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OFFICE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE, EC.
BY JOHN C. FRANCIS.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1900.

CONTENTS.-No. 106.

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That an imperial rescript should put one great and energetic country a year in advance of its neighbours, though a little surprising in NOTES:-Editorial Good Wishes-Origin of Yeomanry modern days, is not unprecedented. On the Cavalry, 1-A Lifetime's Work-Special Literature for other side of the land over which this imperial Soldiers, 2-"Boer"- Rogers's 'Ginevra and "Zebra," 3-A Pastille-Burner-Henry Cavendish-doctor or scientist holds sway is a country in **Wroth Silver" - Poe's 'Hop-Frog -"Wound "for which a calendar other than ours prevails. Winded"-Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall, 4-A The same holds true of Turkey, and once held Pasquil -Kinnui: Jewish Eke-names- "Waits "Gaitas," 5-Partridge, the Almanac-maker- Omar true of Republican France. To add to the Khayyam-"Byre"-St. Michael's Church, Bassishaw, 6. complexity of calendars seems a subject for QUERIES:-Portrait of Madame Laffitte-Correspondence regret. At any rate, in presence of conflictof English Ambassadors to France- On a Pincushion ing authorities--imperial, ecclesiastical, or Lambert in Guernsey-" The Dukes "-'Methodist Plea Marriage Gift-Author Wanted-Moseley Hall, 7-popular-the attitude coincides with that of "Remote "Thomas Tomkinson, Gent."-Lieut. James Galileo when, striking the earth with his foot, -Brothers Mayor and Town Clerk - St. Eanswyth Wagner's Meistersinger-Dr. Syntax-Stop-press Edi- he said, or is reputed to have said, “E pur si tions-Marylebone Churchyard Public Vault-Toad Mugs-muove.' It is still the nineteenth century, Sidney, Young, and Brownlow-Hogarth's Sigismunda' and the Editor at least will wait for a time -Viscount Cholmondeley's Scotch MSS., 8-Bully" Dandy's Gate-"The Beurre "Witchelt"-Ill-shod, 9. he may never see before congratulating his REPLIES:- Cromwell and Music, 9-'An Apology for readers on the advent of the twentieth.

Cathedral Service '-"To Priest "-' Pickwickian Studies'
-Boxing Day, 10-"The Appearance"-Polkinghorn-
Swansea-Shepherdess Walk Hawkwood, 11-Bryan,
Lord Fairfax-The Mint-"Bridge "--Stafford Family-
Lowestoft China," 12-The Great Oath-"Tiffin
Edgett, 13- "Cordwainer" Boudicca May Road
Well, Accrington - "A_pickled_rope Authorship of
'The Red, White, and Blue' - Prefaces, 15-Morcom-
Margaret Blount - Hannah Lee-Hoastik carles," 16-
Dozzil"-"Middlin'" Cox's Museum, 17-"King of
Bantam "-Grolier Bindings, 18.

NOTES ON BOOKS:-Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare'
- Fernald's Students' Standard Dictionary'- 'The
Library'-Reviews and Magazines.
Notices to Correspondents.

Notes.

EDITORIAL GOOD WISHES.

THE recent issue of the Jubilee Number of Notes and Queries having brought the editor into communication, more or less close and personal, with some to whom individually he was the mere shadow of a name, and having elicited manifestations of toleration and even of sympathy, by which he has been flattered and touched, he feels justified in taking the opportunity of the first number of the New Year to wish his contributors a full share of the privileges and blessings with which, in spite of a not too propitious outset, he is fain to hope it is charged. His indebtedness to those who make his post enviable and his labours light is not to be expressed. Should even his aspirations be of no effect, the attitude of benevolence-to use the word in its classical sense-is like that of devotion or prayer, good in itself, and is a step (the longest that can be taken) towards its own fulfilment. For congratulations on the arrival of a new century he has still twelve is not obvious to all. To him and to most of months to wait. That fact, simple as it is, his readers it is patent as the sun at mid-day.

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THE ORIGIN OF YEOMANRY CAVALRY. IN connexion with the decision of the Government, announced on 20 December last, to recruit a new mounted infantry force for service in South Africa from the ranks of the Yeomanry, it may be interesting to place on record the fact that it is to the great Suffolk agriculturist Arthur Young that we owe the inception of Yeomanry Cavalry.

The germ of Young's idea of forming a "militia of property for this country is contained in some reflections on the French Revolution at the end of his Travels in France,' published in May, 1792. In August, 1792, he repeated the suggestion in vol. xviii. of his 'Annals of Agriculture' (p. 491), and expanded it in his well-known pamphlet entitled "The Example of France a Warning to England,' which went through four English editions in 1793-4 (besides two editions in French-one published at Brussels and the other at Quebec), and made a great sensation in its day.

