Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/334

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XIL OCT. 24, iocs.


Philip Hony wood. It was in this same year, 1739, that the celebrated Col. Gardiner, then commanding the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons at Leicester, had a trooper picketed for quit- -ting his post when on sentry; but Gardiner did not make a public exhibition of the culprit undergoing punishment. The picket was in use in some of our cavalry regiments from about the year 1690 to about the year 1820. I have a copy of the king's 'Regula- tions for Cavalry,' 1795, in which, at p. 170, a form of ordinary guard -re port is given, and the only punishments named in it are "lashes" and "minutes on the picket," one of the supposed "crimes" being "for feed- ing his Horse without Order.' W. S. [See9 th S.v. 471,539.]

JELALEDDIN. A propos of the very choice little volume recently issued by Prof. Hastie, of Glasgow, containing English versions (fol- lowing Riickert's translation) of the ' Gazels ' of Jelaleddin, Dr. Alexander H. Japp con- tributes to the Glasgow Herald of 25 July an interesting article, in which, after doing justice to the many merits of Dr. Has tie's oook, he adds a reminiscence of Prof. E. H. Palmer, by whose murder in the desert Oriental learning suffered so great a loss. Dr. Japp says :

"In the later sixties I was engaged in sub-editing the Aryoxy, under Mr. Alexander Strahan. One day there came in a little bundle of translations of the great Persian poets, with compact critical and bio- graphical introductions and notes, signed ' E. H. Palmer,' who, I found out afterwards, was then a student of St. John's College, Cambridge. There was a paper on Firdusi, with selected translations, another on Hatiz, a third on Saadi, and a fourth on Jelal. The papers on Hafiz and Firdusi and Saadi were published in the magazine the first things I believe, as he told me, ever published and paid for of E. H. Palmer's. The Aryovy was professedly a light magazine a magazine of amusement rather than instruction, not to say edification, and I felt that Haft/,, with his love glow and rapture, might pass, as Firdusi, with his heroic adventure and bold imagination, might pass ; but Jelal was all too spiritual, mystic, pure, select, and rare for such pages. And Palmer, with fine instinct, had chosen just those pieces that showed him in his purest, loftiest, most ecstatically religious vein. At least one of the ' Gazels ' now given to us by Prof. Hastie was there. The art Palmer could bring into such translations is fully attested by what appeared in the Aryoxy in succeeding months. I tried to get the editor of the Contemporary to put the paper on Jelal into his review. He was much taken with it as was also Dean Plumptre, to whom I showed it but, alas ! the Contemporary was over-crowded, over-pledged, and it was impossible. I made other efforts to gain admission for the paper in a suitable organ, but did not succeed ; and I remember that ] carried it back to its author, when I visited him a' Cambridge, a considerable time afterwards ; for those papers and correspondence about them began


a friendship. I remember that Palmer spoke of Felal as the ' complete mystic,' for the perfect understanding of whom a new spiritual sense was demanded the inner eyesight, he said, must be urged and the sentiment touched with a sense ot od, be absorbed, as it were, in Him. One might read Jelal for his rhythmic felicity, his unique phrases, his force of words and his ingenuity of resources; but that was but to see the beautiful texture and pattern of the mantle he wore it was merely to see him, as it were, moving away from you, a back view, and no more. You must see him face to face, at closest quarters; seethe /smile ot Gk>d,' the divine smile, as Dante called it, rise on his sweet and persuasive countenance, bathed, as it were, in the bliss of God. Years after when I visited Palmer at the Brookside, Cambridge, he now- being Professor of Arabic 1 mentioned Jelal, wish- ing to know whether the paper had ever found a place. He gave me no definite answer, but, instead, ne turned and pulled from his shelves a volume, and after reading silently a passage of Jelal, he translated it for me, as he carried his thin fingers along the lines. You would hardly have expected Palmer, so given to the concrete and practical, to have entered so fully into the spirit of Jelal as he did ; but so it was, and he was quite enthusiastic about phrases, turns, and revelations of personal experience. ' A sweet soul,' he said, as he returned the volume to its place, ' peace be with him ! 'as though Jelal had actually been there present and had just bidden us good-bye, and gone away on a long journey."

These translations of Jelaleddin are not mentioned in Sir Walter Besant's 'Life of the Sheikh Abdullah.' They may possibly be included with the other poems in the k Song of the Reed,' but at the moment I have not access to the volume. If the versions of Jelaleddin are still extant they ought to be printed, for there have been few men who entered so fully into the spirit of the East as the unfortunate Edward Henry Palmer.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

P.S. The above was written on the day of the unexpected and much-to-be-lamented death of Dr. William Hastie.

MARQUESS : HIS CORRECT DESIGNATION. This subject is of interest, for the different prefixes adopted in the various peerage and other works may well confuse the general reader, and even the expert in genealogical matters as well. Matt. Carter, in that curious and valuable old work of his entitled ' Honor Redivivus ; or, an Analysis of Honor and Armory' (third edition, printed in 1673), says that the correct address is the "Most Noble and Mighty Prince." Debrett (ed. of 1823) says the correct style is "Most Noble." Lodge (ed. of 1847), who spells the title " marquis " in error, states the style is

the "Most Honourable Marquis of ."

' Chambers's Encyclopaedia,' a good general work of reference, says "Most Honourable/'