404
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[9 th S. I. MAY 21, '98.
two sticks that I had provided for the purpose,
and directing her to take one of the sticks, I took
the other : and now, madam, I addressed her, we
are to try who shall get the breeches ; and which-
soever of us shall be victor this night, shall ever
after wear them."
Beloe gives the following sentence as a speci- men of his author :
"Et sumpto baculo, alterum illi dedi, inquiens, volo nunc pugnemus, uter nostrum femoralia ferre debet."*
JOHN T. CURRY.
" KIME." May I, in referring to ante, p. 344, where weighty authority is advanced for the resuscitation of this word, be allowed to assign it the status which has been given to many would-be words undeserving of the honour, that of a heading in ' N. & Q.' and a con- sequent habitation in its index 1 I wish to point out that, if, indeed, printers object to it, their objections can be overruled. Three times in one column of Literature of 26 May (p. 324) I find rime used as a matter of course, without italics, inverted commas, apology, or explanation. Supposing that all readers of
- N. & Q.' were to agree to make use of the
word from this time forward until the
- H. E. D.' reaches the letter R, such a vogue
might be established for it as to ensure its entry under this, its twentieth-century form, with a cross-reference under 'Rhyme,' instead of the opposite course, which to-day might seem more proper. KILLIGREW.
WILLIAM BECKFORD. In 1831 there ap- peared "The Talisman ' (London, Whittaker, Treacher & Co. ; Paris, Giraldon, Bovinet & Co.), which was edited by Mrs. Z. M. Watts, the wife of the once well-known man of letters Mr. Alaric A. Watts. In the preface, dated from Torrington Square, she explains that the projectors of the * Keepsake Frangais' conceived the idea of a volume of English letterpress to accompany the pictures origin- ally engraved for the French work. They applied to Mrs. Watts for editorial assistance, and as there was not time to obtain a suffi- cient number of original articles she selected freely from books and periodicals. The result of this facile method is an interesting volume in which Leigh Hunt's beautiful essay on the
- Death of Little Children ' finds a place with
- The word femoralia is riot given in Smith's
- Dictionary,' but is mentioned in Ainsworth's. The
best form of the word would appear to be feminalia, which is supported by a most happy quotation from St. Jerome, Ep. Ixiv. 10. As it undoubtedly refers to breeches, I must quote it, as a supplement to this note : " Hoc genus vestimenti Grsece irt pi<rKe\rj, a nostris feminalia vel bracce usque ad genua per- tinentes," &c.
verses of Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, and
prose of Hazlitt, Lamb, and lesser notables.
The last article in the volume is thus referred
to in the preface :
'"The Magic Mirror' is extracted from a series of tales professing to be translations from the Ger- man, but forming in reality a collection of pleasant satires on the style of tale-telling which appears to have been in request in this country at the period (1791) at which they were written. A con- siderable degree of curiosity has attached to these volumes in consequence of their having been attri- buted, pretty confidently, to the pen of the author of the ' Memoirs of the Caliph Vathek.' "
Dr. Garnett, in his excellent life of Beckford in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' mentions two burlesques, of other dates, by the lord of Fonthill, but ' The Magic Mirror ' is not named. It is a parody of an extra- vagant kind, and there is no strong internal evidence against the theory that it may have come from the pen of the genius who wrote 'The Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters ' as well as ' Vathek.' It is remark- able that two books so dissimilar one for- gotten except by the explorer of the byways of literature, and the other a classic should both be the work of the same hand.
WILLIAM E. A. AXON.
Moss Side, Manchester.
SIR WALTER SCOTT : ' THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN.' Mr. Saintsbury, in his mono- graph on Sir Walter Scott in the "Famous Scots Series," 1897, say s^ that the delightful description of Guendolen's maidens disarming King Arthur, urging him on
with blows Dealt with the lily or the rose,
and trying to carry his sword, &c., in canto i. stanzas xvi. and xvii. Avas "suggested no doubt by a famous picture." May I ask to what picture Mr. Saintsbury alludes? Walter's description, for anything I know to the contrary, may have been suggested by this picture ; but before assuming this to have been the case, may I refer Mr. Saintsbury, if he should happen to see or hear of my not< to Note C, 'Scene in Greenwich Park,' ; 'The Fortunes of Nigel,' ed. 1860, vol. p. 402 ? The resemblance between Zucchero' painting and the scene in ' The Fortunes of Nigel ' turned out to be, as Scott says, " in all respects casual," as " the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold amongst others," &c. May not the resem- blance between the scene in ' The Bridal of Triermain ' and that in the picture mentioned by Mr. Saintsbury be also "in all respects casual "? Not knowing the facts of the case, of course I speak guardedly.
