Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 | Page 8

those animals fought in a sawpit with such ferocious determination that when the battle was over nothing could be found remaining of either combatant except his tail,--the marvellous inference to be drawn therefrom being, of course, that they had devoured each other. This ludicrous anecdote has, no doubt, been generally looked upon as an absurdity of the Joe Miller class; but this I conceive to be a mistake. I have not the least doubt that the story of the mutual destruction of the contending cats was an allegory designed to typify the utter ruin to which centuries of litigation and embroilment on the subject of conflicting rights and privileges tended to reduce the respective exchequers of the rival municipal bodies of Kilkenny and Irishtown,--separate corporations existing within the liberties of one city, and the boundaries of whose respective jurisdiction had never been marked out or defined by an authority to which either was willing to bow. Their struggles for precedency, and for the maintenance of alleged rights invaded, commenced A.D. 1377. (see Rot. Claus. 51 Ed. III. 76.), and were carried on with truly feline fierceness and implacability till the end of the seventeenth century, when it may fairly be considered that they had mutually devoured each other to the very tail, as we find their property all mortgaged, and see them each passing by-laws that their respective officers should be content with the dignity of their station, and forego all hope of salary till the suit at law with the other "pretended corporation" should be terminated, and the incumbrances thereby caused removed with the vanquishment of the enemy. Those who have taken the story of the Kilkenny cats in its literal sense have done grievous injustice to the character of the grimalkins of the "faire cittie," who are really quite as demure and quietly disposed a race of tabbies as it is in the nature of any such animals to be.
JOHN G. A. PRIM.
Kilkenny.
Robert de Welle.--Can any of your correspondents inform me of what family was Robert de Welle, who married Matilda, one of the co-heirs of Thomas de Clare, and in 15th Edward II. received seisin of possessions in Ireland, and a mediety of the Seneschalship of the Forest of Essex in her right? (Rotul. Original., Record Commission, pp. 266, 277.) And how came the Irish title of Baron Welles into the family of Knox?
Again, where can I meet with a song called the Derby Ram, very popular in my school-boy days, but of which I recollect only one stanza,--
"The man that killed the ram, Sir, Was up to his knees in blood; The boy that held the bucket, Sir, Was carried away in the flood."
I fancy it had an electioneering origin.
H. W.
Lady Slingsby.--Among many of the plays temp. Car. II. the name of "The Lady Slingsby" occurs in the list of performers composing the dramatis person?. Who was this Lady Slingsby?
T.
God save the Queen.--Can any correspondent state the reason of the recent discontinuance of this brief but solemn and scriptural ejaculation, at the close of royal proclamations, letters, &c., read during the service of the Church?
J. H. M.
Meaning of Steyne--Origin of Adur.--Can any of your correspondents give the derivation of the word "Steyne," as used at Brighton, for instance? or the origin of the name "Adur," a small river running into the sea at Shoreham?
F.
Col. Lilburn.--Who was the author of a book called Lieut.-Colonel John Lilburn tryed and cast, or his Case and Craft discovered, &c., &c., published by authority, 1653?
P. S. W. E.
French Verses.--Will one of your readers kindly inform me from what French poet the two following stanzas are taken?
"La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles. On a beau la prier, La cruelle, qu'elle est, se bouche les oreilles, Et nous laisse crier.
"Le pauvre en sa cabane, que le chaume couvre, Est sujet à ses lois; Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre N'en défend pas les rois."
E. R. C. B.
Our World.--I once heard a lady repeat the following pithy lines, and shall be glad if any of your readers can tell me who is the author, and where they first appeared,
"'Tis a very good world to live in-- To lend, and to spend, and to give in; But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for one's own, 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."
D. V. S.
Home, April 29.
Porson's Imposition.--When Porson was at Cambridge, his tutor lent him a pound to buy books, which he spent in getting drunk at a {72} tavern. The tutor set him an imposition, which he made to consist in a dog-Greek poem, giving an account of the affair. These were the three first lines,--
[Greek: "Tutor emoi men poundon elendeto; ?s mala simplos] [Greek: Ton men eg? spendon kata d?mata redlionoio,] [Greek: Drinkomenos