382
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. MAY u, 1910.
The question in dispute was whether
the appellant (who was a Scrymgeour in
male line) was entitled to the ancient and
hereditary title, honour, or office of Royal
Scottish Standard -Bearer, called the "Ban-
ner," granted to the appellant's ancestor,
the first of the surname of Scrymgeour,
before the year 1290. The respondent had
no connexion with the family of Scrymgeour,
but contended that the " Banner, ' J although
an hereditary grant, was capable of being
alienated by sale or otherwise in the appel-
lant's family, and that it had been so alienated
and passed to a predecessor of the respon-
dent, through whom it had descended, as
again hereditary, to the respondent.
The appellant contended that the ' ' Banner n was not capable of alienation, but was vested in his family in right of blood, and that the respondent, therefore, had, and could have, no valid title thereto.
The Lord Chancellor, in delivering a long and elaborate judgment, considered that the Earl of Lauderdale was very ill-advised in renewing the controversy which had been settled by the Court of Claims. As a result of the renewed litigation, they had a mass of confused, lengthy, and in many respects totally irrelevant archaeological matter. He was satisfied that they were not bound to hold that the office of Standard - Bearer of Scotland was of such a character that it could be treated as a matter of commerce :
" It was an office attached to the blood ; and if the blood failed, the grant was spent and the office was extinct. If the grant was spent, the King might, in the absence of statutory prohibition, grant it again to some one else, because the sovereign was the fountain of all dignity. But it happened that in 1455 an Act of Parliament was passed in Scot- land prohibiting the Crown from doing anything of the kind. The consequence was that, as he thought, this was fatal to plaintiff's alleged title. The ancient dignity belonged to the family of Scrymgeour, and had belonged to them since, apparently, the thir- teenth century."
The Lord Chancellor referred to two Scottish Acts of Parliament one of the year 1594, under which the present appellant "is unquestionably and indisputably the heir of entail n ; but he preferred not to found his decision upon that Act, although he was " far from saying " that he could reject the claim of the appellant if it rested only on that Act. The other Act is that of 1660, by which this office and dignity goes to the heirs male of the Scrymgeour blood.
This summary has been made from the two reports in The Times and Daily Tele- graph of the 8th of April.
JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.
BARETTI: A LITTLE-KNOWN BOOK.
THE following book is not correctly described in any bibliography of Baretti, and was thought to have disappeared, though there is a copy in the British Museum :
- 'Aii Introduction to the Italian language, con-
taining specimens both of Prose and Verse ; with a literal Translation and Grammatical Notes for the Use of those who, being already acquainted with Grammar, attempt to learn without a Master. 'Addere quam profert novus Italus ore loquelam/" Milton. By Giuseppe Baretti. London : Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand. 1755." Pp. xi.-467.
The translations are as literal as possible. A free translation was not intended,'* says Baretti in the Preface, ' ' because it would not have served my end, which is- to teach Italian, not English. " The notes, too, are very concise, and are only given when absolutely necessary. Baretti pro- vides no lives of the authors, ' ' because I do- not make my collection to gratify curiosity, but to assist instruction and facilitate study.'* Scholars know who the authors are, while those who are learning Italian for business- purposes would not care. If he had at- tempted a full account, his Preface would have been longer than his book.
This is certainly true when one considers the large number of authors quoted, a list of whom appears upon the title-page : Redi, Galileo, Manfredi, Giampietro Zanotti, Annibale Caro, Antonmaria Salvini, Raphael, Baldassare Castiglione, Andrea Navagero, Guicciardini, Davila, Machiavelli, Trissino, Boccaccio, Metastasio, Ariosto, Tasso, Lorenzo Giustiniano, Michelangelo, Politian, Lorenzo de* Medici, Girolamo Fracastoro r Marguerite de Valois (Queen of Navarre), Giovanni della Casa, Bellini, Petrarch, and, last of all, Milton, who is represented by his sonnet " Donna leggiadra, il eui bel nome onora. n Dante, of course, would be out of place in so elementary a book.
The prose precedes the poetry, the familiar letters coming first of all. The taste of the day is shown by the fact that pp. 274 to 3J are given to Metastasio's ' Attilio Regolo, while Tasso's ' Gerusalemme '~ gets only ten pages. But probably a modern play more useful educationally than a great poem, though Ariosto gets his full^ shan of attention. A good slice of the 'Corte giano ? is given, it is pleasing to noti Boccaccio is represented by his description of the plague.
It was doubtless for this book Baretti required Crescimbeni's ' Istoria delli volgar poesia,' which Johnson begged Wharto to lend him in 1755. Baretti probably
[LUli
felt
