Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/454

 446

NOTES AND QUERIES.

VIL JUNE s, 1901.

furious, and the heat so great, that "ilka carlin," miraculously perspiring, "coost her duddies to the wark." The same form is found in ' The Boatie Rows,' although Ewen's spelling differs from that of Burns :

I cuist my lines in Largo bay. In reference to Burns as represented in the " Golden Treasury " volume, it may be permis- sible to add here that, even with the warning given in his note, it is a pity that Prof. Pal- grave included the two stanzas added by John Hamilton to the exquisite lyric " O' a' the airts the wind can blaw." They are good in themselves, but they form an excrescence on the song. Besides, they^ are apt to be read as an integral part of the whole, while the unobtrusive little sentence regarding them, in the note at the end of the volume, is altogether unnoticed. THOMAS BAYNE.

TELEGRAPHY : ITS INVENTION. The Abbe Barthelemy seems to have had a prevision of the practical use to be made of electricity in sending messages. Writing to Madame du Deffand in 1772, he observes :

" It is said that with two timepieces, the hands of which are magnetic, it is enougn to move one of these hands to make the other take the same direc- tion, so that by causing one to strike twelve the other will strike the same hour. Let us suppose that artificial magnets were improved to the point that their virtue could communicate itself from here to Paris ; you have one of these timepieces, we another of them ; instead of hours we find the letters of the alphabet on the dial. Every day at a certain hour we turn the hand, and M. Wiard [Madame du Detfand's^ secretary] puts together the letters and

reads This idea pleases me immensely. It would

soon be corrupted by applying it to spying in armies and in politics, but it would be very agree- able in commerce and in friendship." " Correspon- dance Complete de M me du Deffand avee la Duchesse de Choiseul, 1'Abbe Barthelemy et M. Craufurt, publiee avec une introduction par M. le Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire," tome ii. p. 224.

M. P.

" FAIR " AND MAKING " FAIR." The desire of girls budding into womanhood is to become fair, and things are done in secret with the object of producing the desired effect. This folk-lore is no doubt of very ancient descent, and contributors maybe able to give some details of interest. Some eat chalk, munch rice, abstain from meat, and others burn pieces of tea-cake black through arid eat them for the same purpose. It is somewhat curious that white and black substances are believed to produce the same effect.

THOS. PiATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

THE WILLIAM BLACK BEACON. Many readers of 4 N. & Q.' will be interested in the

following lines, which were written by Lord Archibald Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyll, on the occasion of the lighting for the first time, on the afternoon of Monday, 13 May, of the light in the beacon tower erected at Duart Point, Mull, as a memorial of William Black, who was an ardent lover of the Western Highlands of Scotland. Lord Archibald Campbell has, by the way, written a good deal of verse. I wonder if many readers of 'N. & Q.' are familiar with his lines in the Scottish vernacular addressed to Andrew Lang. Here is the little poem written for the Black memorial and dedicated to the daughters of the novelist :

IN SILENCE ALL.

Here, 'mid the splendour of the dying day, We consecrate this light, in love's own way, In silence all.

It is in silence that the day is born ; It is in silence that the day, well worn, Sinks into night.

Is 't not in silence that deep love is born ? It is in silence that deep grief is borne In silence all.

JOHN GRIGOR. 105, Choumert Road, Peckham.

COL. ARCHIBALD STRACHAN. In the 'Dic- tionary of National Biography' (Iv. 9) the date of Col. Strachan's death is given vaguely as 1651. It took place in November, 1652, as the following extract from a newspaper proves. A letter dated Leith, 13 November, 1652, says:

" The great champion of the Kirk, Col. Straghen, was this day buried, dying excommunicate (because he came in to the English). Few Scots came to his buriall, but many English went, so that it may bee said, hee lived a Scot, but buryed by English." Several Proceedings in Parliament. 18-25 Nov., 1652.

C. H. FIRTH.

DAMASK LINEN : ST. GEORGE. On 30 April last, the octave of St. George's Day, I officiated at a village wedding in my Worcestershire parish. In the afternoon, according to a not uncustomary invitation, I went to the cottage of the bride's family a timbered, thatched, and whitewashed cottage where a dozen of us sat down to tea and more than filled the room. We did not sit at ease, for the ancient stone floor was very uneven. The tea-table was covered with a cloth which had belonged to the bride's great-grandmother. I borrowed it the next day, in order to make a closer examination. It is of coarse linen, measures about 6ft. by 7ft, and is slightly fringed at the ends. In the midst of walls, gates, domes, and cross - bearing towers, of a somewhat Byzantine type, appear first