Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/415

 9 S. III. MAY 27, '99.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

409

lit story of a witch who gained posses-

LOI of a " mask," and thereby worked its rig itful owner direst evil until a " wise ma i " was called in to checkmate her ma ;hinations. Under his directions the

uf'erer boiled certain things over a wicken- wp<>d fire, which had to be stirred with a wic ken-wood stick, and performed other rites

es ilting in the discomfiture of the sorceress.

G. W.

MILESTONES DIRECTING TO WENTWORTH IOCJSE. I have been informed that there were, forty or fifty years ago, in various parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire mile- stones informing the traveller how far it was Yoni the points where they stood to Went-

rorth House. Why were these stories erected ? \re they still in existence ? ASTARTE.

COL. C. GODFREY. Col. C. Godfrey, Keeper f the Crown Jewels (temp. James II.), named Arabella Churchill, sister to the irst Duke of Marlborough. Can any of Imd antecedents ? H. C. B. HOPKINSON.
 * our readers inform me as to his parents

13, Bryanston Square, W.

LORD BURLEIGH'S PRECEPTS. The 'Ten 5 recepts' of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, vere addressed to his "son Robert" when he latter had not yet attained to "man's state." If we suppose him to have been at he time a lad of sixteen, that would make the iate of the 'Precepts' about 1566, as Robert Jecil was born in 1550. In 1566 Sir Walter laleigh was a boy of fourteen and Lord Issex was an infant ; yet in Precept No. 8 x)rd Burleigh is supposed to have written :

Seek not to be Essex : Shun to be Raleigh." j)id Robert Cecil tack on these modern in- Ibances to his father's wise saws for the benefit

f his own son ? The ' Precepts ' were not

ublished till 1637. C. J. I.

LEPROSY OF HOUSES.-- -The late Dr. Eders- im in his ' Life of the Messiah,' book iii. . xv., cites the ' Josephta Negaim ' to the feet that no case of leprosy of houses had r er occurred. Is it true that this disease is >nfined exclusively to persons ?

RICHARD H. THORNTON. Portland, Oregon.

'THE JOURNAL OF THE COUNTESS KRA NSKA.' I should be greatly obliged if some ader of ' N. & O.' could inform me how this urnal came to be published. The English 'anslation (Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & o.) gives no details as to how the original lanuscript was allowed to become public -operty. The book is interesting not only

as a human document, but also historically as the Countess Krasinska was the great- great-grandmother of both the King and the Queen of Italy. E. M. S.

ST. HELEN. Was St. Helen ever a weather saint of any importance in England? In Melusine, ix. 49-60, is an article on popular prayers and magic formulas collected in certain parishes of the Pyrenees. Among the invocations are two addressed to St. Barbara to protect from " mauvais tonnerre," while a third appeals to St. Helen, " Sainte Croix," and St. Mary Magdalen. G. W.

the Manners and Customs of London,' vol. i.
 * ' PILLARS." In Malcolm's 'Anecdotes of

E. 160, is a description of Cardinal Wolsey's abitual attendants in public, and mention is made of "two crosses and two pillars carried by persons on horseback." What were these " pillars " ? F. J. P.

[You will find a full description of pillars, Lat. cohimnce, in Nares's ' Glossary. ]

THACKERAY'S LATIN.

(9 th S. ii. 27, 218 ; iii. 196.) HAS any one ever pointed out Thackeray's extraordinary fondness for the well-known stanza of Horace, ' Od.,' III. xxix. for this, and for Dry dens spirited paraphrase of it?

Laudo manentem [sc. Fortunam]. Si celeres quatit Pennas, resigno quse dedit, et mea Virtute me involve, probamque Pauperiem sine dote qusero.

I can enjoy her while she 's kind ;

But when she dances in the wind,

And shakes the wings and will not stay,

I puff the prostitute away.

The little or the much she gave, is quietly resigned ;

Content with poverty my soul I arm,

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

Thackeray is never done quoting Dryden's version, or else improvising a prose version of his own. The following are a few out of many instances :

'"Is it true,' thought Pendennis 'that I am

going to earn my bread at last and that I may

gain a name and reputation in the world, perhaps ?

These are welcome if they come If fortune

favours me, I laud her ; if she frowns, I resign her.' " ' Pendennis,' chap, xxxii. sub Jin.

" ' When I came out of Oxford into the world, my patrons promised me great things ; and you see where their promises have landed me, in a lodging up two pair of stairs, with a sixpenny dinner from the cook's shop. Well, I suppose this promise will go after the others, and fortune will jilt me, as the jade has been doing any time these seven years.