46
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL .TAX. 10, 1909.
from dure to dure they wint, askin' for a night's
shelter, an' no one wudn't let 'em in. 'Twas a
quare thing, so it was. But so 'twas true ! I very
dure was shut agin Him that winter's night.'
Then in tones of wonder the old man murmured :
' Ter think o' the Lord Himself bein' homeless,
same as any o' us. Faix, if the Irish had been
theer, 'twasn't roaming the streets He 'd be. How-
somever,' he continued, ' theer He was, without
word or welcome that bitter Christmas night.'
' 'Tis all past and gone this many a year,' he said, after a pause, ' an' 'tisn't likely as the Lord '11 be comin' agin. But no sooner does the bells begin a-ringin' for the Christmas Mass than all the Irish in the alley sets open their doors, and lights up all the candles they has. 'Tis to show the Lord as He 's welcome. Yis,' said he, ' 'tis a great sight in the alley on Christmas Eve, wid the tenements lit up, an' all the folks a-settin' theer an' waitin', lest the Lord should come agin.' "
HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.
' THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR.' Sir Walter Scott has recorded the delight which the perusal of the ' Reliques of Ancient English Poetry ' afforded him. when a boy of thirteen. This would be about 1784. In 1819, in ' The Bride of Lammermoor,' chap, xvii., he institutes a comparison in some respects between the Master of Ravens- wood and the Heir of Linne, prefacing it with the following stanza :
The hearth in hall was black and dead,
No board was dight in bower within, Nor merry bowl, nor welcome bed ;
" Here's sorry cheer," quoth the Heir of Linne.
Old Ballad.
The version in the ' Reliques,' issued In 1765, runs thus : He looked up, he looked downe,
In hopes some comfort for to winne ; But bare and lothly were the walles ;
" Here 's sorry cheere," quo' the heire of Linne.
Most probably the first-cited stanza owes its paternity to Sir Walter's pen, as he added the term " Old Ballad " to many of the poetical mottoes in his novels. His comment on the circumstance above men- tioned is thus recorded :
" The feelings of the prodigal Heir of Limie, as expressed in that excellent old song, when, after dissipating his whole fortune, he found himself the deserted inhabitant of ' the lonely lodge,' might perhaps have some resemblance to those of the master of Ravenswood in his deserted mansion of Wolf's Crag. The Master, however, had this advantage over the spendthrift in the legend, that if he was in similar distress, he could not impute it to his own imprudence," Chap. xvii.
The probable date of ' The Bride of Lammermoor ' is about 1707-8, shortly after the union of the crowns of England and Scotland. The faithful Caleb Balderston is said to have been at the battle of Both-
well Brigg in 1679, and was favourable to
the exiled family, as he says (chap, xxiv.) :
" His lordship minds weel how, in the year
that him they ca'd King Willie died "
(i.e., in 1702), &c.
The original of Wolf's Crag is undoubtedly Fast Castle. " How like you the couch, Bucklaw, on which the exiled Earl of Angus once slept in security, when he was pursued by the full energy of a King's resentment ? " says the Master of Ravenswood to his guest (chap. vii.). Fast Castle is near St. Abb's Head, on the German Ocean, in the parish of Coldingham, often visited for the mag- nificent sea prospect which it commands. At Abbotsford is a fine painting of it by Thomson of Duddingston, given by him to Sir Walter Scott. It has also been engraved by Finden from a painting by Copley Fielding.
Probably the success which attended the ' Reliques ' induced Thomas Evans in 1784 to issue his ' Old Ballads,' dedicated to Hugh, Duke of Northumberland, who died in 1786. My copy is the second edition in 4 vols, and contains many ballads, " Historical and Descriptive," with several of modern date, " none of which are included in Dr. Percy's collection."
JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.
Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.
GIBBON : PARAGRAPHS ENDING WITH "OF." Of the 2,163 paragraphs in the seventy-one chapters of the ' Decline and Fall,' 1,581 end with a genitive phrase in "of," a percentage of over 73.
ALEX. RUSSELL. Stromness.
" PICTURES." The word " pictures " occurs three times in the Authorized Version of the Bible, but in not one of these with the usual modern sense. The Revised Version gives each differently : in Num. xxxiii. 52 as "figured stones" ; in Prov. xxv. 11 as " baskets " marg. " filigree work " ; and in Is. ii. 16 as " imagery " marg. " watch- towers."
I should like to dwell a little on the second of these. It is quoted from the A.V. by Prof. Saintsbury in his recent work ' The Later Nineteenth Century/ p. 8, where we read of " the singular persons who would refuse apples of gold unless they were pre- sented in pictures of silver," evidently re- ferring to the above place in Proverbs, where we at once see how much better is the R.V. rendering. The Douay version has " beds," following the Vulgate " in lectis argenteis " ; the French versions
