Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850

᲌Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850

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September 21, 1850, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850
Author: Various
Release Date: November 3, 2004 [EBook #13936]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
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"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
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No. 47.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850 [Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4d.
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CONTENTS.
NOTES:-- Old Songs. 257 "Junius Identified." by J. Taylor. 258 Folk Lore:--Spiders a Cure for Ague--Funeral Superstition--Folk Lore Rhymes. 259 On a Passage in the Tempest, by S.W. Singer. 259 Punishment of Death of Burning. 260 Note on Morganatic Marriages. 261 Minor Notes:--Alderman Beckford--Frozen Horn--Inscription translated--Parallel Passages--Note on George Herbert's Poems--"Crede quod habes"--Grant to Earl of Sussex--First Woman formed from a Rib--Beau Brummell's Ancestry. 262
QUERIES:-- Gray's Elegy and Dodsley's Poems. 264 Hugh Holland and his Works, by E.F. Rimbault, L.L.D. 265 Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood. 266 Minor Queries:--Bernardus Patricius--Meaning of Hanger--Cat and Bagpipes--Andrew Becket--Laurence Minot--Modena Family--Bamboozle--Butcher's Blue Dress--Hatchment and Atchievement--"Te colui Virtutem"--"Illa suavissima Vita"--Christianity, Early Influence of--Meaning of Wraxen--Saint, Legend of a--Land Holland--Farewell--Stepony Ale--"Regis ad Exemplar"--La Caronacquerie--Rev. T. Tailer--Mistletoe as a Christmas Evergreen--Poor Robin's Almanacks--Sirloin--Thompson of Esholt. 266
REPLIES:-- Replies to Minor Queries:--Pension--Execution of Charles I.--Paper Hangings--Black-guard--Pilgrims' Road--Combs buried with the Dead--A?rostation--St. Thomas of Lancaster--Smoke Money--Robert Herrich--Guildhalls--Abbé Strickland--Long Conkin--Havock--Becket's Mother--Watching the Sepulchre--Portraits of Charles I.--Joachim, the French Ambassador. 269
MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 271 Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 271 Notices to Correspondents. 271 Advertisements. 272
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NOTES.
OLD SONGS.
I heard, "in other days," a father singing a comic old song to one of his children, who was sitting on his knee. This was in Yorkshire: and yet it could hardly be a Yorkshire song, as the scene was laid in another county. It commenced with--
"Randle O'Shay has sold his mare For nineteen groats at Warrin'ton fair,"
and goes on to show how the simpleton was cheated out of his money.
I find in Hasted's History of Kent (vol. i. p. 468., 2nd edit.) mention made of the family of Shaw, who held the manor of Eltham, &c., and who "derive themselves from the county palatine of Chester." It is further stated that _Randal de Shaw_, his son, was settled at Haslington Hall in that county.
All, indeed, that this proves is, the probability of the hero of the song being also a native of Cheshire, or one of the adjacent counties; and that the legend is a truth, even as to names as well as general facts. The song is worthy of recovery and preservation, as a remnant of English character and manners; and I have only referred to Hasted to point out the probable district in which it will be found.
There are many other characteristics of the manners of the humbler classes to be found in songs that had great local popularity within the period of living memory; for instance, the Wednesbury Cocking amongst the colliers of Staffordshire and Rotherham Status amongst the cutlers of Sheffield. Their language, it is true, is not always very delicate--perhaps was not even at the time these songs were composed,--as they picture rather the exuberant freaks of a half-civilised people than the better phases of their character. Yet even these form "part and parcel" of the history of "the true-born Englishman."
One song more may be noticed here:--the rigmarole, snatches of which probably most of us have heard, which contains an immense number of mere truisms having no connexion with each others, and no bond of union but the metrical form in which their juxtaposition is effected, and the rhyme, which is kept up very well throughout, though sometimes by the introduction of a nonsense line. Who does not remember--
"A yard of pudding's not an ell,"
or
"Not forgetting _dytherum di_, A tailor's goose can never fly,"
and other like parts?
It is just such a piece of burlesque as Swift might have written: but many circumstances lead me to think it must be much older. Has it ever been printed? {258}
There is another old (indeed an evidently very ancient) song, which I do not remember to have seen in print, or even referred to in print. None of the books into which I have looked, from deeming them likely to contain it, make the least reference to this