306
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIIL OCT. 19, 1007.
' Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs ' before
Burns had emerged from boyhood. The
poet's connexion with Johnson's ' Musical
Museum ' has been the cause of both per-
plexity and misunderstanding. Johnson,
Mr. Lang says, would have published his
anthology, although Burns had not become a
coadjutor. This no doubt is the case, but it
must be evident, even to a superficial
observer, that, apart altogther from the
poet's own contributions, the work without
his help could never have reached its
wonderful comprehensiveness and its repre-
sentative character. With his generosity of
appreciation, his zeal for everything charac-
teristic and fresh, and his quickness in recog-
nizing what constitutes a song, he discovered
for Johnson much that had genuine and
unmistakable value, a large proportion of
which, it is quite safe to say, the publisher
himself and his immediate advisers would
have overlooked altogether. In one of his
deeper moods Burns pays a hearty tribute
to those unknown and forgotten minstrels
whose lyrics, in whole or in part, remain as
pathetic evidence and quick touchstone
of their genius. He was never weary of
following upon the track of these lyrists, and
saving even their fragments from oblivion by
securing a place for them in Johnson's
collection. It is just possible that ' Braw
Lads of Galla Water ' is one of those vagrant
pieces which thus gained favour on his
initiative ; but, whether or not, it was duly
included in the second volume of the
^Musical Museum.' It is entered in the
index as anonymous, and, curiously enough,
it stands there between two of Burns's songs,
each of which is announced under the poet's
name. To all intents and purposes it is the
lyric which Herd in 1776 included among
his " Fragments of Comic and Humourous
Songs," although it is not reproduced
verbatim, as Scott Douglas asserts in the
reprint of the Kilmarnock poems. Some one
it may have been Burns, or it may have
been Johnson himself, who had his own
notions on matters of taste introduced into
Herd's text two trivial variations, but these
by no means warrant an ascription of
authorship. Various editors before Mr.
Lang gave the song to Burns, but it is long
since the error of these practitioners was
exposed and their decision shown to be
unwarrantable. THOMAS BAYNE.
" CAMELIAN." (See 8 S. vii. 429 ; 9 S. iii. 75, 193, 276.) About twelve years ago I wrote to ' N. & Q.' to try to learn the nature of " Camelian," which was employed by
an American writer, Miss Mary E. Wilkins*
to denote, as it appeared to me, an amal-
gam that had the glitter of the precious
metal, but nothing of its value. The story
of Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring*'
which appeared in The English Illustrated
Magazine, vol. xiii. pp. 3-18, reminded me
pleasantly of a word in active use during
my childhood in Lincolnshire, but now
ignored, as far as I can make out, by
speakers and the dictionaries. As I quoted
in 1895, the nearest thing in the ' N.E.D.' is
"Cameline, sb. 2 " : " 1. A genus of cruciferous
plants ; spec, the ' Gold of pleasure ' (Came-
lina sativa). Also attrib."
At 9 S. iii. 75 1 suggested that " camelian " might bear some relationship to the mixture of pan-brass and arsenicum which furnished the occamy or alcamy spoons used by the first New England colonists. This reminded M. C. L. of New York of my original query, and he and another correspondent of ' N. & Q.' expressed the belief that " came- lian " was but a mispronunciation of " car- nelian " ; but that, as I took occasion to state, did not commend itself to me. I have in my mind's eye a kind of locket, an oval of double glass, framed in chased metal, which was said to be " camelian," and not gold, though I could not have detected the counterfeit.
Having been fortunate enough to meet again with ' Comfort Pease,' I will quote the two passages where mention is made of " camelian " ;
" [Comfort] had been named for her Aunt Com- fort, who had given her a gold ring and a gold
dollar for her name One of Comfort's chiefest
delights was in looking at her gold ring arid gold dollar. She had never worn the ring it was much too large for her. Aunt Comfort and her mother had each thought that it was foolish to buy a gold ring that she could outgrow. ' If it was a camelian ring I wouldn't care,' said Aunt Comfort ; but it does seem a pity when it 's a real gold ring.' "
Of a schoolfellow of Comfort's it is said :
" She was a doctor's daughter, and had many things that the other little girls had not, but even she had no gold ring, nothing but a camelian."
A lady of my acquaintance has written twice to Miss Wilkins (once to the care of a publisher, once to the address given in ' Who 's Who ') for information as to " camelian," but without eliciting a reply.
ST. SWITHIN.
DEATH OF THE OLDEST PHOTOGRAPHER. The death of Mr. William Hardy Kent, who is regarded as the oldest photographer in the world, is, I think, worthy of mention in 'N. & Q.' Mr. Kent, who had attained the
