Notes and Queries

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CONTENTS.-N° 185.

NOTES: Shakesperiana, 41- Bad Omens: the Bonapartes, 42-A Town Built to Order, 43-Sir Walter Scott's Use of Proverbs - Marriage Announcement Coinci

solemn beat; and, judging from this and from the discipline of Gustavus Adolphus and other considerations, it seems not unlikely that the drumreveillé of the Low Country, or German Protestant armies of Elizabeth's time, was of the same cha

dences of Thought: Bacon: Bunyan-John Collins, Au-racter, even if it were not founded on a psalm

thor of "The Evening Brush," &c.- Witch-burning in the Nineteenth Century, 44.

QUERIES:-Avaji Govinda Hanumán, &c. - Bolingbroke

-Charles I.-Passage in Chesterfield-"Dictionary of Quotations"-"Facherie"- French Republican SongsGlassel- -Grain: Lumb-Hastings &c. Queries-"Keip on this Syde" - Dr. May, Bishop of Carlisle Three Queries about John Milton-Monogram on a PictureMoon-gathered Darnels" Picture of "Virgin and Child"-Pot of Lilies - Prayer-book Query - Sir Thomas Prestwich Shakespeare, annotated Quarto - Curious Superstition-Supporters-"To Berkeley every Virtue under Heaven"-Wm. Thomas's "Historie of Italie". Visitor, Visitee, 45.

tune. In one of those inartificial touches of reality and circumstance which give such a charm to the tales of Erckmann and Chatrian, the soldier-conscript of the first Napoleon (Waterloo, ch. xviii.) incidentally tells us—

"Notre diane commence toujours avant celle des Prussiens, des Russes, des Autrichiens, et de tous nos ennemis ; c'est comme le chant de l'alouette au tout petit jour. Les autres, avec leurs larges tambours, commencent après leurs roulements sourds, qui vous donnent des idées d'enterre

ment."

The others, with their big drums, begin later, and their dull-sounding rolls awake in one the remembrance of a burial."

REPLIES:-A Letter of Edward IV., 48— Mary Queen of Scots' Imprisonments, 49-"The more I learn, the less I seem to know," &c., 50-Printer's Errors: Shakespeare, 51 - English Bibles, temp. James I., Ib.-Mrs. Jane Gardiner-"The Thunderer"-Crests - Robert Fitzharneys or Harveis - On the Absence of any French Word signify-murely in the sense of solemnly, as explained by

ing "To stand"- Brass in Boston Church -William Baliol- Mrs. Mary Churchill - Voltairiana - Collection for a History of Inns, &c.- Why does a newly born Child cry? What Critics are- Male and Female Numbers

Now this I take to be a perfect gloss on de

Warburton. But the one meaning does not exclude the other, and both would be easily understood by an audience, since they were interpreted

and Letters-Farm-house Floors - Burns: "Richt gude- by actual beat of drum within. This piece of

willie waucht"- Belive- -"Heart of Hearts," &c., 52. Notes on Books, &c.

Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him To the court of guard: he is of note."-Act IV. Sc. 9. After many exercisings of mind, in the midst of which I rested for a time in "Do matinly wake the sleepers" (Camb. Sh. ix.), the conclusion I have come to is that demure is and means demure. Cæsar, like Antony, would renew the combat, and taking advantage of "the shining" of the cloudless night, and a precaution from it, ordered the embattling of his forces to begin as early as 2 A.M. It would, therefore, only be in accord with his careful and exact discipline that any notes of preparation should, in presence of a hostile and almost victorious force, be made in a subdued tone. Otherwise the enemy might have unnecessary information and forewarning, or even make such notes of preparation their signal of attack, and come upon him while defiling out of camp and before his line of battle had been taken up.

But there is yet another and second meaning which may be given to the word demure. If not now, yet at all events in 1814 the drum-reveillé of the non-Latin races was not a lively, merry, or clamorous din, but a measured and somewhat

stage arrangement furnishes, moreover, another important argument in their favour. Even an inferior artist would not foolishly mar with the ill accord of a lively rataplan the close of so touching and effective a scene. Nor could Shakespeare do so; but he would make use of that which he knew would harmonise with and heighten the feelings he had produced, and the measured, low-toned and far-off beats that demurely woke the sleepers were heard as the knell of one whom the hand of death had already raught, the funeral march for the erring but repentant soldier.

"I'LL KEEP MY STABLES," &c.-Winter's Tale. "Antigonus. If it prove

She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;

Then when I feel and see her, no further trust her.
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every drachm of woman's flesh is false,
If she be."-Act II. Sc. 1.

