446
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vm. NOV. so, 1901.
hardly be designated an "article," and the
book teems with literary extracts and com-
positions that would be properly comprised
under that term. Can any of your talented
contributors inform me who was the author of
the lines ? and I should also be glad to know
if Stephen Collet, A.M., wrote any other
works, and, if so, their publishers names and
addresses, and dates of publication, or to
receive any information relating to this
interesting collector of literary relics.
G. GREEN SMITH. Moorland Grange, Bournemouth.
THE WIDOW OF MALABAR.
(9 th S. viii. 405.)
IN that encyclopaedic dictionary le grand Larousse will be found a full account of * La Veuve du Malabar,' a tragedy in verse played at Paris in 1770, soon after the failure of the French attempt at Indian empire. A Hindu widow, not of Malabar, compelled to mount her husband's funeral pyre, and rescued from the flames by a gallant French officer, gives the tragedy its name. It was a sentimental piece in the style of the time, denouncing Christian superstition and priestcraft under the names of Hinduism and Brahmanism. Its memory survives only in title, which is commonly used in a metaphorical sense ; it is a cliche analogous to the " Juggernaut car " of English declamatory literature.
I may mention that in describing the heroine as of Malabar, a country in which it happens that suttee has never been practised, the author only followed the usual French custom of giving the name of Malabar to the country, the people, and the language of the Coromandel coast and the Tamil country, the principal scene of the French domination in India. The French usually so free from that wilful carelessness, often amounting to con- tempt, which makes us play the mischief with Indian names have kept to an error begun by the Portuguese. These firstEuropean settlers in India began their invasion on the western or Malabar coast, and when they had sailed round to the eastern or Coro- mandel coast they assumed, from the likeness of the Tamil language to Malyalam, that the Tamil people spoke " Malabar" and were of the same nationality. Even now, in the French colonies which are allowed to import coolies from the Madras coast, these are always known as des Malahares ; nay, in the penal colony of New Caledonia this name is given not only to imported Indians of the
coolie class, but also to Eurasians from
Reunion and other French colonies, colons
with Indian blood in their family history.
This old error survives with us in trie custom
of ignorant Englishmen in India using the
word "Malabars" for the languages of
Southern India, as distinguished from
u Moors " for Hindostani.
EDWARD NICHOLSON.
1, Huskisson Street, Liverpool.
A tragedy bearing the title of ' The Widow of Malabar,' written by M[ariana] Starke [whose father was Governor of Fort St. David], was produced at Covent Garden Theatre on 5 May, 1790. WM. DOUGLAS.
125, Helix Road, Brixton Hill.
Brewer gives, in the second appendix (dramas and operas) to his 'Reader's Hand- book,' 'Veuve de Malabar' as an opera by Kalkbrenner, dated 1799. This would be Christian K. Kalkbrenner, 1755-1806.
ARTHUR MAYALL.
['La Veuve de Malabar' of Antoine Marin Lemierre was given at the Comedie Fran9aise, 30 July, 1770, and was a failure, shocking greatly French feeling. On its revival in 1780 with an altered termination it was a success. A similar experience befell Lemierre with his 'Guillaume Tell.' An opera-bouffe with the same title by MM. Delacour and Cremieux, and with music by M. Herve, was played at the Varietes on 24 April, 1873.]
CORPORATION CHAINS AND MACES (9 th S. viii. 344).-In Cripps's 'Old English Plate' (1889) will be found some interesting par- ticulars relative to maces (pp. 352-61). Therein we learn the City of London, with its various wards, possesses thirty maces, but none of them so ancient as are some possessed by sundry provincial corporations, two of the oldest known being at Hedon in York- shire. These are of fifteenth-century date ; and illustrations are given of a couple of others at Winchcombe (Gloucestershire) of about the same age. The great mace at Morpeth (1604) ; that belonging to the ward of Cheap, London (1625) ; the "Howard" rnace at Norwich (1671); the mace of the Tower Ward, London (temp. Charles II.); and two oar- rnaces at Dover, the property of the Cinque Ports Admiralty Court (1690), are illustrated and, with numerous other existing examples, described. In the Archaeological Journal (vol. xxx. p. 91, and vol. xxxi. p. 82) some further particulars may be obtained of oar- maces, which symbolize the Admiralty juris- diction of various ports ; and specimens are referred to, not only at Dover, as mentioned above, but also at Southampton, Kochester, and Yarmouth. The fine mace of this kind
