Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/75

 9>s. vii. JAN.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

67

Thou lousy Pedant, let thy Awkward muse With censures praise w* flatteries abuse To lash and not be felt in thee 's an Art, Thou ne'er mad'st any but thy Schoolboys smart

If * immortal works thou wouldst descry [sic.

Pretend 'tis he that writ thy Poetry.

Then follow two lines scrawled through which appear to read thus :

Alas he never had verse in pretence Or loved commended mimic sence.

At p. 10 is " J. S. 304," and at p. 50 :

They swear I am so good

I hug them till I squeeze their blood.

Swift.

Probably referred to as plagiarisms from the writings of Swift. At the end Burns writes :

" The poor Author expected he would at least be made a Commissioner of Excise for writing this excellent Poem. He died on the 18 th of Feb 1 ? 1786 (without obtaining either place or pension) at Eight in the Evening of a consumption. Almost the whole Impression was found by him unsold, and was dis- posed of to a Snuff Shop. This copy may very well be looked on as a curiosity. There is not I believe another extant."

Autograph at the beginning of the book, "Laing, Edin r 1819 5 th 743." This interest- ing volume was bought by an American.

HENRY T. WAKE. Fritchley, Derby.

LIZARD FOLK-LORE. Mohammed would not eat of the large lizard, for " he thought it might have been the beast into which a party of the Children of Israel were changed ; but he said there was no harm in others eating it." This tradition is quoted by Sir William Muir in his 'Life of Mahomet' (London, 1877, p. 537). This is a legend which I do not remember to have met else- where. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

"MONEY TRUSTED." In Public Opinion of 21 December, 1900 (no source quoted), there is given a story of how Lord Brougham obtained his first brief, which is shortly as follows. He offered to conduct the case of an innkeeper to whom three men had entrusted 2,000. for safe custody, and only to be paid over to all three jointly. One of them obtained back the 2,OOOZ. from him by a plausible excuse, and the two others then claimed it in an action at law. Brougham's defence was that the money would be repaid on the Court ordering to be produced all the three

This is all nonsense (as a matter of his- tory). It is merely a rechauffe of the story told of Attorney - General Noy (1577-1634), and also of Lord Egerton, which is found in many old collections of facetice and popular stories. It appears in Valerius Maxi- mus, and also in Indian tales bearing on the ' Sindibad.' In some of the tales it is the precocious child who suggests the ingenious defence. Probably it would take too much space to enter into its ramifications, but reference may be made to the article in Clouston's 'Popular Tales and Fiction' (1887), ii. 1 ; and further analogues may be found in the references given by Oesterley to cap. 118 in his edition of the 'Gesta Komanorum,' 1872 (Berlin), Jacobs's ' ^Esop,' i. 264, and Oesterley's edition of Pauli's ' Schimpf urid Ernst ' (Stuttgart), 1866, No. 113, p. 485 ; but it is only fair to warn
 * he reader that many of these references

really refer to another story of money trusted, the subject of the story of Boccaccio's ' Deca- meron,' Day viii. No. 10.

A. COLLINGWOOD LEE. Waltham Abbey, Essex.

men according not done.

to the bargain, which was

Qy. Franklin.

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

A RARE EDITION OF PENNANT'S ' TOURS IN WALES.' Pennant, the antiquary, issued a pecial edition of his ' Tours in Wales.' It xcelled his two-volume ordinary quarto edi- ion in two particulars in the profusion nd character of its illustrations and the >rinting, it being on a larger and better quarto >aper with wider margins to the letterpress, .t was made up into twenty volumes. The nowdonian section was formed into a work y itself. Besides many engravings, the other lustrations were hand-painted drawings f Welsh scenery, local views, local anti- uarian remains, armorial bearings in heraldic olours of Welsh personages and families of istinctipn, with numerous sketches of things of historical and antiquarian interest. Many of the drawings were admirable works in water colour. The whole was the sole work, for each copy, of Mr. Griffith, Pennant's artist and companion in travel. Only twelve copies of the ' Tour ' and ten of ' Snowdonia ' were issued. I append a list given me by Sir Thomas Phillipps, F.S.A., Middlehill, Worcestershire, the well-known antiquary