Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/323

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9 th S. III.


APRIL 22, mi NOTES AND QUERIES.


317


ogether on the ground, and the^ sound made >y a scraper on the ground certainly suggests he word "cow," the w long drawn.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Work sop.

'Lucy's FLITTING' (9 th S. iii. 229). Hogg

  • ounted Willie Laidlaw among his earliest

i ppreciative friends. Laidlaw strenuously { Advocated Hogg's superlative merits as a poet, and contributed 'Lucy's Flitting' to the ' Forest Minstrel,' which the Ettrick Shepherd issued in 1810. Some twenty years after Hogg's death Charles Rogers made what he calls "an excursion in Tweedside," and when he published in 1855 the second volume of his 'Modern Scottish Minstrel' he included 'Lucy's Flitting' and other specimens of Laidlaw's work, telling in a foot-note on the famous ballad something of what he had learned on the excursion. He says : " The last stanza was added by Hogg, who used to assert that he alone was responsible for the death of poor Lucy." Hogg thought, no doubt, that the two stanzas of monologue should be followed, as they had been preceded, by narrative. THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, N.B.

In 'The Scottish Minstrel,' edited by the Rev. Charles Rogers, 1870, the last verse of

j this poem is attributed to Hogg in these words : " The last stanza was added by Hogg,

, who used to assert that he alone was respon- sible for the death of poor Lucy." In the short life of the poet in the same book it is

I stated that Hogg was shepherd to Laidlaw's father, and the young man's great friend.

j As the poem was contributed by Laidlaw to

I Hogg's 'Forest Minstrel,' the date could be ascertained. KATE ST. LEGER.

Swanwick, Southampton.

WITCHCRAFT (9 th S. iii. 208). I have com- piled a long list of the titles of works on this, to me, interesting subject. Among others I have "A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight, with an Essay on Witchcraft. Edinburgh, 1 820." In a subsequent entry " D. Webster " is given as the author ; and in another refer- ence to the same volume I have noted the Quarterly Review, xxix. 400-75. I think this must be the book referred to by your corre- spondent. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

' THE SPITEFUL LETTER ' (9 th S. iii. 208). We are evidently meant to understand by a passage in the present Lord Tennyson's 'Life' of the poet (to which, not having the book by me, I cannot give an exact reference)


that no particular person was aimed at in these verses "poem" one can scarcely call them. I remember well their first appearance in Once a Week. At that time it was certainly very generally supposed that they had a particular reference, and many of Tennyson's admirers regretted their publication. It is possible still to do this while accepting the disclaimer in the ' Life.' C. C. B.

ST. CROSS PRIORY, ISLE OF WIGHT (9 th S. iii. 207). According to 'The Modern Uni- versal British Traveller ' (no date, but which I judge to have been written a century or so ago) the ruins of the Priory of the Holy Cross are at the village of Marvel, near Newport. JOHN T. PAGE.

Camden's 'Britannia,' 1789, vol. i. p. 143, under ' Wight,' says : " Near Newport was a priory or hospital of St. Cross subject to the abbey of Tirone, in France." Also, " St. Cross was an hospital cell to Tirone Abbey, in France, before 1155." JOHN RADCLIFFE.

DATE OF WEDDING (9 th S. iii. 228). Mr. H. Murray Lane, Chester Herald, says :

" The devotion of the Lanes was rewarded at the Restoration by the grant of 1,000. a year pension for life to the eldest daughter of the house, who, on December 8th, 1663, was married by the Most Rev. Gilbert Sheldon, Lord Archbishop of Canter- bury, to Sir Clement Fisher, of Packington Hall, co. Warwick, Bart.," &c. Genealogical Magazine, i. 204.

"There is an entry of the marriage, which was solemnized by Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Fisher family Bible, now in the possession of Sir Charles Dilke, Bart." Mr. Allan Fea's ' Flight of the King.'

Any further details that your correspond- ent may require I shall be pleased to furnish direct, on hearing from him.

F. L. MAWDESLEY.

Delwood Croft, York.

WALTON (9 th S. iii. 107, 176). In Cumber- land there is a Walton and in Northumber- land a Walltown, both on the Roman wall.

R-T B.

FRENCH PROVERB (9 th S. ii. 344, 436, 513 iii. 173).

Rain before seven, Fine before eleven.

I have always heard this proverb with the two additional lines :

If it rains at eleven,

'Twill last till seven.

And I have witnessed the truth of the last two lines very many times, notably on three separate occasions, on which, being up the river for a day's punting, when a fine day would have been a godsend to me, it has