Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. | Page 6

les forces de sa Majesté Britannique aux isles du Vent.
Monsieur le Général,
J'ai été prévenu que Votre Excellence se proposait de venir au Parc demain dans la matinée. J'ose espérer qu'elle voudra bien me faire l'honneur d'accepter le diner que lui offre un Général malheureux et vaincu, mais qu'il présente de tout coeur.
Daignez, Monsieur le Général, agréer l'assurance de la haute considération avec laquelle
J'ai l'honneur d'être, de votre Excellence, Le très-obéissant serviteur, EMOUF.
EDWARD FOSS.
Erroneous Forms of Speech.--Since you allow your correspondents to correct such words as teetotal, I hope you will allow me to call the attention of your agricultural readers to the corruption in the word mangold, as they now write it. The word is in German mangel wurzel, root of scarcity. It is wrong to use even such a name as this, in my opinion, while we have the English name beet, which has the additional advantage of being derived from the botanical name Beta. But if a new name must be used, let it, at any rate, be the pure German mangel, and not the mongrel mangold. Indeed, those who spell the word in the latter way, ought in common consistency to write reddishes, sparrowgrass, and cowcumbers for radishes, asparagus, and cucumbers.
E. G. R.
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QUERIES.
EUSTACHE DE SAINT PIERRE.
(Vol. vii., p. 10.)
MR. KING'S inquiry reminds me of two Queries on the same subject which I sent you as far back as the end of 1851, or beginning of 1852. Those Queries have not appeared in "N. & Q.," and I was led to suppose, either that you had laid them aside for some future occasion, or had found something objectionable in the form in which they were presented. The following is a literal copy.
"There are two circumstances connected with this event (the surrender of Calais), respecting which I am desirous of obtaining information. The first has reference to the individuals who offered themselves as victims to appease the exasperation of Edward III., after the obstinate siege of {330} that town in 1347. They are represented as six of the principal citizens; Eustache de Saint Pierre was at their head, and the names of three others have come down to us, as Jean d'Aire, Jacques de Wissant, and Pierre de Wissant. Who were the other two?
"The second point relates to the character of that occurrence. Some historians are of opinion that the devotedness of Saint Pierre and his associates was prompted by the most exalted sentiments of patriotism; while others assert that it was all a 'sham,' that Saint-Pierre was secretly attached to the cause of the English monarch, and that he was subsequently employed by him in some confidential negociations. To which of these opinions should the historical inquirer give his assent?"
I may add, in reply to MR. KING, that "the light thrown on the subject, through M. de Bréquigny's labours," has been noticed in the Biographie Universelle, sub voce Saint-Pierre (Eustache de); and it was the remarks in that work that first drew my attention to it. The circumstances disclosed by Bréquigny are also commented upon by Lévesque in his La France sous les Valois.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.
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PASSAGE IN COLERIDGE.
De Quincy, in his "Suspiria de Profundis," Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1845, p. 748., speaking of the spectre of the Brocken, and of the conditions under which that striking phenomenon is manifested, observes that
"Coleridge ascended the Brocken on the Whitsunday of 1799 with a party of English students from Goettingen, but failed to see the phantom; afterwards in England (and under the same three conditions) he saw a much rarer phenomenon, which he described in the following eight lines. I give them from a corrected copy. The apostrophe in the beginning must be understood as addressed to an ideal conception:
"'And art thou nothing? Such thou art as when The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintry dawn, when o'er the sheep-track's maze The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head: This shade he worships for its golden hues, And makes (not knowing) that which he pursues.'"
These lines are from "Constancy to an ideal Object;" but in the usual editions of Coleridge's Poems, the last two lines are printed thus:
"The enamour'd rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he makes the shadow he pursues." Coleridge's Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 91., 1840.
Query: Which reading is the correct one? Coleridge refers to the Manchester Philosophical Transactions for a description of this phenomenon; but, as the earlier volumes of these are scarce, perhaps some of your correspondents would copy the description from the volume which contains it, or furnish one from some authentic source.
J. M. B.
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MINOR QUERIES.
Cann Family.--Can any of your correspondents enlighten me as to the