250
NOTES AND QUERIES. [HS.XIL SEPT.- 25, 1915.
VINCENT LE BLANC (11 S. xii. 200).^-A
description of the punishment suffered by
this worldwide traveller will be found in
" The World Surveyed, or the Famous
Voyages and Travailes of Vincent le Blanc,
or White,. . . .rendred in English by F. B.,
gent.," London, 1660, p. 288. Le Blanc
suffered first at the hands of fifty archers of
the town of Fez, who beat him outrageously,
the very children crying after him " Tarasti
Nazarani ! " that is, " Kill him ! " at every
word calling him " Quichequet," dog.
"At last," he writes, "I was brought to the Cadi, a judge, to whom I kneeled ; but he made me lye along on the ground, and gave me thirty lashes on the back with a whip of ox-sinews and as many bangs on the belly with an Indian cane, so that I was almost dead with the blowes, which had quite benum'd me : yet again for these three- score bangs I must pay as many miticales in gold, which are worth four franks a piece. After all they laid me in prison with another bathed in blood at the same time."
MALCOLM LETTS.
THE CUCKOO IN FOLK-LOBE (11 S. xii. 182, 230). It is doubtless true that to most people " the cuckoo is a merry bird." It rejoices the heart in springtime to hear the cuckoo and see the swallow both surely harbingers of Nature's awakening to sunlight and beauty. But it is well to remember the omen, too :
If you hear the cuckoo before you see the swallow, All the year will be misery and sorrow.
Another rime gives to the cuckoo the control of the season, with consequent advice to the farmer :
When the cuckoo comes to the bare thorn, Sell your cow and buy your corn ; But when she comes to the full bit, Sell your corn and buy your sheep. It is said to be ominous of death to hear the cuckoo for the first time when in bed.
See also 9 S. xi. 428 ; 11 S. iii. 465 ; iv. 31, 135. JOHN T. PAGE.
BOMBAY GENTLEMEN OF 1792 : SAMPLER VERSES (11 S. xii. 94, 164, 229). I wonder if there are any other old persons alive who can recall as I do the Ulster , variant of the lines quoted from Marjery Williams' s sampler.
If not, it may be worth recording that in the fifties these lines were laboriously in- scribed in one's little Bible, lesson books, and the usual fairy tales of a small child's cherished library. At that period, however, this rite was considered to be needful only by servants (who influence children far more than is generally realized), while parents smiled discouragingly on anything so old- fashioned.
Our version was briefer than that of
Marjery, and ran thus :
Frances Hussey is my name, And Ireland is my nation ; Dublin is my dwelling-place, And Heaven my expectation. But older forms of the rough jingle were found by us amongst the books of our fore- fathers, which may be considered quaint and ancient enough to be perpetuated in ' N. & Q.' Two instances occur in family Bibles carried to Ireland by early settlers flying from the terrors of " the Killing Time."
In one Bible, dated 1676, we find three of these rude attempts at rime :
I.
Alexander Kirkpatrick boght this book. God give him greas thereon to look.
II.
Alex: Kirkpatrick is my name, And for to write I think no shame, And if my pen were better I wold mend it every letter.
III.
God made man, and man made money ; God made bees, and bees make honey ; God made Satain, Satain made sin ; God made hell, and put Satain in.
In another Bible of 16 , printed in Edinburgh' (full date missing), the schoolboy owner, who died in 1719, "an old man,' r wrote thus :
Wollson his [sic] book with his money bought ;
If he it lose, and you it h'nd, 1 pray
Restore it to him again.
If you do not as I say,
Remember on the Latter Day
When ye Judge shall to you 'say,
"Where is ye book you stole away?"
When this you see
Remember me.
Y. T.
AUTHOR OF PARODY WANTED (11 S. xi, 150, 271).
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, And four times he who gets his fist in fust.
Lucis inquired who was the author o!
his parody. In his reply MR. WALTER
JERROLD attributed it to " Josh Billings "
Henry Wheeler Shaw), but I have searched
- hat worthy's lucubrations without discover-
ng it. If I remember aright, some public?
speaker quoted the paragraph shortly before
- he authorship was queried in February
ast. Can any of the readers of ' N. & Q/
- ive a reference to the speech ? It would
be interesting to run the genesis of the
parody to earth, if possible.
WTLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
