Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/415

 9* s. V.MAY 19, iwo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mottled granite as a rule detracts from the letters. If the tablet referred to is not in good taste or of good material, it should not be associated with the name of Delia Robbia. Some of the oldest remains of the handiwork of man that are to be found are in terra-cotta. It is said in some cases to be almost our only link with nations of the most remote anti- quity. There are a number of firms making excellent terra-cotta work. Several speci- mens I have seen recently of Messrs. Doulton are of a very high order.

CHARLES GREEN. 18, Shrewsbury Road, Sheffield.

I owe it to the interests of accuracy to correct a slight error in my communication at p. 313. Since that note was penned I have discovered that Mr. Gladstone also contributed a short article headed 'The Greater Gods of Olympus' to 'N. & Q.' of 18 June, 1887 (7 th S. iii. 489). The article is signed from Dollis Hill, and is a reply to one of ME. J. CARRICK MOORE (7 th ^S. iii. 403) criticizing Mr. Gladstone's article in the Nineteenth Century of the preceding March. J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

" BE THE DAY WEARY," &C. (9 th S. V. 249).

It is certainly a reproach to the Irish pro- fessors that they were not able to locate the well -known couplet of Stephen Hawes, which occurs in his * Pastime of Pleasure,' 1517. The context, as it stands in the edition of 1555, is as follows :

The end of Joye and all prosperite Is deth at last, through his course and myght ; After the day there cometh the derke night ; For though the day be never so longe, At last the belles ringeth to evensonge.

Cap. xlii. (Percy Soc. ed., p. 207).

The last two lines, I may point out, after the manner of Father Prout, are merely a trans- lation of two verses by a little-known Latin poet :

Quantumvis cursum longum fessumque moratur Sol, sacro tandem carmine Vesper adest.

The sentiment seems to have been a favourite one with Hawes. In cap. xvi. (p. 75) occurs the following :

Joy cometh after, whan the payne is past. Be ye pacyent and sobre in mode ; To wepe and wayle all is for you in wast : Was never payne, but it had joye at last.

A. SMYTHE PALMER. S. Woodford.

These lines still retain their interest, for inquiries respecting their authorship have appeared in every series of ' N. & Q.' from the third to the ninth. There are several

variants, but no authoritative version. So far as can be traced they first appeared in the ' Pastime of Pleasure,' by Stephen Hawes, 1517, and were used by George Tankerville, in August, 1555, when preparations were made for his death. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

FRENCH STANZA (9 th S. v. 357). The author is Alfred de Musset. The last four lines are : Tout s'en va comme la fumee ; L'esperance et la renomme'e, Et moi qui vous ai tant aime'e, Et toi qui ne t'en souviens plus.

ARGINE.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Inquisitions and Assessments relating to Feudal Aids,

1284-1431. Vol. I. (Stationery Office.) WE gladly welcome the first volume of a new series of national records. Every one who understands what was the nature of a feudal aid will appreciate the immense importance which this work must have for students engaged in genealogical inquiries or in the endeavour to make out with clearness what was the nature of our very complex feudal system. It has, moreover, a subsidiary value on account of the light it is calculated to throw on the names of persons. We have come upon here but few Christian names that are in any way remark- able, but the surnames recorded are of great value, as many of them are now extinct, and we get others in their earlier forms. Notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject, the history of the surnames of this country is still in a very cloudy condition, the wildest guessing yet in many cases occupying the place of knowledge. That surnames arose first among the landowning class seems cer- tain. The names of the tenants in capite, and the larger landowners who held under them, were usually, though not by any means exclusively, territorial. Those of lesser people were, of course, not taken from the lands they held, but they were, nevertheless, frequently the same as those of towns and villages. A man who had migrated from one place to another would sometimes assume, or have thrust upon him, the name of the village whence he came.

The present volume extends from Bedfordshire to Devonshire. When the work is complete it will be a key to the English feudality of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and earlier part of the fifteenth cen- turies such as no other country can boast. It seems to be thus far edited with great care, and possesses a double index one of persons, the other of places. We have used it not a little, and have discovered not a single error.

The Registers of the Church of Bury, 1590-1616. Edited by the Rev. W. J. Lowenberg and Henry Brierley. (Lancashire Parish Register Society.) The Registers of the Church of Burnley, 1562-1653.

Edited by William Farrer. (Same society.) WE have read or examined the greater number of the parish registers which have been printed in recent days, but cannot call to mind any which