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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. H. SEW. 10, 100*.
man to spite a woman, his neighbour, who
had in some way done him, as he said, a bad
turn. He was a queer old man, possessed
with the gift of second sight, and, on his own
telling, had met and talked with the devil.
Tfce old man dug a hole in the garden where
he had found a toad. He stuck four pins in
the toad's body, two on each side, put it in
the hole, saying something what I could not
tell (I was only seven). He then filled in the
hole, and stamped the soil down with his
foot. I was afterwards told that as the toad
died and rotted away so would the woman
fade away and die. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
NICHOLAS MORTON, whose biography occurs "'D.N.B,' xxxix. 156, Gillow, v. 135, and Cooper, * Ath. Cant.,' ii. 10, died at Rome on 26 May. 1587, in the sixty-sixth year of his age and the twenty-fifth of his exile, as appears from the tablet to his memory in the English College, Rome.
JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.
TIFFIN. (See 9 th S. iv. 345, 425, 460, 506 ; v. 13.) The following appears in an article by Major-General Tweedie, C.S.I., in Black- twood for August, p. 196 :
"The Anglo-Indian word for luncheon suggests the same idea as the Scottish ' mixtie-maxtie ' i.e., a diversified meal. The word is Arabic (tafannun= variety). After its reaching India with the Persian language, it would come to our countrymen through their Moslem table attendants."
w. s.
( BARNABY RUDGE ' : Two SLIPS. Two of John Willet's cronies are described as "short Tom Cobb, the general chandler and post- office keeper, and long Phil Parkes the ranger " {chap. i.). In chap. xxx. we are told that, under the influence of Mr. Cobb's taunts, "Joe started up, overturned the table, fell upon his long enemy, pummelled him with might and main," &c. Now "short Tom Cobb " could hardly be considered a "long enemy," even comparatively, to "a broad- shouldered strapping young fellow of twenty " like Joe Willet, and it seems evident that Dickens had Phil Parkes in his mind when he wrote " Cobb."
Then in the bedroom interview in chap, xxiv., " Your name, sir," said Mr. Tappertit, looking very hard at his nightcap, " is Ches- ter, I suppose 1 You needn't pull it off, sir, thank you. I observe E. C. from here." Of course, Mr. Chester's name was John, and so fastidious a gentleman would hardly be wearing his son's nightcap. Thackeray was continually misnaming his characters, and laments the fact in the ' Roundabout Papers '
and elsewhere ; but his slips are always cor-
rected in later editions. It seems strange
that the two slight errors noted above were
not detected and rectified in Dickens's life-
time. R. L. WHERRY.
Jersey.
LOCKH ART'S { SPANISH BALLADS.' This book contains what must surely be the most careless piece of translation extant. I refer to the * Song of the Galley,' the first verse of which, in the original, runs as follows :
Galeritas de Espaiia,
Parad los remos
Para que descanse
Mi amado preso.
The speaker, a lady, is addressing a galley. Her lover being one of its crew, she begs his fellow -slaves to cease rowing, that he may rest. This is what Lockhart makes of it : Ye mariners of Spain, Bend strongly on your oars, And bring my love again, For he lies among the Moors.
Lockhart fails to see that the lady's lover is one of the rowers ; on the contrary, he under- stands the lover to be elsewhere (" among the Moors ") and the galley about to rescue him, which explains why he takes the phrase "Parad los remos," i.e., "Stop rowing," in the contrary sense, i.e , "Row more strongly." In the original the lady points out that since the wind is fair the galley will lose little if the oars rest:
Pues el viento sopla, Navegad sin remos.
Lockhart, pursuing his preconceived idea,
translates :
The wind is blowing strong, The breeze will aid your oars,
just the opposite of the poet's intention. The original proceeds with a beautiful vehemence :
Plegue a Dios que deis
En penascos recios,
Defendiendo el paso
De un lugar estrecho,
i.e., the lady stops at nothing to procure her lover rest, she even prays that the galley may be wrecked and forced to return to port :
Y que quebrantados
Os volvais al puerto,
Para que descanse
Mi amado preso.
Lockhart completely misunderstands this. His version makes one rub one's eyes :
It is a narrow strait,
I see the blue hills over ;
Your coming I'll await,
And thank you for my lover.
Having made a false start, Lockhart dog- gedly mistranslates the whole poem. It is
