Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/211

 9* s. vm. SEPT. 7, IDOL] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the panes by the violence of its flight against them, and escaped ; and what is most singular, this occurrec at the very moment Jenkins's child was on h're, anc finally burnt to death. The editor assisted in having the unfortunate child conveyed to the Salop Infirmary, where it expired, Jenkins sitting by its side and exclaiming against the poor bird as the cause rather than the prognosticator of the catas- trophe. The circumstances are singular, bub whether purely accidental, or governed by some particular providence, cannot easily be determined : suppose the latter, the bird came to warn Jenkins and to stimulate him and his family to care and watchful- ness against accidents or danger ; and having per- formed its mission, returned to its native liberty and fields." ' European Museum,' p. 265.

I have not met with this bit of partridge lore elsewhere. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

UNCLES OF LORD ROBERTS. The following extract from the Irish Times of 3 August may possibly interest some of the readers of 1 N. <fcQ.':

"It is not generally known that Lord Roberts can boast of two grand-uncles who were painters of merit. One, Thomas Roberts, studied under Mullins, and exhibited in London in 1773. He made a special feature of painting Irish country seats, some of which are engraved. The younger brother, Santelle, who committed suicide in 1826, was a popular landscape painter, who exhibited in the earliest days of the Royal Academy. In 1820 he was one of the committee appointed to select members for the Royal Hibernian Academy, which was about to receive its charter."

HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

NATIONAL PECULIARITIES. There lately appeared in ' N. & Q.' a collection of national nicknames, variously traced and explained. Many popular expressions of national pecu- liarities, more or less characteristic, are accounted for by a casual remark of an historical or romantic writer. Thus Emer- son adopts with approval Froissart's famous dictum that Englishmen take their pleasures sadly. Goethe says ('Faust,' II.): " Im Deutschen liigt man, wenn man hoflich ist."

Here are two instances from Russian litera- ture, which it is conceivable have impressed themselves on the minds of unsophisticated readers and caused prejudices. The first is from Lermontov's ' Hero of Our Time ' (Bella). Maxim Maximitch log. :

" The Staff- Cantain. 'But, really, the French have introduced the fashion of being bored ? '

'I No, the English.'

Aha, just so,' he replied, ' they were always such outrageous drunkards.'

" I involuntarily called to mind a certain Moscow lady, who maintained that Byron was a drunkard and nothing else. For the rest, the remark of the staff-captain was more excusable; in order to restrain himself from wine he was in fact trying to persuade himself that all the misfortunes in the world arose from drunkenness."

The second instance is from Turgeniev (' Faust/ letter 4) :

" There were six of us at table : she, Pryimkov, the daughter, the governess (with a pale, insignifi- cant face), myself, and some old German or other in a shortish cinnamon-coloured coat, clean-shaven, brushed, with tho most peaceful and respectable countenance, a toothless smile, and an odour of chicory coffee all old Germans smell like that."

A German critic once asked, not unreason- ably, what led Turgeniev to remark that as a peculiarity of his countrymen. I believe that the great Russian novelist looked upon Germany as his second fatherland. His closing years were passed in Paris, and there is an interesting sketch of him in Alphonse Daudet's autobiographical 'Vingt Ans de Paris.' FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Brixton Hill.

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

"LEET-ALE." What is the authority for this term, apparently meaning a drinking of ale on the occasion of the meeting of a court teet 1 It is referred to, as if well known, in he twelfth volume of the Archoeologia (1796), p. 12, but the writer gives no references, and I have been unable to discover any earlier Bxample. HENRY BRADLEY.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

QUOTATIONS. 1. In the Quarterly Review
 * or September, 1850, Lord John Russell wrote

of a proverb that it was " the wit of one man, to me that this is only a variant of a saying of Dean Swift. Can any reader supply me with the reference ?
 * he wisdom of many." It has been suggested

2. Can any one refer me to the exact place where Colley Gibber says

Let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy ?

3. Is the Latin u Lupus pilum non men tern mutat" a classical saying or an anonymous proverb from later times 1

DE V. PAYEN- PAYNE. 9, Stonor Road, W.

[1. It is claimed as original by Lord John Russell. See 5 th J3. ii. 452 ; 7 th S. vi. 449 ;' vii. 172, 211.]

DE NUNE. I shall be greatly obliged if my one can kindly give me information respecting an artist named De Nune or De !Tane, who painted portraits in about 1730 and 1740 or later. CONSTANCE ASH.