Young says in this pamphlet:

"A regiment of a thousand cavalry in every county of moderate extent, just disciplined enough enrolled and assembled in companies three days in to obey orders and keep their ranks, might be every year, and in regiments once in seven, at a very moderate expense to the public......It has been said that such a militia is impracticable; I will not venture to assert that a law which legalises and reason on a case absolutely new, but we may regulates the mode in which all the land proprietors in the kingdom......may instantly assemble, armed, in troops and regiments......a law which prepares the means of security and defence, while the rage the salvation of the community."-Fourth edition, of attack unites and electrifies the enemies of peace and order, must be good, and may be essential to 1794, pp. 141-2.

Young says in his 'Autobiography,' first published at the beginning of 1898, that his " great plea of a horse militia produced immediately three volunteer corps of cavalry, which multiplied rapidly through the kingdom." His health was the first toast given for being the origin of those corps which, when assembled, had this opportunity of publicly declaring their opinion" ('Autobiography,' p. 204). At a dinner given by the Duke of Bedford at Woburn, Young was told "by a gentleman of great property, captain of a troop of Yeomanry, that whenever his troop met he always drank my [Young's] health after the King's, for being the undisputed origin of all the Yeomanry corps in the kingdom" (p. 206). It is significant that in Young's own personal copy of his 'Annals' the passages relating to his suggestions as to the Yeomanry are marked, apparently in his own hand.

·

In his own county of Suffolk Young enrolled himself as a private in the ranks of a corps raised at his recommendation in the vicinity of Bury St. Edmunds, and commanded by Lord Broome, afterwards Marquis of Cornwallis (p. 205). In vol. xxvii. of the Annals of Agriculture' (1796), p. 537, Young prints a statement of the expense of equipping (with jacket, waistcoat, surtout, breeches, boots, gloves, cravat, &c.) a trooper in the Suffolk corps of Yeomanry Cavalry --which, under the title of the Loyal Suffolk Hussars, now (1900) has as its Honorary Colonel H.R.H. the Duke of York-and he even prints a song, obviously written by himself, commencing "Hear ye not the din from afar?" and winding up with these unexceptionable if rather tritely expressed sentiments:

Then, gallant Yeomen, sing with me.
May we fall or conquer free:

Firm our union, just our cause,
"Tis our country, King, and laws.

13A, Hanover Square, W.

ERNEST CLARKE.

A LIFETIME'S WORK.
(See 9th S. iv. 550.)

IN the flush of youth's beginning,
When renown seems worth the winning
By a score of schemes accomplished

Ere the eve of life draws nigh,
Then the mind surveys with pleasure
All the length of life and leisure
For researches carried forward

To completion ere we die. But the march of time, incessant, Proves our hopes but evanescent, And the plans of finished labours

Dwindle down to two or one;

Strange delays, still unexpected,
One by one appear, detected,
And the more we do, the greater

Seems the task that lies undone.
Still, as year to year succeedeth,
Each in turn more swiftly speedeth ;
Fifty years soon fly behind us,

And are dwindled to a span;
Still the final day draws nearer,
And the truth grows ever clearer
That a life is all too little

To complete the cherished plan.
What remains? Shall we, defeated,
From the project incompleted
Draw aloof, and seek for solace
In an indolent repose?
Rather be the toil redoubled,

Though the light grow dim and troubled,
As the swiftly-falling twilight

Hastens onward to its close.
No! let never the suggestion
Of thy weakness raise a question
Of the duty that impels thee

Still to follow on the trace;
Every stroke of true endeavour
Often wins, and wins for ever
Just a golden grain of knowledge

Such as lifts the human race. Truth is one! To grasp it wholly Lies in One, its Author, solely; And the mind of man can master

But a fragment of the plan; Every scheme, howe'er extensive, Though it seem all-comprehensive, Is a portion of a portion

Fitting life's allotted span.

Death is near; and then-what matter
Though a coming hand shall shatter
All the fair but fragile fabric

Thou laboriously didst raise?

If a single brick abideth

That thine honest toil provideth,

Thy success hath proved sufficient,

Thou shalt win the Master's praise.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

[The poem has already appeared in print.]

