370
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. NOV. 7, 1903.
as for others, it is not expedient to mete out
to any one. During his lifetime Luther was
represented in woodcuts with a glory round
his head, and even with the Holy Ghost, in
the form of a dove, hovering over him, and a
medal was also struck inscribed "Dr. Martin
Luther. Blessed be the womb that bare
thee" (Johannes Janssen, 'Hist, of the Ger-
man People at the close of the Middle Ages, 3
Eng. trans., vol. iii. pp. 136, 169). Southey
may have seen or heard of this medal. He
commonly wrote with decorum, but on one
occasion he permitted himself to say, " Blessed
be the day of Martin Luther's birth ; it should
be a festival almost as sacred as the Nativity "
(Southey's * Common-Place Book,' vol. ii.
p. 400) ; and a writer in Blackwood's Maga-
zine for 1828 tells of candles being burnt
around a portrait of the Reformer (vol. xxiv.
p. 541). N. M. & A.
Philippe le Bas, the son of the friend of Robespierre and tutor of Napoleon III., resided in 1854 at Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Chatillon, where he visited his widowed mother every Saturday. Dr. Amedee Latour, a neighbour of Madame le Bas, who frequently called on the widow of the famous member of the Convention, related that from the first his attention was attracted by a parrot, who often interrupted the conversation by inton- ing the ' Marseillaise ' :
Aliens, enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrive ! or perhaps the famous song : Ca ira, a ira,
Les aristocrates a la lanterne.
Sometimes it would be the once popular refrain :
Madame Veto avait promis (6w) De faire egorger tout Paris (bis). One day the doctor ventured to remark to Madame le Bas, " That is a very revolutionary bird of yours." " You are right," she replied, softly; *" it is Saint Maximilien Robespierre's parrot," and saying this she crossed herself. "Yes," she continued, "the parrot was bequeathed to me by the Duplay family, who were the devoted hosts of Saint Maximilien (here she crossed herself again) up to the last." Ihus, observes the narrator, we see that this lady, a woman of undoubted respectabilitv a fervent and practical Catholic, whose intellectual and moral faculties were above suspicion, revered Robespierre as a saint and placed him even on the same plane as Jesus, both being, as she declared, the victims of the wickedness and perversity of mankind 4 Le Cabinet Secret de 1'Histoire : Robes- pierre chez les Duplay/ 2nde serie, 211).
JOHN HEBB.
"MERRILY DANCED THE QUAKER'S WIFE"
(9 th S. xii. 268). This air is described by
Sir Walter Scott as the tune of an " old Scots
jig," which was danced at Brokenburn some
time about 1765 ( k Red gauntlet,' letter xii.).
It is not in Chappell's ' Popular Music,' and
does not seem to have been an English air.
I cannot say what the original words were,
but the following fragment will be found in
Chambers's * Scottish Songs,' 1829, ii. 668 :
The Quaker's wife sat down to bake,
And a' her bairns about her ; Ilk ane got their quarter cake,
The miller gat his mou'ter.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Merrily danced the Quakers :
Merrily danced the Quaker's wife, And merrily danced the Quakers.
W. F. PRIDEAUX.
"CHAPERONED BY HER FATHER" (9 th S. xii. 245). Can your correspondent explain how he comes to the idea that escort is more "healthy" and more "English" than chaperon ? What constitutes its healthiness ? And why should chaperon be reproached with its French sound or with its tendency to get misspelt? Would MR. CLARKE taboo cham- pagne and cheroot, or chagrin, or machine ? Or does he pronounce these words in a " healthy English " way ? What right has he to call chaperon or chaperone (who is to say which is correct ?) an intruder 1 Has he ever thought of looking at the 'H.E.D.,' or any authoritative works on English etymo- logy 1 He might find there, perhaps, various information to his advantage.
SIMPLICISSIMUS.
The ' N.E.D.' says : " 1818 Todd, To chaperon, an affected word, of very recent introduc- tion to denote a gentleman attending a
lady in a publick assembly."
JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.
"TRAVAILLER POUR LE Roi DE PRUSSE" (9 th S. xi. 289, 392, 437, 496 ; xii. 34, 111, 270). I, of course, feel flattered by some of DR. KRUEGER'S remarks concerning myself, and hope to be lucky enough to stumble upon the source of the above phrase. I need scarcely say that I shall be on the look-out, but un- fortunately I am at present without a clue, so that if I do meet with the words it will probably be by accident. DR. KRUEGER thinks that the word (sic) may have sprung up among a number of writers whom he names. It is usually, as has been already re- marked, attributed to one of them (Voltaire), but no one seems able to give chapter and verse ; and a search among Voltaire's volumin- ous writings, without some idea of the portion
