256
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn MARCH 30, 1907.
She often sang it to my delicate sister,
when we were children, and the first verse
is quite clear in my memory. But the others
were so often varied, to suit the humours
of the invalid, I cannot be sure of her exact
rendering.
The companion song, which generally followed it, was
" Saw ye Johnnie comin'?" quo' she, " Saw ye Johnnie comin', Wi' a blue bonnet on his head An' a wee doggie runnin'?"
C. C. STOPES.
Capt. Morris wrote a parody of this song in 1793, ridiculing his usual butt, Pitt, and the Tory war policy :
dear, what can the matter be ? Billy's undone us by war.
And so on to the extent of some twelve or fifteen stanzas. R. L. MORETON.
Over fifty years since I remember hearing my grandmother repeat the lines : dear, what can the matter be ? Mr. St. John kissed Mrs. Battersby ! I understood it to be a reminiscence of her youthful days some fifty years earlier.
Can any of your readers throw light on the second line ? Are the two complete in this connexion ? or are they only part of a whole?
W. S. B. H.
"LESBIAN LEAD" (10 S. vii. 209). See Aristotle, ' Nicomachean Ethics,' V. x. 7, ' Lesbian ' in the ' New English Dictionary,' and the communications under the heading ' Lesbian Rule ' at 9 S. x. 431.
EDWARD BENSLY.
University College, Aberystwyth.
This is probably an allusion to a passage in Aristotle (' Eth. N.,' V. x. 7), thus trans- lated by Peters :
" For that which is variable needs a variable rule, like the leaden rule employed in the Lesbian style of masonry ; as the leaden rule has no fixed shape, but adapts itself to the outline of each stone, so is the decree adapted to the occasion."
At all events, Mr. Lang evidently had this " leaden rule " in his mind. C. C. B.
WOMEN AND WINE-MAKING (10 S. vii. 188) The same belief concerns also preserve making and other kinds of husbandry in France, and certainly elsewhere ; but it applies to women in a peculiar state of health. See also the instances, all over the world, of the evil and fascinating power oi women in these circumstances, collected bj the late J. Tuchmann in his elaborate researches on fascination (Melusine, vol. iv col. 347 and following). Although this be
oik-lore, yet there is perhaps a physical
eason in it. But the matter is to be in-
vestigated and studied by physicians and
hemists. H. GAIDOZ.
22, Rue Servandoni, Paris (VI e ).
SPRING-HEELED JACK (10 S. vii. 206). This active gentleman was one of the bug- >ears of the nineteenth-century forties ;; )ut I cannot remember what the Lincoln- hire nursery heard of him, other than of hi* labit of springing out upon his victims in >ome unwonted manner. I believe I was nclined to confuse him with the owner of
- he seven-leagued boots ; but he has grown
dim in my recollection, and I am glad to have the impression of him revived by the note of W. C. B. Was Spring-heeled Jack a real or an imaginary being ?
ST. SWITHIN.
MONKEYS STEALING FROM A PEDLAR (10 S. vi. 448 ; vii. 13). Might not Hamlet's allusion (III. iv. 194, Globe ed.) Unpeg the basket on the house's top, Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep, And break your own neck down which as yet no commentator has been able to explain, repose on a print similar to the one described by MR. HIND ?
G. KRUEGER. Berlin.
" QUAPLADDE " (10 S. vi. 429 ; vii. 14). I thank M. P., MR. EDWARD SMITH, and COL. WELBY for their replies to my question,. I fear, however, that in my desire to save your space I have given them and you unnecessary trouble. I think that the word " Quapladde " may be a heraldic expression, though, being an ignoramus in matters pertaining to heraldry, I did not at first think of this.
In William Berry's ' Encyclopaedia Heral- dica ' the arms of Bacon (premier baronet) of Redgrave, Suffolk, 1611, are described as :
"Arms. Quarterly, first and fourth, Gu., on a chief ar. two mullets sa., for Bacon ; second and third, Barry of six, or and az. ; over all a bend gu.,. for Quapladde."
A. J. WILLIAMS.
[Quapladde is the name of the family whose arms are given in the second and third quarters of the shield.]
" CREELING " THE BRIDEGROOM (10 S. vii. 186). In an old family letter-book I find the following reference to this custom :
"When we arrived there the bridegroom had to undergo the roughish ordeal of 'creeling,' by having a big basket filled with heavy stonesy suspended from his shoulders, from which he was.
