Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/339

 VIIL OCT. 19, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

331

SCOTT QUOTATION (9 th S. viii. 163). "The old song quoted by Hob Happer. the miller, in chap. xiii. of 'The Monastery,'" published in 1820, is an anachronism, for the original dates no earlier than 1762; but the characters and incidents of Scott's least successful romance are assigned to the reign of Queen Mary and the usurpation of Regent Murray, Sir Piercie Shaf ton, the lover of Mysie Happer, being aeuphuist, of Elizabeth's Court, tainted with the affectations of Lyly's pedantic heresy. The song was written by Isaac Bickerstaff for his comic opera of * Love in a Village,' acted at Covent Garden Theatre. It is sung by Hawthorn, Act I. scene ii., but

Erin ted without the second stanza. The mndatiori was C. Jonson's 'Village Opera,' 1729.

THE JOLLY MILLER.

There was a jolly miller once lived on the river

Dee; He work'd and sang from morn till night, no lark

more blithe than he ;

And this the burthen of his song for ever used to be, "I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody cares for

I live by my mill, God bless her ! she 's kindred,

child, and wife ;

I would not change my station for any other in life : No lawyer, surgeon, or doctor e'er had a groat from

me : I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody cares for me."

This is the entire genuine song, but two other stanzas were afterwards added, unnecessarily, by inferior hands, printed in ' The Convivial Songster,' 1782, p. 334, and ' Edinburgh Musical Miscellany,' 1793, p. 209, commencing : When Spring begins his merry career, oh, how my

heart grows gay ! and

Thus, like the miller, bold and free, let us rejoice and sing.

Scott may have deemed the original to be Scottish, for it was so considered, mistakenly, and printed in ' The Perth Musical Museum,' 1786, p. 61 ; also by C. Elliott, Edinburgh, 1788, in ' Calliope,' p. 245, with the music. It used to be "Scottified" at the Vennel in Auld Reekie during the thirties and forties, with a rapturous lingering over the sixth line,

I wad na change my stay-ti-on, in the manner of the good old Presbyterian Kirk psalmody.

Let me add that a fraudulent modern version was sent by an Islington correspon- dent, "Pallas," to the Illustrated London News, circa 1856, and printed therein, as if from a flyleaf MS. It gave the genuine first stanza, omitted the second, "I live by my mill," &c., and added three stanzas of no value, viz., "The reason why he was so

blithe," " A coin or two I Ve in my purse," and " So let us his example take, and be from malice free," &c. It was not trustworthy, but good-natured William Chappell gave it renewed currency on p. 667 of his ' Popular Music of the Olden Time'; but on p. 668, in giving the music notes, he utterly " sophis- ticated " the second verse and turned it into a drinking song, "the words now usually sung." George Thomson had included ' The Jolly Miller,' harmonized by Beethoven, in 1824, "not because it was Scotch, but on account of its merited popularity."

J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH.

"TOUCAN" (9 th S. vii. 486 ; viii. 22, 67, 85, 171, 250). I regret having again to reply to MR. PLATT about this word ; but he should not misquote me, and then, on the strength of the misquotation, declare my statement to be incorrect. In the ' Encyclopaedia Britan- nica ' I never spoke of " Prof. Skeat having proved that it [toucan] is from ti t nose, and cang, bone." I there wrote that the bird is "commonly believed to be so called from

its cry ; but Prof. Skeat adduces evidence

to prove that the Guarani Tuca is from ti y nose, and cdng, bone, i.e., nose of bone." What more could I have said, or what less ? The statement of facts is quite correct, and I gave no opinion of my own. I had been content to accept that of my good and learned friend on a matter of which I know nothing, as are (I take it) most of your readers. I should have been going out of my province had I said that he had "proved" the derivation. To pronounce judgment in such a case one must have qualifications which I do not and never pretended to possess. ALFRED NEWTON.

THE 'MARSEILLAISE' (9 th S. viii. 61, 126, 187, 248, 287). I have referred to a mass of statements and of testimony from French sources since the time of the great Revolution, and incidentally I mentioned also the personal recollection of a German historian, an exiled sympathizer with the cause of democracy. Nothing has fallen from my pen except facts, given in language such as befits discussion among gentlemen.

Since I wrote last I have learnt from M. Franz Hamma, the Imperial Musical Director at Metz, and a younger brother of the late Fridolin Hamma (the organist at Meersburg in the early forties), that the latter had taken part in the German revolution namely, in the great rising in the Grandduchy of Baden in 1849, when the army and" the people rose together in defence of the National Parliament. I was not aware until now that Fridolin Hamma