56
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JAN. is, wie.
AUTHOR OF FRENCH SONG WANTED (12 S.
i. 11). 'Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman ? ' is
given in the third volume or part of ' Chants
et Chansons Populaires de la France,'
nouvelle edition illustree, 1848, about the
middle of the volume, which is not paged.
A preliminary notice by du Mersan, author of many of the notices, says that the composer of the air is unknown to the pro- fessors and to those learned in music ; but that from its style (facture) it evidently dates from a hundred years ago (i.e., about 1748). The note adds that the words are of the period of the vaudeville shepherds (Bergers de Trumeaux}. Perhaps " fancy dress shepherds " would be a better transla- tion.
The title given to the words is ' La Confi- dence,' while the heading of the music for the voice and piano is ' Ah, vous dirai-je, maman.' The song is placed with and between ' Philis, plus avare que tendre ' (' L'avaricieuse '), and ' L'amour est un enfant trornpeur ' (' La curieuse '). Accord- ing to du Mersan, ' Philis,' &c., was by Charles Riviere Dufresny (1648-1724), appa- rently both words and music ; and
- L'amour,' &c., author apparently unknown,
belongs to the time of ' Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman ? ' " Who is there," asks du Mersan, " who in his or her youth has not sung the song ? " ROBERT PIERPOINT.
I believe that all trace of the writer of " Ah ! vous dirai-je, maman ? " is lost. It appears anonymously in Louis Montjoie's ' Chansons Populaires de la France,' as also in John Oxenford's ' Book of French Songs,' in which occurs the note (p. 41) :
" What young lady who has taken half-a-dozen lessons on the piano is unacquainted with the air of ' Ah vous flirai-je,' which is by some attributed to Rossini ? The words, which are anonymous, are less generally known."
ST. SWITHIN.
SIR JOHN SCHORNE (12 S. i. 4). The correct reading of the eighth and ninth versicles of the sequence must surely be as follows :
Aue duum puerorum suscitator submersorum per tua suffragia.
Aue tu qui es cunctorum consolator miserorum qui sunt in tristieia.
It would seem that the legend of Schorne contained a story of the restoration to life of two drowned boys. In most handwritings of the period the words duum and diuini (each consisting of a d followed by seven
minims) would be indistinguishable. Dn>
BARCLAY SQUIRE, however, is probably right
in saying that the Spetchley MS. has clearly
diuini. The scribe may have been un-
acquainted with the particular miracle, and
so have failed to recognize the numeral..
Hence, when he had inadvertently written
the first line of the ninth versicle instead of
that of the eighth, he saw no reason why
the displaced line should be inappropriate
in the ninth versicle.
HENRY BRADLEY. Oxford.
I do not know whether Sir John Schorne is elsewhere said to have rescued two boys from drowning ; but in any case I should read, in stanzas 9 (Spetchley) and 8 (Sloane),. " Ave duum puerorum," which would give a perfectly good sense in both passages ; and I should be inclined to read " submer- sorum " in Sloane 8, and " subuersorum " in Spetchley 8. J. T. F.
GUNFIRE AND RAIN (12 S. i. 10). The- farmers of Galloway, that is Wigtonshire and Kirkcudbrightshire, believe that gun- fire caused rain, as is shown by their M.P.,. Capt. Lord Dalrymple, asking in the House if it was not possible for the naval autho- rities to postpone the firing of the big guns of the warships in the Solway and Irish Channel until after the harvest, because it was noticeable that after such firing rain came down in torrents, and so hindered the- gathering of the crops. I think it was in July, 1913, that the Captain asked the- question. W. MEIKLE.
Mr. Ackermann in his ' Popular Fallacies," published some eight years ago, says :
"It has been often stated that the noise of cannon will produce rain, and it is not unusual in> the Austrian Tyrol to hear the church bells ring- ing to avert thunder. These are fallacies. The? experiments in America, made recently, to test whether rain could be produced by exploding a large quantity of gunpowder in the air, resulted in. nothing except noise and smoke, though the thing was well worth trying."
WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
It may not be amiss to mention an ex- perience that seemed to imply a strong confirmation of popular belief. Many years ago, when volunteering was an interesting pastime rather than a serious enterprise,, there was a country district in Scotland in which big-gun practice regularly occurred on the Saturday afternoon. As regularty the inhabitants in the long run expected that the day would end in rain. The two-