The nearness of the kennels to the stables suggests to Antigonus a new form of expressionthat he will be coupled with her as hounds are, and so keep her from straying. Then, when the first outbursts of his vehemence have blown off in windy metaphor, he subsides into plain speech, and still expressing the same thought, says he will keep his wife constantly in view, and trust her no further than he can feel and see her. Both these phrases, therefore, suggest that the first is of the same import. Nor does it admit of any other, nor when once understood give it otherwise than clearly. Antigonus, it is to be pre

.....

sumed, like other noblemen, had some at least of his horses on his estates. Recurring to them, as he afterwards does, to his hounds he exclaims"As my stallions and mare are looked after, kept apart, and under ward, so shall my wife be kept,' "if the Queen be false, then are women mere animals, and holding my wife as a bestial, I will lodge and keep my brood mares with her and her as them." The transposition of his phrases may be intended to express the first and mingled outrush of his vehemence, but is also an attempt to express more strongly that his cattle would be held by him equal to his wife. " "Keep," also by aptness of phrase, is used in both its senses of lodge, and of shut or fasten.

There is a somewhat similar allusion in All's Well that End's Well, when (Act II. Sc. 3) Parolles urges the Count to leave France. Beginning with the kennel, he calls France a doghole, and then, through association of ideas, a stable; and while there can be no doubt that he

implies by both phrases that it is a confined, filthily-scurvy bye-place, there can be as little that he also refers to the Count's only but intolerable grievance that he, as underward, has been mated at the will of his master instead of being allowed to range or mate at his own pleasure. And here I would note that the reading adopted by Pope, "To other regions France is a stable," is an unnecessary and erroneous alteration from that of the Folios-"To other regions, France is a stable," where the comma is equivalent to Capell's (!). Without the comma it is utterly without the ring of Parolles' phrases: with it the "To other regions" coincides with "To the wars," and "France is a stable" to "France is a doghole." BRINSLEY NICHOLSON,

(To be concluded in our next.)

BAD OMENS: THE BONAPARTES. The numerous references that have lately appeared in "N. & Q." to prophecies connected with the national calamities of France, and the destruction of Paris in particular, are very interesting. A season of misfortune is always the harvest time of superstition, and we must not be surprised if, in the pages of writers not remarkable for their superabundance of faith, we find, in connection with political events, observations that seem to be borrowed from the pages of Livy, Capitolinus, or Lampridius as to the evil omens indicating the dire results of the opening campaign of Russia by Napoleon I., and the many strange signs that accompanied his downfall.

Thus writes M. Ségur concerning bad omens in

1812 :

Napoleon arrived on June 23 at the Niemen, the extreme frontier between Russia and Prussia. As he appeared on the bank of the river at two o'clock in the

morning, his horse suddenly fell down, and threw him upon the ground. A voice cried out This is a bad augury. If this occurred to a Roman he would turn back. (Ceci est d'un mauvais présage: un Romain reculerait.) It is not known whether it was himself or one of his suite who spoke these words. The next day, says an eye-witness, Count de Ségur, scarcely had the emperor crossed the river, than a dull noise agitated the air. The light afterwards became obscured, the wind rose, and the sinister rolling of thunder was heard. The heavens had a menacing aspect, and the bare shelterless earth presented an appearance that filled us with sadness. Some of those who, but a short time before, were inspired with enthusiasm, were now shaken with fear, as if they regarded these circumstances as of evil omen (en furent rays comme d'un funeste présage). They believed that these fiery clouds that were gathered together over our heads, and that sank down even to the ground, were forbidding our entrance into Russia."-Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande armée pendant l'année 1812, liv. iv. c. 2, as quoted by Rohrbacher, Histoire universelle de l'Eglise catholique, vol. xxviii. liv. xci. p. 146. (Paris, 1847.)

The work of M. Ségur has attained a worldwell known to many. It is not so with the author wide fame, and the passage here quoted must be from which I am now about to quote. I am afraid the book of Lord Blayney is not to be discovered have heard of it but for its being reviewed in the in numerous libraries, and I own I should never Quarterly, from which I take the following passage:

"One Sunday evening (having invited some friends to pass two or three days in the country) a strange event took place. While drinking our wine after dinner, three of the wine-glasses broke spontaneously in pieces, and the wine ran about the table and on the floor. The clock, which before had struck tolerably correct, now struck two hundred and sixteen. The screech-owls, of which hideous noise, and appearances were altogether so strange, there were abundance in the neighbourhood, made a that I observed there must either have been an earthquake or some most extraordinary event had taken place. Our imaginations, from having been bound up to the highest pitch of conjecture and anxiety, to devise à cause for such strange occurrences, were soon set at rest by a most violent rapping at the door, which proved to be an express that brought us the agreeable and wonderful intelligence of Napoleon's abdicating the throne, and the extraordinary change such an event has since created on the civil and political system of the world."-MajorGeneral Lord Blayney, Narrative of a forced Journey through Spain and France as a Prisoner of War in the Years 1810 to 1814, pp. 411, 412, as quoted in Quarterly Review, xiv. 119.

