272
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. v. A.-KH. 6) 1012.
prouide some other who for the aforesaid summe
shall faithfully transcribe all that is to be found
into the seuerall parchrn' bookes & they the
Church ward ens to se that the same be perfectlye
finished by the feast of Easter next ensuing."
The above is printed in Hill and Frere's ' Memorials of Stepney Parish,' published by subscription in 1890-91, the Preface of which states that the parish registers date from 1579 and are perfect.
G. YARRoKv BALDOCK.
AUTHOR OF SONG WANTED (11 S. v. 169). For the song with the refrain,
My own Araminta, say " No ! " I would refer Miss LONGMAN to the works ef Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-39). The full title of the poem is : "A Letter of Advice. From Miss Medora Trevillian, at Padua, to Miss Araminta Vavasour, in London." The poem is quoted in full in the fourth volume of Ward's ' English Poets,' as an example of Praed 's " lightest style." The first stanza runs :
You tell me you 're promised a lover,
My own Araminta, next week ; Why cannot my fancy discover
The hue of his coat and his cheek ? Alas ! if he look like another,
A vicar, a banker, a beau, Be deaf to your father and mother,
My own Araminta, say " No ! "
And so on for thirteen stanzas. J. A.
My own Araminta, say " No ! "
is the last line of every stanza of a poem (consisting of thirteen stanzas) by W. M. Praed, called 'A Letter of Advice.' It was written in 1828. See Praed's ' Poems,' Moxon, 1864, vol. ii. p. 199. The poem may also be found (though without the names of the fictitious correspondents, and omit- ting also a preliminary quotation from Scribe) at p. 28 in ' The Muses of Mayfair,' by H. Cholmondeley Pennell, published in " The Mayfair Library ' ' by Chatto & Wind us, no date. L. A. W.
Dublin.
Miss LONGMAN will find this reprinted in F. Locker-Lampson's ' Lvra Elegantiarum,' 1891, pp. 282 ff. EMERITUS.
This may be found in the American edition of Praed (New York, 1865), vol. ii. p. 195, under the name of ' A Letter of Advice.'
FRED. C. FROST, F.S.A.
Teignmouth.
[C. C. B., MB. WM. E. BROWNING, MR. J. ,T. FREEMAN, MR. PENRY LEWIS, and several other correspondents also thanked for replies.}
MARMONTEL OR MOLIERE (US. v. 168).
The late Mr. W. F. H. King, in his ' Classical
and Foreign Quotations,' third edition,
1904, writes of " Je prends mon bien ou
je le trouve " :
"The original saying is Moliere's, who employed it to justify himself in transplanting bodily two scenes from the ' Pedant Joue ' of Cyrano de Bergerac (1654) to his own ' Fourberies de Scapin ' of seventeen years afterward."
He gives the story told by Grimarest, ' Vie de Moliere,' Paris, 1705, pp. 13-14, and quotes the words " ' II m'est permis,' disoit Moliere, ' de reprendre mon bien ou je le trouve.' '
As Biichmann remarked in his ' Gefliigelte Worte,' " Je reprends mon bien ou je le trouve " is merely a translation of the legal maxim " Ubi rem meam invenio, ibi vindico." Mr. King was mistaken, however, in saying that Biichmann cites these Latin words from the Digest. What Biichmann did was to say that the maxim in question was founded on Dig. vi. i. (" de rei vindicatione "), 9, " ubi enim probavi, rem meam esse, necesse habebit possessor restituere." Moliere's saying is curiously illustrated by an episode in the career of Pope, who, after apparently allowing James Moore Smyth to introduce six lines of his into the comedy of ' The Rival Modes,' charged him with plagiarism, reclaimed the lines, and used them himself, with slight alterations, first in the short piece ' To Mrs. M. B. sent on her Birthday, June 15,' and afterwards in ' The Characters of Women.' An edi- torial note at 9 S. xii. 289, under ' French Quotations,' also refers for the phrase in question to Grimarest's ' Vie de Moliero.' EDWARD BENSLY.
HALF AGREE SURNAME (11 S. iii. 467 ; iv. 134", 179 ; v. 77). While not for a moment denying that the derivation put forward by MR. HILL may be the right one, I should like to say that the theory of the name originating from a foundling picked up on a piece of land called the " half acre " is not so far-fetched as he seems to suppose. In the parish registers of Bottesford, in Leicestershire, is the following close parallel : 1639, 8 Dec., " John Acreland, foumde in a dich called acrland, was Baptized."
THOS. M. BLAGG.
THE LEVANT COMPANY (11 S. v. 188). There is a book on the history of the com- pany by Mr. M. Epstein. Information will also be found in Mr. W. B. Scott's work on ' English, &c., Joint-Stock Companies.'
G. C. MOORE SMITH.
