258
NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. vii. MARCH so, 1007.
as the author of sixty-five translations ;
G. B. of only three.
However, in ' Anthologia Polyglotta,' by Henry Wellesley, D.D., 1849, the initials G. B. mean George Booth. In this collection George Butler does not appear. Booth gives fifty-nine Latin and fifteen English translations. In the preface Wellesley offers his " grateful acknowledgements " to "those distinguished members of the University, the Rev. G. Booth, the Rev. J. W. Burgon, the Rev. G. F. De-Teissier, the Rev. E. Stokes, the Rev. G. C. Swaine, Goldwin Smith, Esq., and. ... to a foreigner. . . . Count Mortara, now residing among us."
It is evident, as regards these two books, that where both George Booth and George Butler appear the former becomes B. and the latter G. B. ; but that where the latter is absent George Booth has his two intials, G. B. ROBERT PIERPOINT.
WATTS AND THE ROSE (10 S. vii. 105). MB. LYNN will scarcely need reminding that Watts wrote under the Old Style : his April and May were later than ours. Even so, April is certainly too early a date for the rose in our climate ; but we must not be hard on a poet who wishes to fill his line euphoniously. Lyte says roses are in flower in May and June ; Gerard, " from May till the end of August " ; so we may allow May to consider them her " glory." Has MB. LYNN forgotten Laertes's
rose of May,
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! or Olivia's " roses of the spring " ; or that in the bridal song in ' The Two Noble Kins- men ' they are named together with prim- roses and oxlips ; or Keats's And mid-May's eldest child, the coming musk-rose ?
Here is warrant enough for Watts, as regards the later month at any rate.
C. C. B.
BELL-HORSES (10 S. vi. 469 ; vii. 33, 110, 174). Another verse used to run : Bell-horses, bell-horses, all in row, How many fine bell-horses I want to know.
W. COBFIELD.
Calcutta.
Camel-bells or caravan bells are mentioned several times in SvenHedin's ' Through Asia,' 1898. In describing a sandstorm on p. 555 of the first volume the author observes :
"The deafening roar ot the hurricane overpowers every other sound. If you do get separated from them [your companions], you are bound to wander astray ; and so become irretrievably lost. All that I could see was the camel immediately in front of me.
Everything else was swallowed xip in the thick im-
penetrable haze. Nor can you hear anything excep^
the peculiar whining and moaning made by tin
millions upon millions of grains of sand as the;
upon millions or grains
whiz without cessation past your ears."
they
Then he quotes from Yule's ' Book of Ser
Marco Polo the Venetian ' a passage relative
to the spirits talking and musical sounds
heard in the Great Desert, which concludes
with
"Hence in making this journey it is customary for travellers to keep close together. All animals, too, have bells at their necks, so that they cannot easily get astray."
M. P.
" BAT BEARAWAY " (10 S. vii. 168). From Mr. Robert Backhouse Peacock's ' Glossary of the Dialect of the Hundred of Lonsdale ' (sub 'There-away') it would appear that " Bearaway " is not nominal, but imperative^ Boys cry out :
Bat ! bat ! bear away,
Here-away, there-away,
Into my hat ;
and in book-language " bear away " might be rendered "direct yourself." In French folk-lore there is a tendency to treat bats as if their nature were diabolic, so let us hope they may have nothing to do with soul-carrying. ST. SWITHIN.
In the great frescoes of the ' Triumph of Death ' at the Campo Santo, Pisa, painted by Andrea Orcagna about 1350, there are several objects represented (half human and half bat) as flying away with the spirits of the departed.
Some of these are contending in the sky with demons for the possession of the spirits.. A. CABBINGTON.
Bideford.
SNAKES IN SOUTH AFBICA (10 S. v. 428, 473; vi. 10, 115, 152, 218, 294). I quite agree with MB. CLAYTON in regarding the story of the momba at the penultimate reference as mythical. Nevertheless the statement that the snake sits in a tree, "when it is lucky enough to find one," is peculiarly applicable to certain parts of South Africa : to Basutoland, for instance, where there are no trees at all ; to the wide stretch of the Karroo, some 300 miles by 150 ; to the Orange River Colony and Bechuanaland, where nothing more stately is to be met with in the natural than the prickly pear and the mimosa, whose stem and height attain the size of the hawthorn bush in England. I am not, of course, reckoning fruit trees and blue gums that have been artificially planted of late years.
