Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/155

 9*s. vii. FEB. 23, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

147

Britain, remind us at once of a line i

'Summer' (431):

Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world

The well-known refrain

Britons never will be slaves offers a remarkable analogy to a line in th ' Castle of Indolence' (ii. 303) :

Those wretched men who will be slaves.

And the eulogium at the end, on the match less beauty of the British fair and the rnanlj hearts to guard them, may be compared with the following two lines in ' Liberty ' (' Britain, 473-4):

Such the fair guardian of an isle that boasts, Profuse as vernal blooms, the fairest dames.

Perhaps it may be of interest to note tha M. Morel, whilst admitting that ' Liberty ' it a far inferior poem to the 'Seasons,' does noi regard it as deserving of the unsparing con demnation of Dr. Johnson, who, he thinks there is reason to believe, did read it after all, and who rightly disapproves of Lyttel ton's abridgment as unwarrantable.

W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

" CAENDO " = CERCANDO Looking over the list of errata at the end of Skeat's ' Chaucer, I find the following : " For caendo read cer- cando. This emendation suggested by Prof. Ker is clearly right. But 'caendo' is so spelt in the Chaucer Society's copy." I would submit that "caendo" is correct. The word is recognized by the dictionaries. Petrocchi gives it, with authorities, in theparte inferiore of his 'N6vo Dizionario Universale' (1887), and it is found in Davenport and Comelati's edition of Baretti (1868) as a verb defective. I do not see very well how "caendo" can be a form of " cercando " ; " endo " can scarcely come out of "ando." Further investigation seems necessary. ARGINE.

CHANGES IN COUNTRY LIFE. (See 7 th S. ii. 266 ; xi. 422 ; 8 th S. ii. 264 ; viii. 485.) When I came to my present country parish in Worcestershire ten years ago, there were living in it six or seven old women, not all widows, who indoors in the daytime always wore old-fashioned white caps, covering the whole head and fitting tight round the face, with a frilled edge. One or two of these caps might have a raised point or peak at the back. Of these ancient village dames only one survives. I chronicle the fact here because, together with the disuse of the smock-frock, it marks the total abandonment of the old peculiar provincial costume.

Advertisements, tallymen, and the parcel post have united to make irresistible the

temptation to which the newer generation have given way. By a " cheap and nasty " imitation of what is supposed to be "the fashion," they have given up at once a strong- hold of self-respect and historic and be- coming picturesqueness.

Another noticeable change should also be recorded. Ten years ago unsophisticated and spontaneous out-of-door dancing still took place in the village street on summer evenings. It was unpremeditated and un- announced ; a tin whistle, a tambourine, or perhaps a concertina supplied the music ; men danced with their wives, girls with girls, boys with boys. It was the natural expres- sion of a joyous spirit, finding and making its own relaxation when the heavy day's work was done. Little by little this has been given up. The labourer finds no delight in his work, and demands that a course of enter- tainments with an up-to-date programme should be provided for him by others. The traditional village sports and games are handed down no longer. A drab machine- made uniformity is becoming universal.

W. C. B.

SHAK ESPEARE AND VONDEL. In ' The Taming of the Shrew,' Induction, scene ii., the words " I see, I hear, I speak," seem almost to have been imitated in J. v. Vondelen's ' Palamedes ' (Amsteldam, 1625) by the phrase " Ick hoor, ick denck, ick sie," in the third scene of * De Darde Handel.' E. S. DODGSON.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest )o affix their names and addresses to their queries, n order that the answers may be addressed to them direct. _

SHIPS OF WAR ON LAND. In a small work on Swedenborg ("Emanuel Swedenborg ......

by the Kev. John Hyde, 1878") I find the ~bllowing :

"In 1718, Syedborg [i.e., Swedenborg] assisted Charles XII. in his assault on Frederickshall, a Norwegian fortress, by inventing a mode of carry- ng two galleys, five large boats, and a sloop, over- and for fourteen miles from Strom stadt to Idorfjol."

Two centuries and a half before, the capture f Constantinople by the Turks was assisted n a similar way: "During a single night eventy galleys of two, three, and five benches f rowers" were dragged two leagues over- and along a specially constructed road of reased planks. What was Swedenborg's method ? Was it a copy of the Turkish plan ? Charles XII. of Sweden was in Turkey not

many years before 1718.

K.