A vast significance, you are aware, was attached in the "dark days of superstition" to mere numbers, and an innate potency was supposed to be inherent with each of them. This notion is now nearly exploded, and yet, judging of circumstances by events, does there not appear to have been an evil destiny influencing the late imperial ruler of France when he preferred to designate himself "Napoleon III." instead of calling himself that which he substantially and truly was—viz. “Na

[* A copy is in the British Museum.-ED.]

poleon the second"? The number 3 has been his fatal number "-it has indicated his destiny. He has been engaged in three indiscreet wars-the Italian, Mexican, and Prussian. A war in Italy: it was for "an idea "-the idea of "nationality," and the same idea of "nationality" ruined him ultimately, because waged against "German nationality." A war in Mexico "for the Latin race," and which was the sad prelude to his own discomfiture; and a war to add the bank of the Rhine to France," by which France has been lost to him and his heirs for ever. Three times has he been a banished man; three times has he been a prisoner

"Necte tribus nodis ternos, Amarylli, colores." Three times has he been disarmed at the head of kis military forces-first, in the spirt at Strasbourg; second, in the bungle at Boulogne; third, in the breakdown at Sedan.

""Tis true, 'tis pity; And pity 'tis, 'tis true."

And yet, despite his mauvais numero, his misfortunes are greater than his faults. I have no just cause for being his eulogist, but still I believe him to be better than the best of the ". poor lot" with which he was trammelled. He did much for the welfare of France; he kept down with a firm hand the Communists and Red Republicans; and next to a love for his own country, I believe he was wishful for continual peace with England.

But how come prophecies, and auguries and omens, and the mystery of numbers to be mixed up with the Bonapartes and the destinies of France? The answer to such a question is to be found in the astute observations of a writer in the leading journal of Europe, who, referring to a great national crisis, remarked that it was a period when

"Every throb of the political ground is acutely felt, every tremour in the air is caught by the ear instantly, and every motion on the surface of things is observed with anxiety; it is made an omen on one side or the other, it speaks to the whole nation, it prophesies an issue. The air of a troubled State becomes soon thick with signs and prognostics, and everybody becomes an augur, a soothsayer, an interpreter of dreams; and every event is hailed as a bright or a black one.”—Times newspaper, Sept. 22, 1863.

Moncontour-de-Bretagne,

Côtes du Nord, France.

WM. B. MACCABE.

A TOWN BUILT TO ORDER.

The following account of Riverside in Illinois is condensed from a letter to a New York newspaper:

It entered into the mind of the originator of Riverside to do that in the beginning which the inhabitants of villages, towns, and cities some. times do, and always wish to do, after the population is there, and when it costs much more to

do it. He determined to prepare a city, and depend upon people to live in it when it was completed. Sixteen hundred and four acres of land were purchased, situate eight miles from the business centre of Chicago, and four miles from the city boundary. A lovely and lively stream runs through it, and it has the only piece of good woodland near the city. The Chicago and Quincy railroad runs through the tract, affording the residents twelve trains daily each way between it and Chicago. The new town was commenced in June, 1869, when the only building on the ground was a large stable. which was removed bodily to the distance of a mile and a half. Since that date the company have completed 9 miles of roads, 25 to 30 feet wide, finely laid, guttered, and drained, winding handsomely and bordered with grass; they have made 7 miles of tar and gravel walks, 16 miles of sewers, 5 miles of water mains, and 5 miles of gas pipes. The gas works cost 100,000 dols., and gas lamps light up the roads as in the city. Water is supplied from an artesian well 739 feet deep, which was dug in three months, and yields 250,000 gallons a day.

There have been planted since June, 1869, 47,000 shrubs, 7000 evergreen trees, and 32,000 deciduous trees; of the latter 2500 were large shade trees, some of them 19 inches in diameter, and 80 feet high. Special machinery has been used to take up and move these. One tree and the earth attached to it weighed 25 tons. They have contracted for setting out 30,000 elm-trees during the present year.

Of the 1604 acres, 740 acres have been appropriated to parks, roads, and paths. The large park along the watercourse contains 180 acres: it has already a well-grown wood of oaks, elms, hickories, and black walnut trees.

The artesian well now throws water to the height of thirty-nine feet, and supplies the second stories of the houses. The well is surmounted by a handsome tower of brick and stone, which cost building for a refectory, containing large dining17,000 dols. The company have erected a Swiss rooms, private supper-rooms, handsome parlours, and a large assembly-room capable of holding an audience of 300 persons. Around two of the stories are broad verandahs which overhang the river. This building cost 40,000 dols.

In the vicinity is a charming stone cottage, which cost 11,000 dols., intended for billiard and smoking rooms. By the first of next July an hotel will be completed at a cost of 70,000 dols. There is a handsome stone church, which cost 13,000 dols., and a block of stores and offices of stone and red Milwaukie bricks, which cost 14,000 dols. Boathouses are now in building by the company, and a noble drive is half finished to connect Riverside with Chicago.

The enterprise is successful. Besides the public

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Notes and Queries, Том 44