Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/523

 9* s. vii. JUNE 29, 1901.]. NOTES AND QUERIES.

515

wrote a memoir of his father, in which he said that he was "a descendant from the same ancient family of Wallace of Riccartoun, in Ayrshire, that has been rendered illustrious by the achievements and the gallantry of Sir William Wallace, the patriotic and renowned hero of Scotland." He is not the only one who has made a like claim. But he may be right for all that. J. L. ANDERSON.

Edinburgh.

MUNICIPAL COINCIDENCES (9 th S. v 8 176 vii. 409). Has MR. HUGHES overlooked or forgotten that he raised the last part of his question under another heading on p. 8 of vol. v., and that MR. HEMS and I supplied him with a couple of examples of town clerks whose fathers had been mayors? If not, why omit the references? Permit me (in the interest of all who like myself rely upon the index volumes of * N. & Q.') to enter a mild protest against omitting references, and changing or selecting unsuitable headings. It is annoying to miss the very thing one is seeking through inattention in these respects. May I suggest that neither of MR. HUGHES'S headings is calculated to facilitate research 1 No. 2, ' Municipal Coincidences,' is the better of the two, but No. 1, ' Brothers Mayor and Town Clerk at same Time,' is useless, for nobody would think of looking under " B " for incidents relating to mayors and town clerks. One wonders why those last four words, ' Mayors and Town Clerks,' were not adopted as the heading of both letters.

RICHARD WELFORD.

John William Pye-Smith became Mayor of Sheffield in November, 1885, and was also an alderman. In 1887 he was elected Town Clerk, and held office till his death on 2 September, 1895. His father, also named John William Pye-Smith, in 1856 was Mayor of Sheffield, and was alderman. Herbert Bramley resigned his position as alderman in the Sheffield Town Council, and was elected Town Clerk on 9 October, 1895, and held office till his death on 13 September, 1897. His father, Edward Bramley, in 1843 was Sheffield's first Town Clerk, resigned in 1859, and died in 1865. H. J. B.

AUTHOR OF VERSES WANTED (9 th S. vii. 228, 315, 358, 374). The verses given under T appear in Sylvester's ' Du Bartas; (Fifth Day), thus :

The pretty Lark, climbing the Welkin cleer, Chaunts with a cheer, Heer peer I neer my Deer; Then stooping thence (seeming her fall to rew) Adieu (she saith), adieu, deer Deer, adieu.

Those under B I cannot find in Sylvester;

but they may be there nevertheless, for if the best-read of the poets of his day he is surely also the hardest to read. The epitaph on Queen Elizabeth is also claimed for Sylvester in his * Posthumi,' where it is printed thus :

Spaines Rod, Romes Ruine, Netherlands Reliefe, Heav ns gem, earths joy, worlds wonder, natures chiefe.

By the way, is it known who collected these 'Remaines' of Sylvester? They comprise several pieces not usually credited to him, e.g., the lines

Goe Soule, the bodies guest (twenty stanzas), and two sonnets elsewhere attributed to Campion, in whose versions, however, the poems have but twelve lines apiece. One of these I venture to transcribe, as it differs materially from the version in Campion's book, and seems to me much finer :

Thou art not faire for all thy red and white, For all those rosie temp'ratures in thee; Thou art not sweet though made of nicer delight, Nor faire, nor sweet, unlesse thou pity mee : Thine eyes are black, and yet their glistring

brightnesse

Can night illumine in her darkest denne : Thy hands are bloody, yet compact of whitenesse, Both black and bloody, if they nmrther men; Thy brow whereon my fortune doth depend, Fairer than snow, or the most lilly thing, Thy tongue which saves at every sweet words end, That hard as marble, This a mortall sting.

I will not sooth thy follies : thou shalt prove That beauty is no beauty without love.

The other poem,

Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the aire, differs less materially from Campion's.

C. C. B.

HAND-RULING IN OLD TITLE-PAGES (9 th S. vii. 169, 331, 396). All manuscripts of better

xecution were written on parchment or paper ruled beforehand with parallel lines for bhe text, and transverse lines as limitations 'or the scribe on the right hand and on the

eft, though the right-hand limit is often not strictly observed, and these latter almost

nvariably were continued to the margins of the book. The rulings were usually in faint sepia, and are very pleasing to the eye. In the earliest printed books, which

mitated MSS. as closely as possible, e.g., the Fust and Schoiffer Bible, the same type of ruling is faithfully executed by hand, of course after the printer had finished his task. This practice does not seem to have continued. Perhaps the revival of hand- ruling, chiefly for books of devotion, in the seventeenth century may have been suggested the manuscripts. It appears to have