Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/495

 9< S. III. JUNE 24, '99.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

489

AUTHOR OF POEM WANTED. Can any one tell me who is the author of the following pretty little poem which I have amongst my Ka/xjyAia 1 ? The verses have taken my fancy so much that, as the poem consists of only sixteen short lines, I. quote it in extenso for the benefit of your readers who are fond of poetry, and to whom it may be new.

A SONG

I saw a weeping maiden

A-searching in the morn For Love that 's half a rosebud,

For Love that ; s half a thorn : She sought him on the hill-top,

And o er the dewy lea, But he was standing in the shade,

Was waiting there with me 1

He sang not in the meadow,

He piped not near the stream, Nor hid in ferny forests,

The darling of her dream : He lurked not in the poppies,

He shone not in the sky, But called to her from out my heart,

And yet she passed him by !

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

FRIAR NICHOLAS OF LYNN. In the 'Life of John Davis,' " Great Explorers Series," by Sir Clements Markham, p. 15, after stating that the Elizabethan worthies knew nothing of the Norse Sagas or of Norse discoveries in the Western hemisphere, he adds :

" They had dim traditions of the wonderful dis- covery made by Friar Nicholas of Lynn and of voyages to Iceland from Lynn and Bristol, but no positive information could be derived from these stories."

Who was Friar Nicholas of Lynn; when did he live ; what was his " wonderful dis- covery'"? FRANCESCA.

THE LADY GRACE HERBERT. I shall be glad to know to which family this lady belongs. She married one John Kemp, 16 June, 1571, as "Dame Grace Herbert of the City of London." The marriage licence reads : " The Lady Herbert, commonly called Grace Herbert " (? a widow).

FRED. HITCHIN-KEMP.

14, Beechfield Road, Catford.

STONE ALE. What is stone ale? The ex- pression occurs more than once in ' The Red Axe ': " He had but called at the White Swan for a draught of Frederica's stone ale." There is an ale of some repute produced at Stone, in Staffordshire, but the industry did not exist there till long after the date 'of the story of ' The Red Axe,' when " in England they still strew rushes, even (so they say) in the very dining-rooms of the great."

B. D. MOSELEY.

LORD BURLEIGH'S PRECEPTS. (9 th S. iii. 409.)

IT is strange that the difficulty noted should not have led your correspondent to ascertain the correct date of Robert Cecil's birth. This was not 1550, but 1563. There are no exact particulars, but the strongest evidences point to that year. When Burleigh's eldest son Thomas, after- wards first Earl of Exeter was " travelling," and wasting his time, in France, he was recalled in 1563 because the "younger son" had recently died. This younger son must have come between Thomas and the youngest, Robert, who could not have been born at the time. Raleigh was born in 1552, and Essex could not well have been "an infant " in 1566, as he was not born till November, 1567. Supposing, then, that Robert Cecil was sixteen when he received, and apparently very well understood, his father's ' Precepts,' we arrive at the year 1579, Raleigh being then twenty-seven and Essex twelve.

No later emendation of Robert Cecil's need be imagined to account for the comparisons. Apart from the extreme unlikelihood of Cecil's accounting for his own great success by discounting the careers of such favourites as Raleigh and Essex, there are the strongest evidences to be found in the early years of the three men. Raleigh at twenty - seven had passed quickly from Oxford to the French wars, as a volunteer for the Huguenot cause ; to the Low Countries, where he fought under the Prince of Orange against the Spaniards ; with his step-brother, Sir Hum- phrey Gilbert, on an unsuccessful expedition to North-East America ; and, with a captain's commission, to the Irish rebellion. From all these he emerged with a brilliant reputation, and was fast making his way at Court. Burleigh might well caution his son, who was slightly deformed and absolutely unfitted for such restless splendour of career, not to seek to imitate Raleigh.

In the case of Essex the caution is even more pointed. It has been said that Robert Cecil and Essex were companions in boyhood in fact, Cecil himself spoke of this young affection to James I. It may have existed, though Essex was only attached to Burleigh's household, and could only therefore have enjoyed the companionship of Robert, for a few months. He came there in January, 1576/7, and left for Trinity College, Cam- bridge, in May, 1577. At the outset he was as brilliant as Raleigh. First at Court at ten