Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/94

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NOTES AND QUEEIES. DC- u. v. FEB. a. im

The school which he attended, now over seventy years ago, was situated in Chapel Street. It seems to have been built on a graveyard, for not infrequently the flooring was removed and graves dug, even while the children were at their lessons. At the funerals, however, the scholars were not present.

The church-tax, first levied for the build- ing of the parish church, was a great hard- ship to the poor people, many of whom did not earn more than five or six shillings a week by hand-loom weaving. Of course it was very unpopular, and numerous attempts were made to evade it ; but the authorities were obdurate, and many a poor man was "sold up." Dr. Whittaker was vicar at the time of the Chartist agitation, and a Chartist named Preston challenged him to preach from a certain text. The doctor accepted, and a great congregation assembled to hear him. The sermon is supposed to have been one of the finest ever delivered in the church, and it amazed and confounded the Chartists, their principles receiving a blow from which they never recovered in Blackburn. It was the custom in those days for many of the congregation, after leaving the church, to assemble outside the neighbouring " Old Bull" Hotel to listen to the clerk of the church, who, standing on some riding stones, would announce the cattle sales fixed to be ^held in the locality during the coming week.

When a funeral was about to take place some intimate friend of the bereaved family would, on the previous day, go round the neighbourhood inviting friends and acquaint- ances to attend the obsequies. Consequently large numbers of people were generally present, and on assembling at the house of mourning, each one, on being admitted, would slip a shilling into the hand of the nearest female relative of the dead person. This custom was known as "presenting." Before proceeding to the churchyard a great quantity of spiced ale would be consumed, and, as hearses were very seldom used fifty or sixty years ago, it was quite a familiar sight to see the coffin-carriers staggering along in a state of intoxication, scarcely able to support their burden.

CHARLES H.~ STIRRUP.

CINDERELLA, According to a note in the 4 Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian,' the absurd notion of a '/glass slipper did not originate with Perrault (or his son) :

" Vair is the word in Perrault's tales, not verre. Glass slipper is simply a blundering translation. Yet learned men have been found, who, upon the assumed existence of perfectly flexible glass that

in

could be woven into shoes and garments, have victoriously shown, to their own satisfaction at least, that the glass industry in our days is far less advanced than it was in the dark ages. It; is to an unlucky substitution of Ka/ii?Xo for Kd/uiXof in the Greek text that we owe the spoiling of one of the most obviously intended and most beautiful similes in the New Testament."

The latter reading was given by Fielding i one of his novels (' Amelia ' ?).

B. D. MOSELEY. Burslem.

CAMPBELL AND KEATS. I am not aware whether any one has pointed out a singular resemblance between a passage in Keats's 'Lamia,' part ii., towards the end, and some well-known lines in Campbell's 'Rainbow.' Keats writes :

Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy ? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven : We know her woof, her texture ; she is given To the dull catalogue of common things. Who does not at once recall Campbell's two stanzas ?

Triumphal arch, that filPst the sky

When storms prepare to part,. I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art. When Science from Creation's face

Enchantment's veil withdraws, What lovely visions yield their place To cold material laws !

The date of ' Lamia ' is 1820. I do not know that of Campbell's poem.

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. Bath.

RUSKIN ON TASTE. In 'Modern Painters,' vol. i. part i. sec. i. chap, vi., we read :

" This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these sources wants taste ; he who receives pleasure from any other sources has false or bad taste."

Ruskin's definition of perfect taste is excel- ent; but in the next sentence he stumbles over the very thing he is trying to avoid, namely, bhe vulgar distinction between so-called good taste and bad taste. If there were a man who had perfect taste, it is probable that he would not receive pleasure from any but the proper sources. But such a being would sit apart on a mountain top, while his most daring mortal emulator could climb only a short distance above the plain. According to Mr. Ruskin, therefore, as they cannot but receive pleasure from sources other than hose specified by him, men are at the same time endowed with good taste and bad taste,