Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/298

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. APRIL a, me.


remaining copies the half-titles have been torn out as well as the extra leaf, but traces of the latter can be seen. In my third copy the half-title is intact, but there is no trace of the Cosmopolitan leaf. (It may have been soaked off, and thus left no trace.) All three of these copies may have belonged to members of the Cosmopolitan and had the inscriptions torn out when sold a thing often done when persons sell presentation books. Unless it happens that Froude's copy was the last of the Cosmopolitans, over 150 copies must have been printed for the Club, and beyond that is the possibility that Locker provided further copies for occasional presents. A copy described in Mr. Edmund Gosse's Catalogue states : " Only 80 copies printed. On the fly-leaf is written in the author's handwriting, ' Arthur P. Stanley from Frederick Locker. 1874.' ' The different wording from the Froude copy mentioned above shows that Stanley's was not a Cosmopolitan copy, though presented in the same year. It would be interesting to know the authority for " only 80 copies," the number also stated by Mr. Dobson, while Mr. Slater says " about 100." The Stanley copy is evidently not illustrated, or one might have assumed that Locker did up 80 with illustrations (in addition to the Club copies). Mr. Dobson, indeed, states ( ? on the authority of Mr. Slater) that two or three copies were printed on larger paper, and this is supported by the fact that one such copy was sold by Sothebys in 1895 and another (not the same copy) in 1898. Also I have a note of a third variant entirely printed on India paper, with Doyle's cuts, sold by Sothebys, March 27, 1900. Can any reader give any information about the Club, which was, presumably, a literary one ? I am also trying to trace an edition of the ' Lyrics ' published in 1873.

FRANCIS E. MURRAY. 258 Kew Road, Kew Gardens.

P.S. Since I wrote the above MR. DOBSON has kindly allowed me to examine his copy. It proves to be exactly like the Cosmopolitan copies, except that (1) it does not contain the printed slip, and (2) it is illustrated with Doyle's cuts.

" BLIGHTY " : " CUSHY " (12 S. i. 151, 194). Your correspondents are right. " Blighty " comes from Arabic vildyat, a foreign country (in India, Europe, or more particularly England), through the Indian adj. form vildyati, vulgo bildti, and in soldiers' Hindustani blatty. There is in Calcutta, or was a few years ago, a


Blatty Bungalow, so styled in prominent lettering.

In this connexion may be mentioned a " cushy " wound, for a slight clean wound that does not permanently injure, and still gives the sufferer the honour and glory of having been wounded. This again seems to be soldiers' Hindustani from a Persian adjective khush (or strictly khwush), pleasing, pleasant, through a derived noun khushi, pleasure, pleasantness, commonly pro- nounced by Europeans " cooshy," the oo short and accentuated. R. C. TEMPLE.

AUTHORS WANTED (12 S. i. 10, 136, 218). The lines quoted by MR. F. ARTHUR JANSON are probably of Scottish origin. In Chambers's ' Traditions of Edinburgh, 1846,' the follow- ing dialogue is given :

A. Good morning, good fellow.

B. I 'm not a good fellow ; I 'm a new-married

man.

A. Oh, man, that's guid !

B. Not sae guid as ye trow. A. What then, lad?

J5. I've gotten an ill-willy wife.

A. Oh, man, that's bad!

B. Not sae bad as ye trow.

A. What then, lad?

B. She brought me a guid tocher and a well-

plenished house.

A. Oh, man, that's guid!

B. Not sae guid as ye trow.

A. What then, lad?

B. The house took a-fire, and brunt baith house,

and plenishing, and gear.

A. Oh, man, that's bad !

B. Not sae bad as ye trow.

A. What then, lad ?

B. The ill-willy wife was brunt in the middle

o't! &c.

J. H. MURRAY. Edinburgh.

(12 S. i. 209.)

Only a dream of the days gone by. This is a song entitled ' A Dream of Peace/ the words by H. L. D'Arcy Jaxone, music by Ciro Pinsuti ; sold at 265 Regent Street, London. H. T. BARKEB.

Ludlow.

[Our correspondent has kindly written out the words in full, and we have sent them to the querist.]

(12S. i. 228.)

The Sheffield Telegraph of March 21 happens to print the following lines, which, it says, are by Dora Greenwell :

We might all of us give far more than we do

Without being a bit the worse ; It's never the loving that empties the heart, Nor giving that empties the purse.

G. C. MOORE SMITH.