Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/302

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io<- s. v. MARCH 31, im


eems to have been suggested by the Queen's advice to Hamlet (Act I. sc. ii.), concluding with "all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity " : All born on earth must die. Destruction reigns Round the whole globe, and changes all its scenes. Time brushes off our Hv T es with sweeping wing ; But heaven defies its power. There angels sing Immortal. To that world direct thy sight, My soul ethereal born, and thither aim thy flight: There virtue finds reward ; eternal joy, Unknown on earth, shall the full soul employ. This globe of death we tread, these shining skies, Hold out the moral lesson to our eyes.

Catherine Holden, September 10th, 1833.

The other two are somewhat reminiscent of Isaac Watts and Eliza Cook : How truly blest are they who leisure find To dress the little garden of the mind ! That grateful tillage well rewards our pains ; Sweet is the Labour, certain are the gains. The rising Harvest never mocks our toil : We are sure of fruit if we manure the soil.

Ellen Holden, August 2nd, 1830. The industrious bee extracts from every flower Its fragrant sweets and mild balsamic power : Learn thence, with greatest care and nicest skill, To take the good, and to reject the ill ; By her example taught, enrich thy mind ; Improve kind nature's gifts, by sense retin'd ; Be thou the honey-comb in whom may dwell JEch mental sweet, nor leave one vacant cell.

Frances Holden, April 3rd, 1830.

In another, not in my possession, a beautiful piece of needlework signed and dated Louisa Jane Holden, 1838, there are neither verses nor alphabet, but instead a wealth of floral ornament surrounding a large basket of flowers, and at each bottom corner a tall strawberry pottle like those in use in the first half of last century, in which are piled the most luscious strawberries.

The text of these samplers is surrounded toy grapes and grape-vine, oak-leaves and acorns, crowns, parrots, macaws, butterflies, impossible flowers and flower-pots, and at the base still more impossible houses, one of which, however, in its elaboration resembles

  1. . print of the old White Conduit House.

In the 1830 examples the whole is preceded by the alphabet repeated in four different types of letters ; but in the 1833 "sample" there is no alphabet. I could find nothing like the textual part of these samplers in Marcus B. Huish's 'Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries'; Henry Ambrose Lediard 'On Samplers' in The Archaeological Journal ; or Eugene Miintz's * Short History of Tapestry,' 1884 (trans, by L. J. Davies).

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

Hazelmere, Tooting Common, S.W.

"THERE !" This ejaculation, which has been so prominent of late, but which we


have all known from our childhood's days, is, I should say, a survival of the "La, you there ! " of Elizabethan and Hogarthian times used by Di Vernon in the era of Rob Roy, and shortened in early Victorian days to "9h la!" It is, of course, essentially feminine that is, seldom used by the male sex. As a rule, I have noticed that when the ladies make use of the expression- satirically, incredulously, or condemnatory they make it, "There now !" But when a lady is in an obstinate, sulky mood, it is usually, " Shan't ! There ! ! " I hinted some years back in the pages of ' N. & Q.' that

    • La, you there ! " (and its synonyms) was a

possible "genesis" o f "La-di-da !"

HERBERT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

INCANTATION : * THE IMAGE IN THE SANDS/ There is a singular blunder in this book. Sir Henry arid Henderson are represented as eating a hearty meal just before they begin the incantation upon which the whole plot turns. No wonder the results are tragic. Every dabbler in occultism knows that no magician worth his salt would attempt to raise a spirit 4 'soon after dinner," as Mr. Benson's sorcerer does. According to Barrett's standard work * The Magus,' pub- lished 1801, reprinted 1875, "The operator ought to be prepared with fasting, chastity, and abstinence, for the space of three days.'* Elsewhere the period of fasting is fixed at nine days and by some at one month, i e. t the time of a whole lunation.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

1 THE FLOWERS OF LODOWICKE OF GRANADA/ I desire to call the attention of your readers to the above-mentioned tiny book, of which the title-page reads as follows :

"The | Flowers of Lodowicke | of Granada | The first part | In which is handled | the Conner | sioti of a Sinner | Translated out of Latine in I to Eng- lish by T. L. Doctor | of Phisicke | at London f printed by I. R. for Tho | mas Heyes, and are to be sold | in Paules Churchyard, at the signe | of the Greene-dragon | 1G01."

There is, I think, no doubt the T. L. above is Thomas Lodge, though there is no men- tion of the book under his name in the British Museum Library, nor, so far as I can find, in the Bodleian, Manchester, or Liver- pool libraries ; nor is it included in the list of works under his name in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.'

The dedication is so quaint that perhaps it is worth reproducing :

"To the Christian Reader, health. I doe heere present unto thy favorable viewe (most curteous and gentle Reader) thys little Pamphlet, which