SPECIAL LITERATURE WRITTEN FOR SOLDIERS. -Since our soldiers form a great topic of conversation just now, brief allusion to some books written for them when on active service may not be out of place. From the nature of the case, they are few in number. A soldier's first duty is to fight, and he is not supposed to have any leisure to read, except the scanty correspondence he may be fortunate to receive from friends at home. However, in our great Civil War there were some curious little manuals and treatises written for him, now very scarce and interesting historically. Their dates lie between 1640 and 1649-that is, between the election of the Long Parliament and the king's execution. The Parliament had not long been in power when it began to

be clearly seen by those who looked into the near future that on the army would eventually hang the destinies of both opposing parties, that the common soldiers had to be reckoned with as important elements in the contest, and that their politics and religion should therefore be carefully coached and tutored, and, above all, any religious scruples especially cleared and directed. This will appear from the following curious literature, of which but few copies have escaped to our days :

1. A Spirituall Snapsacke for the Parliament Souldiers, containing Cordiall Encouragements unto the Successfull Prosecution of this Present Cause. Lond., 1643, 4to.

2. The Christian Souldier; or, Preparation for Battaile. Lond., 1642, 4to.

3. The Christian Souldiers Magazine of Spirituall Weapons. Lond., 1644, 8vo. 4. The Rebells Catechism. Composed in an easy and familiar way. 1643, 4to. 5. The Souldiers Language; or, a Discourse between Two Souldiers, shewing how the Warres go on. 1644, 4to.

6. The Zealous Souldier.

seems to be the same word as the Dutch boer and English boor; but it is to be noted that a dairy of cows is spoken of here as a booing, apparently onomatopoeic, and our word booer may signify one who takes over the booing. HERBERT MAXWELL.

ROGERS'S GINEVRA.'-

Within that chest she had concealed herself, Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy; When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there Fastened her down for ever!

If the following, taken from the Daily Telegraph for 26 June, 1897, is the bond fide account of an actual occurrence, and not an exaggeration or invention suggested by the story, we have what seems to be a striking parallel or illustration :

The

"Henderson, Kentucky, Friday.-Two sisters, five years respectively, while playing hide-and seek named Laura and Jennie Melton, aged seven and with three other children at their father's house, hid inside a big trunk in the cellar. Two others hid in a bed upstairs. The fifth child found the latter two, but could not find the others. parents were away visiting a neighbour, and did not come back for three hours, but, on learning the two children were missing, at once began to search for them. After an investigation lasting an hour, the father remembered the trunk, and on opening it discovered the two girls lying dead in each other's The lid of the trunk fastened with a springarms.

7. The Mercenary Souldier. Both broadsheets, c. 1646. 8. The Souldier's Pocket Bible. Lond., 1643, 12mo. And a second edition, Lond., 1644. 9. The Souldier's Catechism, composed for the Parliaments Army, in two parts, wherein are chiefly taught: (1) The Justification, (2) The Qualification, of our Soldiers, written for the encourage-lock, and when the children were once in the box, ment and instruction of all that have taken up arms they were unable to open it, and were slowly in the cause of God and His People, especially the suffocated.-Dalziel." Common Soldier. Lond., 1644, 12mo.

The last two are associated with the name of Cromwell, as having been issued according to the wish and instruction of his rising and influential party. Both are extremely scarce, only two copies each being known of theoriginals. The 'Pocket Bible'is well known, having been frequently reprinted, and is mainly a collection of Scripture texts suitable for soldiers with appropriate headings. But the Soldier's Catechism' is by far the most remarkable and interesting book ever issued for a soldier's breast-pocket, and, as is acknowledged, was a powerful instrument in determining the king's execution. It would be interesting to know who drew it up, and how it is we know so little about it. No bibliographers, no historians, even mention it. NE QUID NIMIS.

"BOER."-It may be of interest to note that the word boer, pronounced as a dissyllable booer, is in common use in this part of Scotland (Galloway), although it is not to be found in Jamieson's 'Dictionary.' It is used to denote the person, usually a peasant, to whom a farmer lets his dairy cows for the season. Perhaps I should have said that this

The incident, if truly such, lends itself to poetry on the lines of 'Lucy Gray'; but any writer so utilizing it would, of course, be thought to be simply imitating Rogers.

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Bath.

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.

"QUAGGA" AND "ZEBRA."-The names of these two nearly allied animals have never been satisfactorily traced to their sources. Taking Prof. Skeat's 'Dictionary' and the Century' as the two best authorities, I find in the former, "Quagga, said to be Hottentot"; in the latter, "Quagga, apparently South African." The word is South African. It is not Hottentot, but Xosa-Kaffir. As early as 1812, Lichtenstein, in his 'Travels,' gives it as such in a vocabulary of Xosa words; and in the Dictionary of the Kaffir Language,' by the Rev. W. J. Davis (London, 1872), I find it again. Davis spells it iqwara, but his represents a "deep guttural sound," hence the European forms quagga and quacha (pronounced kwokka). As to zebra, the nearest approach to an etymology of it is due to Littré, who calls it "mot éthiopien." Prof. Skeat quotes this only to express doubt of its accuracy, though he has nothing with which to replace

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