Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/413

 9^ S.V.MAY 19, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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record of when foreign stamps first began to be systematically collected ? " has enabled me to read Mr. W. Roberta's article on 'The Stamp-collecting Craze' (not 'The Postage- Stamp Mania,' as he himself calls it in his reply), which appeared in the Fortnightly Review of May, 1894. But that article is of the more interest in that it may now be indicated that to ' N. & Q.' is due the first public notice of the stamp-collecting habit. Mr. Roberts in his article says :

" The mania (if its devotees will excuse the ex- pression) is supposed to have originated in Belgium, and to have quickly spread to Germany and France.

The infection appears to have soon found its

way into England, and early in 1862 an informal kind of Exchange had established itself in Birchin Lane, London."

The only date here is 1862, but in the issue of ' N. & Q.' for 23 June, 1860 (2 nd S. ix. 482), appeared a communication from S. F. ORES- WELL, The School, Tonbridge, headed ' Postage Stamps,' which narrated how a boy at that institution had shown the writer a collection of from 300 to 400 different postage stamps, English and foreign, and had added that Sir Rowland Hill had informed him that at that time there might be about 500 varieties on the whole. MR. CRESWELL proceeded :

" This seems a cheap, instructive, and portable museum for young persons to arrange ; and yet I have seen no notices of catalogues or specimens for sale, such as there are of coins, eggs, prints, plants, &c., and no articles in periodicals. A cheap facsimile catalogue, with nothing but names of respective states, periods of use, value, &c., would meet with attention. If there be a London shop where stamps or lists of them could be procured, its address would be acceptable to me, and to a score young friends."

This courteous request, as far as I can trace, met with no response ; but philately was in the air, and a year and a half later, under the same heading, but with no reference to the previous communication, I. S. A. wrote to ' N. & Q.' (3 rd S. i. 149) :

"In the present rage for collecting postage stamps of all countries, a short account of their first intro- duction, and the gradual development of the system to its widely spread adoption, would be' very interesting."

This appeared on 22 Feb., 1862 and Mr. Roberts refers in his article to " early in 1862 " as a definite period in this connexion and it called forth references (particularly in ibid., pp. 357, 393) to early stamp catalogues, one, ' Aids to Stamp Collectors,' hailing from Brighton, describing 856 varieties, and another a catalogue compiled by a Mr. Mount Brown, giving about 1,200 distinct specimens of postage stamps and envelopes. The student of philately, therefore, must search these as

among the earliest recorded examples of the catalogues which are now so full of informa- tion and so costly to follow.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

'THE WEARIN' o' THE GREEN' (9 th S. v. 316). Consult the Citizen, vol. iii. p. 65 (Dublin, 1841), a monthly magazine published at that time, which contains several interesting articles and examples of the native music of Ireland. The press-mark of the Citizen at the B.M. is P.P. 6180. H. HOUSTON BALL.

Irish Club.

In reply to a similar inquiry which ap- peared in 'N. & Q.,' 4 th S. ix. 301, the editor stated that ' The Shan-Van Voght,' or ' The Wearin' o' the Green,' would be found in W. Steuart Trench's 'Realities of Irish Life,' with the music. Two versions of it are also given in 'The Wearing of the Green Song- Book,' published by Cameron &, Ferguson, Glasgow, and in ' N. & Q.,' 4 th S. ix. 345.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

DATE OF THE BUILDING OF ROME (9 th S. v. 245). This to all intents and purposes is merely subsidiary to the main issue it covers, and whatever may be individual opinion as to the exact month or year in which Rome was begun and finished, it is fortunate and all important for us, thanks to Julius Caesar, that we have the date for the Julian year 1, which was 708, and for all purposes of fixing the Roman year and the chief matter which underlies the above heading. If there was any well-founded doubt it could be removed in several ways. For instance, writers of un- questionable authority and standing worth quoting agree that Alexander the Great was born in the Roman year 398, or B.C. 355 this is incontrovertible, eclipse or no eclipse and that he died in his thirty-second year, the beginning of the 114th Olympiad, Sulpicius and Q. ^Elius consuls. All this is made abso- lute when taken along with the facts that Alexander was born on the day the Temple of Diana was burnt and Demosthenes was twenty-five years of age. The Roman year 398, or B.C. 355, was, 1 venture to say, the second of the 106th Olympiad, and it can also be proved. Thus Cambyses succeeded Cyrus, his first year being the fourth of the 62nd Olympiad, i.e., 224 Roman ; he died in the third year of the 64th, 231 Roman, B.C. 521, and may be associated at will with the eclipse of the moon recorded by Ptolemy as being on or about 16 July, beginning of the 63rd Olympiad, and the seventh year of Cambyses. As this agrees with the Nabo- nassar epoch our data are proved to the hilt ;