Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/103

 9' h S. IX. FEB. 1, 1902.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

95

uttered by Capitaine Augustin Gendemar. the president of a duelling club associated for the express and avowed object of pro- voking to insult, and certainly dooming to death, every English officer upon whom they could fasten a quarrel.

HENRY GERALD HOPE. Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.

'The Origin and History of Ordeals, &c., with a Chronological Register of the Prin- cipal Duels,' by James P. Gilchrist (London, 1821), contains information respecting duels which were fought during the period 1762 to 1821, the number mentioned being 172. In some cases the correspondence and the results of the trials are given. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

WATERPROOF CLOTHING (7 th S. xii. 67 ; 9 th S. v. 229, 294. See also ' Mackintoshes,' 7 th S. iii. 227 ; 8 th S. i. 127, 215 ; ii. 58, 92). On 13 Dec., 1634, John Eyres, Charles Mowat, and John Walles had granted to them by Privy Seal the

"Privilege for fourteen years to put in practice in England and Ireland ways by them newly invented, for making woollen cloth impenetrable of wet and serviceable for coaches and wagons." Forty-eighth Report of Deputy-Keeper of P.R., App. iii.' 521.

O. O. H.

THE JUBILEE OF THE * LEISURE HOUR ' (9 th S. viii. 518 ; ix. 3, 24). To the deeply in- teresting papers contributed by MR. JOHN C. FRANCIS at the above references may I be allowed to append a small postscript 1

The great pioneer of cheap literature, John Cassell, is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. His grave, No. 19,094, in Square 16, nearly opposite the main entrance, is covered by a coped recumbent slab of granite, and bears the following inscriptions :

In loving Memory. John Cassell,

Publisher,

Born January 23rd, 1817. Died April 2nd, 1865.

Mary Hannah Cassell,

Daughter of the above,

Born June 29th, 1844. Died June 13th, 1848.

Mary Cassell,

Born April 9th, 1811. Died July 6th, 1885. Interred at Hove Cemetery, Brighton.

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

MICHAEL BRUCE AND BURNS (9 th S. vii. 466 ; viii. 70, 148, 312, 388, 527). This controversy, as I have already pointed out, has made no progress in thirty years, and it is surely futile to continue it unless something new can be offered. I am now asked to study the defunct Scots Magazine on the subject, but the speci- men of evidence quoted from that periodical

does not encourage further investigation of its contents. MS. copies of the k Ode to the Cuckoo/ according to this authority, are "said to have been circulating in East Lothian in or about 1767, before the Bruce MSS. came into Logan's possession, which was not till the succeed- ing summer, or probably as late as 1769."

The writer of this ought to have shown reason for disbelieving the statements of Bruce's biographers that Logan got the MSS. in 1767. The story of the "circulating" copies, however, is more than a century old, and is thus disposed of by Dr. Grosart :

" Here is the cautious language of his eulogist, Dr. Robertson, in his ' Life ' of Logan prefixed to his * Sermons ': ' The only pieces which Logan him- self ever acknowledged, in his conversations with the compiler of this biographical sketch, were the story of "Levina," the " Ode to Paoli," and "The Cuckoo." The last was handed about and extolled among his literary acquaintances in East Lothian long before its publication, probably (though not certainly) in 1767, as he did not reside there at all in 1768, and very little in 1769. This fact, and his inserting it as his own in a small volume eleven years afterwards, seem pretty decisive of his claim.' Credent Judtuus! Only first seen in 1767, and yet 1767 was the year of his reception of Bruce's MSS. ; not to say that, as a correspondent of the Poet, he might even have received and ' shown ' it earlier, though it is nowhere attempted to be proved that he did this. The claim on such a miserable chance probability' not certainly ' is monstrous ; and, as the strength of a chain is measured, not by its strongest but by its weakest part, this link failing, the after publication shares its worthless-

nocta Worts nf Mu'1-ia.ftl TJrnnn ' TV R4. fid ISfifv

Works of Michael Bruce,' p. 64, ed. 1865. Dr. Grosart further deals in a note (p. 65) with the letter from Robertson of which Dr. Rae appears to be enamoured. This is how he disposes of its claim to consideration :

" David Laing, Esq., LL.D., of the Signet Library, Edinburgh, has kindly favoured me with a copy of the first edition of Bruce's ' Poems ' (1770), in which some anonymous former possessor of the volume has marked the pieces usually claimed for Logan as his ; and, of course, the ' Ode to the Cuckoo ' is one of them. But this is of no value whatever, seeing it only shows that the writer, whoever he may have been, accepted Logan's own statement. Dr. Laing has also sent me a copy of a letter by Dr. Robertson, of Dalmeny, containing nearly the same list ; but we have seen all that he had to adduce (supra). In short, wherever I have come upon any attempt at evidence in favour of Logan, an examination has invariably resolved it into his own publication and self-assertion."

It seems almost necessary to apologize for using the columns of * N. & Q.' in the repro- duction of this ancient controversial matter. I crave indulgence, however, in defence of my statement that nothing new on the problem has come to light since Dr. Grosart advanced his damaging indictment of Logan n his edition of Michael Bruce's poems. He may have been wrong, but his error is still to