68
NOTES AND QUERIES. o s. x. JULY 25, 1902.
governing body. Does the head master
usually preside? Further, is the head master
ordinarily a member of the governing body
of the school ? PERTINAX.
"CHARLEY" IN POPULAR RIMES. Charley Wag, Charley Wag, Ate the pudding and swallowed the bag, And left the strings for his mammy to gnag,
has already been commented upon. There are, however, several other well-known rimes on this unfortunate name. Here are two : Charley, barley, butter and eggs, Lamb-toes and barley-pegs. Charley, Charley, chuck, chuck, chuck, Went to bed with two young ducks ; One died, and the other cried, Charley, Charley, chuck, chuck, chuck !
Why should this name be so distinguished above all others ? C. C. B.
[The lines, as we heard them in youth, ran : Charley Chuck married a duck, The duck died, and Charley cried. Good bye [.night] to Charley Chuck. We fancy that other of the commonest English names, such as William and Tom, are equally dis- tinguished in popular folk-lore.]
'NORTH- WEST FOXE, OR Fox FROM THE NORTH- WEST PASSAGE,' 1635. I shall be glad to hear of the whereabouts of copies of this book, of their condition, of their history, and whether they contain the original map and the globe. RONALD DIXON.
46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.
GOUNOD. Was this famous French com- poser a Protestant ? Date and place of his death wanted. J. T. T.
Leicester.
[Gounod was a Roman Catholic. He died at St. Cloud 18 October, 1893.]
DUKE OF BRABANT. May I hope to have through the medium of your interesting columns information as to the ancestry and connexions of Godfrey, (styled) first Duke of Brabant, whose daughter Adeliza was second wife to Henry I. ? H. L.
LEGEND OF LADY ALICE LEA. Some few years back (I forget the date) I clipped the following from the Western Morning fleivs :
" One of the most singular legends of North Corn- wall is that connected with the name of Lady Alice Lea, whose family resided in the parish of Morwen- stow in the sixteenth century. Her lovely eyes and gorgeous dress made the country folks aver that she had the eyes of a seraph and the robes of a queen. Her heart was set on winning the love of Sir Bevil Grenvile, of Stow. In vain did her mother entreat her to commend her desires to Heaven, and not to trust to beauty or apparel. To all such advice she gave scornful reply. At length Lady
Alice could nowhere be found, while on her favourite
lawn appeared a little molehill, and a priest in
passing by took from its top her ring, on which
were graven these words :
The earth must hide
Both eyes and pride.
This story of the proud and vain lady who was turned into a mole is one of the strangest to be met with in Cornwall."
Where can I find this legend 1 There is no mention of it amongst the numerous legends collected by Mrs. H. P. Whitcombe in ' By-
one Days in Devon and Cornwall.' Also, id such a personage as Lady Alice Lea ever exist : and, if so, what was her parentage ?
D. K. T.
BUTLER'S 'EREWHON.' Chap. xix. is headed 'World of the Unborn.' Is it possible that the author obtained his ideas for this chapter from 'Lucina sine Concubitu,' first pub- lished in 1750, and reprinted 1761 by Dodsley, with a number of other short articles, in 'Fugitive Pieces on Various Subjects ' ? See vol. i. pp. 151, 152. HERBERT SOUTHAM.
Shrewsbury.
KING'S-TAPER. Is there, perhaps, somewhere in any district of the United Kingdom or of the British Empire such a local name as the king's-taper given to the mullein, or high- taper, or Jupiter's-staff ( Verbascum thapsus) 1 It is a well-known and little-cultivated field- plant, provided with large woolly leaves and yellow flowers, which shoots up its high stalk not seldom to a height of six feet, whence it bears, among various others, its significant names high-taper and Jupiter's-staff. Con- sidering that this field and garden plant appears to be especially conspicuous during this summer in England, growing and blos- soming, so to speak, in praise and honour of her people's popular king, may one suggest to add the above-stated name, the king's- taper, to its many other less appropriate names, if it does not already occur? I have searched after it in vain in Prof. Wright's ' English Dialect Dictionary ' and in the ' New English Dictionary' among the compounds of " king." H. K.
"FIRST LOVE is A RANK EXOTIC." Where does Ruskin say, " First love is a rank exotic that must be pruned to make room for the fair delight of flowers"? I am anxious to discover the exact place of the quotation, if by chance it should occur in any of his greater works. M. R.
ALMOND TREE AS AN EMBLEM OF OLD AGE. In the last chapter of the book of Eccle- siastes, in the beautiful description of the
