Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/499

 9*8. IX. JUNE 21, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

491

six mots." More than twenty years ago a French journalist expressed a hope that the Academy would sanction the use of " ce mot vif, spirituel, dont s'occupent les plus jolies femmes et les plus nobles gentilshommes." An erroneous notion prevailed that it was a word sorti des ateliers. It is given in the 'Vocabulaire FranQais,' seventh edition (1818), " ouvrage adopte par 1'Universite de France pour les Colleges et Ecoles publiques," wherein it is denned as a "nom provengal de plusieurs petits oiseaux ou chique, sub- tilite, finesse : populairement."

B. D. MOSELEY.

DEATH OF THE TRUMPET-MAJOR AT BALA- CLAVA (9 th S. ix. 465). Through sheer care- lessness and irresponsibility the " trumpet myth " has gained currency. It will be seen upon investigation that no " sounding " occurred on 25 October, 1854. Troop-Ser- geant -Major Keyte, of the 1st or Royal Dragoons, writes : " No trumpet or bugle sounding took place in either brigade." The Russian cavalry were making for Balaclava, but were dissuaded from their intention by a well-directed volley from the Highlanders. The Russians changed direction, and thus confronted the Heavy Brigade, who found themselves unable to put any considerable amount of speed into their impact with the enemy. With the Light Brigade I heard no trumpet sound that day ; but I heard the order of Lord Cardigan, "The Light Brigade will advance! Walk! March! Trot! "of course taken up by regimental commanders. No word was ever given to increase the pace after the word "Trot!" The merit of the Light Brigade advance was its steadiness under strong incentives to confusion and dis- order. I suppose we must take it that these unworthy misstatements have been repeated so often that those giving them publicity have, as Shakespeare has it, become "such sinners unto memory " as really to regard them as true. Mr. T. H. Roberts, the pub- lisher, of Fleet Street, whose noble work in rescuing many of the Light Brigade from the ignominy of the poor - house deserves high honour, writes to me, a propos of the "trumpet fable," "I have done my best to refute the fallacy of ' sounding the charge ' ; but these old lies are like old soldiers they die hard ! " W. H. PENNINGTON.

84, Princess May Road, N.

FRANCIS SPIERA'S DESPAIR (9 th S. ix. I transcribe the following brief notice from Rose's * Biog. Diet.' (1850) :

" Spira (Francesco), a lawyer of Cittadella, in the Venetian state, who, being accused of heresy to the

Papal nuncio, made his submission, and afterwards a public recantation. Shortly after this he fell into a deep melancholy, and died, full of horror and remorse for his apostasy, in 1548."

From the SchaffHerzog * Religious Ency- clopaedia ' (1884) we learn that the "apostasy " for which he felt "remorse" was not his defection from Popery, but his insincere re- cantation of Protestantism, which he made "for worldly considerations." His despair is thus described :

" Spiera believed he had committed the sin against

the Holy Ghost He held he belonged to the

number of those who were lost, and lost eternally. In his assurance that God had forsaken him, he had the most painful visions. Devils surrounded him

and in his terrible consciousness of sin he often

roared like a lion."

It is added that Calvin and the other Re- formers took a deep interest in the case. The same article mentions the following writers as having given accounts of him : Vergerius, Gribaldi, Henricus Scotus, Ge- lous, all of whose accounts are contained in one work ; Roth, 1829 ; Bacon, 1665, 1710 ; and Schaff, 1841. C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. Bath.

Francis Spiera the atheist, advocate of Cittadella in the Venetine, embraced Lutheran opinions, recanted his heresy before Giovanni Casa, Pope's legate in Venice, repented of his recantation, and died in despair soon after in Padua, c. 1548. His story, as an awful warn- ing, appeared in English as ' A Relation of the Fearful Estate of Francis Spiera,' compiled (preface) from the accounts of "Vergerius and Gribaldus, Professors of Law at Padua, Henry Scrimger a Scotchman, Sigism. Gelous a Transilvanian, and Mart. Bocha a Divine of Basil." In my copy, which lacks title-page, is bound up with it 'The Second Spiera, being a fearful example of an Atheist, who had apostatized from the Christian Religion and died in Despair at Westminster, Decemb. 8, 1692.' Printed for John Dunton at the "Raven," in the Poultry, 1693. I should imagine that the 'Relation,' &c., came out the same year. FRANCIS KING.

"CRADEL GRASS" (9 th S. ix. 427). MR. PETTY appears to have misread his author. In my copy of Sylvester's ' Du Bartas' (1633) the couplet in which the line referred to occurs reads :

They saw the light of Phcebux live-nine face ; Having, for milk, moyst deaws ; for Cradle, grass ?

C. C. B.

ARTHUR'S CROWN (9 th S. ix. 388). As the author of this popular and interesting book on Wales, Mr. Owen M. Edwards, kindly tells me, Arthur's crown and the heirlooms of the