Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/41

 9* b. iv. July 8, ■».] NOTES AND QUERIES. 25 date. Vizetelly altered the title to 'Life among the Giants,' &c, and added "a per- sonal narrative." He gives the author's names in full. The ' English Catalogue' calls this the second edition. I desire to quote one or two passages in this book, as the real and actual experience of Capt. Bourne, but I cannot find anything to satisfy me that the travels are not fiction. On the contrary, the Atkenaiitm, 1853,pp. 560and769,seemsto throw doubt on it. Kirk, in his supplement to xUlibone, only gives the bare title, with no information about the author, who never seems to have written anything else. In the beginning of the book we are told that in the winter of 1848-9 the schooner John Allyne left the port of New Bedford— A. Brownell master and B. F. Bourne mate — for Cali- fornia. Whatever doubt there may be about the authenticity of Bourne's narrative, there can, I fancy, be none as to the genuineness of thatof Capt. Gardiner's mission, which is given attheendof the book. The Patagonian mission party left England in 1850,and were "landed at their destination," where they "all miser- ably perished from cold, sickness, and starva- tion, without converting a single native. I shall be glad of any information about this book. Ralph Thomas. "Bight of onstand."—This unusual phrase was used by Lord Ellenborough in the case of Beatty v. Gibbons, sixteenth volume of East's Reports, p. 110. It signifies the right of an outgoing tenant to leave on the landsuch things as his lease obliges him to sell to the incoming tenant. The word onstand is not found in the law dictionaries, nor (I think) in the dictionaries generally. Richard H. Thornton. Portland, Oregon. Spirits at Hampton Court.—Among the advantages of residence in this famous palace is the privilege of living within easy distance of three yet unlaid ghosts. The following paragraph is due to an American writer, Miss Marion Harland :— " An archway opening from the great staircase to the queen's apartments, in what an historian calls 'the mysterious corner of Hampton Court,' was built up two centuries and more ago, for no other reason, said superstitious gossips, than to im- pede the wanderings of Jane Seymour, who used to roam the galleries and flit up and down the stair- case, a lighted candle in her hand. We have been told to-day in our round of the palace that she has been seen here within a dozen years. Katharine Howard, when arrested in her own apartments at Hampton Court and told that she was to l>e taken to the Tower, ran shrieking through the corridors, hair dishevelled and dress disordered, to the closed door of the chapel where she knew Henry was then praying, and beat upon the panels with her hands, calling wildly upon her husband's name. She was torn away, and borne to her death—'albeit she struggled violently, and her screams were heard by every one in the chapel.' Since which time she has haunted the corridor—a distraught phantom with streaming hair who cries frantically to her royal lord for pardon and help. The nurse of Edward VI. turns an invisible spinning-wheel and mutters to herself in the room once occupied by her."—' Where Ghosts Walk,' pp. 43-4. St. Swithin. Skull Writing. — There is a passage in Keats which I do not find easy to understand. In the ' Fragment of the Castle Builder,' in the enumeration of the resthetic treasures of the pink room, we find:— A skull upon a mat of roses lying, Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying. I take it that it is the skull upon which the song is written in purple ink. Unless the purple ink be bloodstains (and the skull that of some murdered person), then of any pre- cedent (though there may be such) for such " skulled " calligraphy I confess a total ignor- ance. It is as easy as it is objectionable to suggest emendations, but in this case I would venture to read :— A skull; upon a mat of roses lying Ink'd paper with a song concerning dying. Therhythm would justify the inversion, other quite as awkward being found in Keats. Thomas Auld. [Does " purple " refer to wine ? The whole seem suggested by an emblem.] Sir John Mandeville's ' Travels.'—The following curious inscription, which appears to be a careless transcript made some two hundred years since of a much older entry in a MS. thought to be the original of this remarkable compilation, is worth preserving in ' N. aper & partle par [=parchment] | ye paper Market ^water- marked] with a Lion he beian [=began] | to trauel: 1332: (ccc) [air] & he Compiled I ty° [.n'r^the]Booke 1336[«ir—but nodoubt intended for " 1366"]: 34 yeare W. I. R. V.