Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/54

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL JAN. 19, woi.

daughter dancing at a garland at the house of George Bennett in the afternoon of the Sunday aforesaid with much other company."

ARTHUR HUSSEY. Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.

RICHARD POCOCKE, 1704-65. The 'Diet. Nat. Biog.,' vol. xlvi. p. 12, states that this traveller

"was the son of Richard Pococke, LL.B., rector of Colmer, Hampshire, and afterwards head master of the King Edward VI. Free Grammar School, and curate, under sequestration, of All Saints' Church in Southampton."

This statement is not quite correct. The traveller's father, Richard Pococke, LL.B. (b. 1666, d. 1710), was never rector of Colmer ; but the traveller's grandfather, Richard Pococke, LL.B., was rector there from 19 July, 1660, to 20 March, 1718/9, the date of his death. See the parish registers of Priors Dean and Colmer, edited by the Rev. Thomas Hervey (Colmer, 1886). This rector is men- tioned in the 'Diet. Nat. Biog.,' vol. v. p. 49, where for " Elmore " (in 1. 12) read Colmer or Colemore. Cf. * N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. vii. 129 ; 7 th S. xii. 406. H. C.

UNPUBLISHED VERSES BY BEN JONSON. A letter was printed under this heading in Willis's Current Notes for September, 1851, vol. i. p. 68, in which the writer said :

"A copy of Heliodorus' '.Ethiopian History' lately came into my possession, on the title-page of which was the autograph of ' Ben Jonson, tanquarn explorator.' On the margin of a subsequent page is a translation in the poet's handwriting, suggested as an improvement of the text, which is here subjoined.

Inevitable fate to shim

Thou tak'st a world of toil : For this you left your native home,

And Nile's unrivalled soil. Take courage, friend, for 1 will give

Th' Egyptian fields again To thy despairing eyes ; till then

Our guest thou shalt remain." The writer, who signs himself "A F W Feltham," adds that he purchased the book from Mr. VVillis.

Having in my possession a copy of Under- downe; 8 translation of 'An .-Ethiopian roX u'- P u. bll ? h, ed ]) y Francis Coldocke in o87, which is, I believe, the earliest extant edition I looked up this passage, and found t on folio 33. The verses run as under : To shunne the destinies sutre decree

thou takestall this toile : And therefore leanest the fruitefull coast of Nylus fertile .soile.

?u e a ,g? 0(1 heart . f r I will geuo the blakish field es againe Of sEgypt vnto thne, till then, our friend thou shalt rcmaine,

It would be interesting to know where A. F. W.'s volume is at present located. The lines quoted by him have rather a modern twang. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

GRAVESTONE AT WALTHAM ABBEY. (See 9 th S. vi. 296.) The first two lines of the epitaph on the Rev. Isaac Colnett at Waltham Abbey are the earlier part of an epitaph written by Garrick for his friend Laurence Sterne, who died in 1768. The quatrain is as follows :

Shall Pride a heap of sculptur'd marble raise Some worthless, unmourn d, titled fool to praise, And shall we not by one poor gravestone learn Where Genius, Wit, and Humour, sleep with Sterne?

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

A MIRACULOUS BOLT. According to the Paris journal Le Temps of 11 November, 1900, the church of St. Leonard, situated thirteen miles (vingt kilometres] from Limoges, possesses, amongst other historical curiosi- ties, a bolt which enjoys a great repute in the locality. Young wives unblessed with offspring have boundless confidence in it. They repair to the chapel where it is pre- served, and, touching it with the hand, make a neuvaine on the saint's tomb. But on Tuesday, 6 November, 1900, being St. Leonard's day, the clergy of the parish made a neuvaine in favour of the Empress of Russia, who desires to have a son. Tnis ceremony took place at the request of Count Alexe'ief, Grand-Master of the Ceremonies at the Court of the Tsar.

J. L. HEELIS.

Penzance.

BURNS'S 'TAM GLEN.' In the "Golden Treasury" volume of 'Scottish Song,' ed. 1874, Mrs. Carlyle gives the third stanza of Burns's 'Tarn Glen ' thus :

There 's Lowrie, the laird o' Drumeller, " Good day to you, brute ! " he comes ben :

He brags and he blaws o' his siller,

But when will he dance like Tarn Glen ? The second line of this stanza manifestly im- plies that the salutation quoted is that of the uncouth laird to the young lady with whom he wishes to ingratiate himself. One can hardly wonder that, if this presentation is correct, his suit was a signal failure. But the reading is, of course, absurd ; even an un- sophisticated rustic would not be guilty of such hopelessly low-bred vulgarity as is im- plied in the form of address as it stands. What the laird says is, unquestionably, "Good day to you ! " The young narrator, recording it, imitates, somewhat petulantly no doubt, the harsh, unrefined tones in which the ad-