Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/377

 v. MAY 12, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

369

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1900.

CONTENTS. No. 124.

NOTES : -Britain as "Queen of Isles "The Strappado, 369 Horace Wafpole and his Editors London Volunteers in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, 371 Illustrations of the Waverley Novels " Glengarry " " Pillillew," 372 Queen Charlotte as Author Parallel Passages, 373 George Wither Maps " Sirvente " or "Sirventes" " Skaits "=Skates-St. George of England, 374.

QUERIES : " Delabrate " Miquelon Tomb in Berkeley Church "Crowdy-mutton"" I'll hang my harp on a willow tree "Sir Peregrine Maltland Cutting Babies' Nails English Translations of Baudelaire Renfred as a Christian Name, 375 Laymen in Cathedrals Surname of Vinrace 'Sale of Authors' "Larksilver" Pocklington Pedigree Kentish Plant- name Kingston Family " Kidcoat "Petition against the Use of Hops Percival Borough-Engtish, 376 Leith Halfpenny J. F. Smith- Arms of Merioneth Bloody Monday Sidney's Chair Admiral Sir Thomas Dilks, 377.

REPLIES : Regimental Nicknames, 377 French Prisoners, 380 " Rotatory calabash," 381 Battle Sheaves The Plocks Laws of Cricket Proverbs in Herbert's 'Jacula Prudentum,' 382 "Putrem" Arthur Plantagenet, Vis- count L' Isle -Norman Gizer, 383 Lvddite " February Fill-Dyke " Vice-Admiral Bibury " Batsueins," 384 "Farntosh" " Otium cum dignitate" Sir Charles Carteret Lando Sir John Weld, 385 Filliol Family- Walton and Layer Families John Wilkes Men wearing Earrings, 386.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Hill's English Dioceses '-Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

Stoles,

BRITAIN AS "QUEEN OF ISLES" AND "EMPRESS OF THE MAIN."

AT a period when " Rule, Britannia ! Britannia, rule the waves," is being sung with more than customary vigour, an effort might be made to trace the association in poetry between this realm and the rule of the seas. A wide field for search would thus be opened up, and at this point I will essay only one corner of it, and that is the portion which refers to Britain as either ' ' Queen of the Isles" or "Empress of the Main," two titles which have been the common property of our poets for certainly a century and a half. The earliest instance I will give is to be found in the concluding lines of the pro- logue to Smollett's comedy ' The Reprisal or, the Tars of Old England,' first performed at Drury Lane in 1757 :

Her ancient splendour England shall maintain, O'er distant realms extend her genial reign, And rise the unrivall'd empress of the main ;

and the chorus of the song with which the piece concludes runs as follows :

While British oak beneath us rolls, And English courage fires our souls ; To crown our toils, the fates decree The wealth and empire of the sea.

i note upon an eighteenth- century ry of England,' given in *N. & Q.','

In a 1 History

ante, p. 276, is a verse from a title-page "of 1775, which, opening with an invocation to Britannia as " Queen of Isles," ends thus : All hail, Britannia ! Queen of Isles I Where Freedom dwells, and Commerce smiles J Whose still undaunted Tars, with Sails unfurl'd, Ride in bold Triumph, Conquerors of the World.

The Poet Laureate Whitehead commenced his 'New Year's Ode for 1780' with the verse, And dares insulting France pretend

To grasp the Trident of the Main, And hope the astonish'd World should bend

To the mock pageantry assum'd in vain ?

What, though her fleets the billows load, What, though her mimic thunders roar,

She bears the ensigns of the God, But not his delegated power.

Even from the birth of Time, 'twas Heaven's decree.

The Queen of Isles should reign sole empress of the sea ;

and in his ' Birthday Ode ' for the same year

he declared that

Still o'er the deep does Britain reign, Her monarch still the trident bears.

Whitehead's successor, Pye, in the 'New Year Ode for 1798,' was content to wind up with Thomson's

Rule, Britannia ! rule the waves ; Britons never will be slaves ;

and in his 'Birthday Ode' he rose to no more concentrated effort than the lines, Triumphant o'er the blue domain Of hoary Ocean's briny reign, [Will] Britain's navies boldly sweep, With victor prow, the stormy deep.

Our present Laureate has adopted White- head as his model rather than rye, for in a compilation of 'Choral Songs by Various Writers and Composers in Honour of Her Majesty Queen Victoria,' published at the end of 1 899, is a contribution of twelve lines, 'With Wisdom, Goodness, Grace,' in which Mr. Austin writes :

Sceptres may pass and empires fall, Her name will never die.

Victoria ! Victoria ! Long may she live and reign ! The Queen of our inviolate Isles, And the Empress of the Main.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

THE STRAPPADO, AND NECK AND HEELS.

THE strappado is mentioned in Shake- speare's ' Henry IV.,' II. iv. :

An I were

At the strappado, or all the racks in the world,

I would not tell you on compulsion.

It derived its name from the Italian strappare, to jerk, and it is among the various "engines"