity dans le pays de Galles s'il y a des journaux ou les moyens quel- conques d'expansion. Dans tons les cas nous comp- tons sur votre concours et sommes heureux de vous. transmettre nos meilleurs sentiments.

It was a generous favour of the Feli- brige Latin towards the Welsh bards which should not be forgotten. Although publicity was given througn the Border Counties Adver- tiser, Y Dydd, and in other ways, and although the time for sending in the Welsh compositions was extended to 1 December, there was no response, probably the time being insufficient, and only compositions from Brittany were received for the Jeux Floraux held at Montpellier on 8 December, 1 892. It is well that the friendly feeling of the presi- dent and members of the Felibrige Latin towards the poets of Wales should be known,, nor can we forget our kindly reception at a seance of the Felibrige Latin at the Hotel de Ville, Montpellier, on 25 May, 1892.

AMGEINIAD ELAN.

WOLLASTON ARMS (9 th S. ii. 429). In the- ' Genealogical Memoirs of the Wollastons of Shenton and Finborough,' by R. E. Chester Waters, which is a rather scarce book, only thirty-five copies having been printed for private circulation, there is an account of William Wollaston, the author of 'The Religion of Nature Revealed.' In it there is a passage which may interest MR. HUTTON if he does not already know of it :

" Autobiographical sketches are as interesting for what they omit as for what they contain : and one of Wollaston's omissions is too curious to be left unnoticed. He makes no allusion whatever to the most romantic passage of his earlier life the death of his first love. Soon after his accession to fortune he was engaged to marry Alice Coburne, the only child of a rich brewer at Stratford-le-Bow, in whom (as it then seemed to him) every charm of womanly perfection was united. But she was attacked by the smallpox, and died on 9th May, 1689, the very day which had been fixed for her wedding. Her disconsolate lover raised a monu- ment to her memory in Stratford Church, with an inscription which exhausts the pathos of learning and rhetoric in the ecstasy of his grief for the loss of ' the half of his soul.' But the surviving half was more quickly consoled than he cared after- wards to remember : for, at the end of six months, before the sculptor had finished engraving the story of his inconsolable grief, he married, on Nov. 26th, 1689, Catherine Charlton, the co-heir of a London citizen. It is to be hoped that the mother of his.