Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text.

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NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

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No. 207.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15. 1853. [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d.

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CONTENTS.

NOTES:-- Page

Notes on Midland County Minstrelsy, by C. Clifton Barry 357
Comet Superstitions in 1853 358
The Old English Word "Belike" 358
Druses, by. T. J. Buckton 360
FOLK LORE:--Legends of the County Clare 360
Shakspeare Correspondence, by Thomas Keightley, &c. 361
Death on the Fingers 362

MINOR NOTES:--On a "Custom of y^e Englyshe"--Epitaph
at Crayford--The Font at Islip--"As good
as a Play" 363

QUERIES:--

Lovett of Astwell 363
Oaths 364
The Electric Telegraph 364

MINOR QUERIES:--Queries relating to the Porter
Family--Lord Ball of Bagshot--Marcarnes--The
Claymore--Sir William Chester, Kt.--Canning on
the Treaty of 1824 between the Netherlands and
Great Britain--Ireland a bastinadoed Elephant--Memorial
Lines by Thomas Aquinas--"Johnson's
turgid style"--Meaning of "Lane," &c.--Theobald
le Botiller--William, fifth Lord Harrington--Singular
Discovery of a Cannon-ball--Scottish Castles--Sneezing--
Spenser's "Fairy Queen"--Poema del Cid--The Brazen Head 364

MINOR QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:--"The Basilics"--Fire
at Houlton--Michaelmas Goose 367

REPLIES:--

Portraits of Hobbes and Letters of Hollar, by S. W.
Singer 368
Parochial Libraries, by the Rev. Thos. Corser 369
Battle of Villers en Couche, by H. L. Mansel, B.D., &c. 370
Attainment of Majority, by Russell Gole and Professor
De Morgan 371
Similarity of Idea in St. Luke and Juvenal 372

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE:--Mr. Sisson's developing
Fluid--Dr. Diamond's Process for Albumenized
Paper--Mr. Lyte's New Process 373

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--Derivation of the Word
"Island"--"Paetus and Arria"--"That Swinney"--The
Six Gates of Troy--Milton's Widow--Boom--"Nugget"
not an American Term--Soke Mill--Binometrical
Verse--Watch-paper Inscription--Dotinchem--Reversible
Names and Words--Detached Church Towers--Bishop
Ferrar--"They shot him by the nine stone rig"--Punning
Devices--Ashman's Park--"Crowns have their compass,"
&c.--Ampers and--Throwing Old Shoes for Luck--Ennui 374

MISCELLANEOUS:--

Books and Odd Volumes wanted 377
Notices to Correspondents 377
Advertisements 378

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Notes.

Notes on Midland County Minstrelsy.

It has often occurred to me that the old country folk-songs are as worthy of a niche in your mausoleum as the more prosy lore to which you allot a separate division. Why does not some one write a Minstrelsy of the Midland Counties? There is ample material to work upon, and not yet spoiled by dry-as-dust-ism. It would be vain, perhaps, to emulate the achievements of the Scottish antiquary; but surely something might be done better than the county _Garlands_, which, with a few honorable exceptions, are sad abortions, mere channels for rhyme-struck editors. There is one peculiarity of the midland songs and ballads which I do not remember to have seen noticed, viz. their singular affinity to those of Scotland, as exhibited in the collections of Scott and Motherwell. I have repeatedly noticed this, even so far south as Gloucestershire. Of the old Staffordshire ballad which appeared in your columns some months ago, I remember to have heard two distinct versions in Warwickshire, all approaching more or less to the Scottish type:

"Hame came our gude man at e'en."

Now whence this curious similarity in the vernacular ideology of districts so remote? Are all the versions from one original, distributed by the wandering minstrels, and in course of time adapted to new localities and dialects? and, if so, whence came the original, from England or Scotland? Here is a nut for DR. RIMBAULT, or some of your other correspondents learned in popular poetry. Another instance also occurs to me. Most of your readers are doubtless familiar with the pretty little ballad of "Lady Anne" in the _Border Minstrelsy_, which relates so plaintively the murder of the two innocent babes, and the ghostly retribution to the guilty mother. Other versions are given by Kinloch in his _Ancient Scottish Ballads_, and by Buchan in the _Songs of the North_, the former laying the scene in London:

"There lived a ladye in London,
All alone and alonie,
She's gane wi' bairn to the clerk's son,
Down by the green-wood side sae bonny."

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And the latter across the Atlantic:

"The minister's daughter of New York,
Hey with the rose and the Lindie, O,
Has fa'en in love wi' her father's clerk,
A' by the green burn sidie, O."

A Warwickshire version, on the contrary, places the scene on our own "native leas:"

"There was a lady lived on lea,
All alone, alone O,
Down the greenwood side went she,
Down the greenwood side, O.

"She set her foot all on a thorn[1],
Down the greenwood side, O,
There she had two babies born,
All alone, alone O.

"O she had nothing to lap them in,
All alone, alone O,
But a white appurn and that was thin,
Down the greenwood side, O," &c.

Here there are no less than four versions of the same ballad, each differing materially from the other, but all bearing unmistakeable marks of a common origin. It would be interesting to know the process by which this was managed.