Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/401

 '" s. ix. MAY 17,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

393

hearts-ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet."

Shakspere makes Oberon bid Puck fetch the pansy love-philtre, that he may drop some of it on the closed eyelids of Titania : The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid Will make a man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees.

With the old herbalists the pansy was used to "conglutinate blood" for falling sickness and other kindred ailments. Culpepper, in speaking of it, says :

" This is that herb which such physicians as are licensed to blaspheme by authority, without danger of having their tongues burned through with an

hot iron, called an Herb of Trinity In Sussex

we call them Fancies."

Philip Miller says of heartsease, " This plant is placed amongst the Officinal Simples in the College Dispensatory." ANDREW HOPE.

Exeter.

I have never heard of such a legend as Miss TUCK inquires after. None is given in Phillips's ' Flora Historica,' or in any of the more recent collections of flower-lore which I possess. The nearest approach to one is in Herrick's verses 'How Pansies or Hart- ease came first':

Frolick virgins once these were,

Overloving, living here ;

Being here their ends deny'd

Ran for sweet-hearts mad, and di'd.

Love, in pitie of their teares,

And their losse in blooming yeares,

For their restlesse here-spent houres

Gave them hearts-ease turn'd to flow'rs.

The real reason for this flower-name is pro- bably more correctly shown in his verses ' To Pansies ':

He to Pansies come ;

Comforts you '1 afford me some :

You can ease my heart, and doe

What love co'd ne'r be brought unto.

The old name "pansy" (pensees) no doubt suggested the other. Thus Bernard Barton addressing the flower : Thou styled by sportive fancy's better feeling,

A Thought, The Heart's Ease, or Forget me not How the flower first got the name pensez c moi is another question, and one I canuo'

r\ f* T3

answer.

C. C. B.

'THE CARRION CROW' (9 th S. ix. 347). I was a Winchester College song in the forties I have never seen it in print. If DENVIL cares to send me his address, I will write ou for him from memory the words and music.

W. TUCKWELL.

Walt-ham, Grimsby.

One version appears in 4 th S. viii., am another from Grose's ' Olio ' is given in the

ame volume. It will also be found in ' Bal-

ads and Songs of the Peasantry of England.'

t is explained that the " Carrion Crow " was

hought to be Charles II. in his Boscobel

efuge, in the guise of a voracious bird, who

made the Puritan clergy disgorge their bene-

ices ; perhaps, also, because he ordered the

jodies of the regicides to be exhumed, as

A.insworth says in one of his ballads :

The carrion crow is a sexton bold,

He taketh the dead from out of the mould.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

[Many other replies acknowledged.]

BARROSA TOKEN (9 th S. ix. 248). MR. SOUTHAM asks if tokens similar to his that he describes were struck for other battles of the Peninsula. I have -the gift of a " Waterloo man" a cylindrical brass case, l$in. high Dy | in., containing twenty - five commemo- rative tokens, all gilt, one for each of the 'ollowing battles : Roliea (sic) and Vimiera, Corunna, Oporto, Talavera, Buzaco, Coimbra, Almeida, Albuhera, Barrosa, Fuente de Onor. Almaraz, Madrid, Salamanca, Arroyo del Molino, Ciudad Rodrigo, Orthes, Badajos, Neive, Castalla, Vittoria, St. Sebastian, Biddassoa, Pyrenees, Toulouse, Waterloo. Each token has on one side a figure of a flying Victory, with the words around it " By the mercy of God " ; on the reverse the date, place, and year ; that for Waterloo alone has laurel leaves round the word. Outside the case, on the top, is a medallion of the Duke, with the words " The Duke of Wellington" around it. At the base is " First battle, Portugal, Aug. 17, 1808. Last battle, France, April 10, 1814." All this is in relief. Around the case is " British Vic- tories " in writing characters. MR. SOUTHAM in mentioning the capture of the trench eagle by Sergeant Masterson of the 87th, at Barrosa, reminds me of the following episode. At Vittoria the baton of Marshal Jourdan was captured by a corporal of the 18th Hussars, who took off the gold ends, leaving the wooden part in its case in his tent, this latter being stolen from him by a friend in the 87th. This stick in its case was presented to Lord Wellington by the colonel of the 87th. Was Wellington ever undeceived] HAROLD MALET, Colonel.

I have had in my possession for more than half a century some raetol tokens to be used as card counters. Each ot the three - I lost the fourth in 1848 -struck in commemoration of Ciudad Rodrigo, Coimbra, Roliea (sic) and Vimiera, respec- tively, is about the size of the old fourpenny