Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/85

 9*8. VII. JAN. 26, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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sorry Guy Fawkes died in 1606. Some o has been denied the pleasure of inventing Hebrew lineage for him. It was said of Lore Hough ton that as soon as any one obtainer notoriety he found himself invited to Milne famous breakfasts. It is time this "Jewis paternity business " ceased to be a prenata desideratum of social or political ad vane ment. Jews do not hanker after it. They r not want to masquerade in borrowed plumag Of Matthew Arnold lam convinced, from wha I know of his writings, that he was the las man to conceal his identity with Jews hac such existed, and from what I knew of him the flesh it was impossible to conceive s erroneous an impression.

M. L. R. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney.

In a signed essay on 'The Study of Celti Literature,' originally published in the Corn hill Magazine (see the number for April, 1866 p. 483), Matthew Arnold, in explaining hi attitude towards the subject of his sketch alludes with some pride to Jewish ancestors and seems to hint at the derivation of his family name from Aaron. His words are : " I must surely be without the bias which ha so often rendered Welsh and Irish students extra vagant; why, my very name expresses that peculia Semitico-Saxon mixture which makes the typica Englishman," &c.

The distinguished writer may have been mis taken in his supposed Semitic descent, o which he could possess no documentary evidence, as he was discoursing on times and race-fusions long anterior to the age of family pedigrees. Still, his half-sportive remark may have led to the inference, now authori- tatively contradicted, that his traceable ancestors were of Jewish origin. H. E. M.

St. Petersburg.

[Did not Matthew represent the Jewish element and Arnold the Saxon in the above allusion ?]

The pedigree of Arnold of Rugby will be found in that of 'Arnold of Lowestoft in Com. Suffolk,' vide Suffolk Manorial Fami- lies,' by J. J. Muskett, vol. i. pt. x. pp. 385-7

H. A. W. '

"GUTTER-SNIPE" (9 th S. vi. 127, 215, 452). We now hear "gubter-snipe" in Scotland, but it has probably been brought from beyond n ^ wee ^ in comparatively recent times. Gutter-blood " is an old friend, occasionally used by Scott when it is requisite that some ntolerable upstart should be put into his place by the candid criticism of an acquaint- ance. Up-setting " airs " are speedily reduced and dispersed by reference to lowly origin, and the reminder that the pretentious egotist

is a mere novus homo, one risen out of the canaille, a regular " gutter-blood." Jamieson says that in the north of Scotland the word is used to describe one whose ancestors on both sides have for generations belonged to his native district. Thus it is practically equivalent to autochthones or aborigines. That, however, is a remote and divergent consideration. With reference to actual puddling in mud, it may be added that the term is sometimes used as a nickname for a scavenger or roadman. An old acquaintance of the writer's, long gone to his fathers, was thus known, in the district whose pathways profited by his labours, as "Auld Gutter- blude." THOMAS BAYNE.

AUTHORSHIP OF LINES WANTED (9 th S. vi. 488). Rear-Admiral Preble, U.S.N., in his ' History of the United States Flag,' published at Boston, 1880, p. 156, states that the lines were written by Campbell, the poet of hope.

is version is :

United States ! your banner wears

Two emblems one, of fame ;

Alas ! the other that it bears

Reminds us of your shame.

Your standard's constellation types

White freedom by its stars ;

But what 's the meaning of your stripes?

They mean your negroes' scars.

In reply to this bitter epistle the Hon. George Lunt, of Massachusetts, wrote : England ! whence came each glowing hue That tints your flag of meteor light, The streaming red, the deeper blue, Crossed with the moonbeams' pearly white ? The blood, the bruise the blue, the red Let Asia's groaning millions speak ; The white it tells of colour fled From starving Erin's pallid cheek.

The cry that comes across the sea From your low cabins reaches me Like a Banshee's wild, despairing wail, Brought on the surging northern gale,

Connemara !

Men stagger as they try to stand Upon your famine-stricken land, And women lying down to die Bare icy breasts, because their babies cry

Connemara !

'n acknowledgment Campbell sent a splendid opy of his works to Mr. Lunt.

ALFRED F. CURWEN.

''THAMP" (9 th S. vi. 488). Halli well says lat in Yorkshire thampy means damp. As gards the meaning, perhaps damp is a more act equivalent than soft, except where soft used as descriptive of weather that is damp, the derivation of "damp" one does not t th, but t appears, as well as d, in the H.G. dampf, tampf. Thamp is, no doubt, a od dialect word, " ARTHUR MAYALL.