Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/20

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12


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. JULY 4, im


Mackenzie left Tilsit or Memel on 26 June for Loridon with Leveson-Gower's dispatch is incorrect. The writer in The Quarterly Review further points out that although the correspondent referred to and Dr. Rose differ as to the date of Mackenzie's arrival in London, they approximately agree as to the date of his departure. " We venture to think," says the writer, " they are both wrong as to when he (Mackenzie) started."

He then gives his reason for this opinion, which I think it is desirable to record in

  • N. & Q.' as completing the controversy.

In the * Stafford House Letters,' edited by Lord Ronald Gower, there is a letter written from " Memel on July 3rd, 1807," by Lord Gower to his mother, which concludes as follows :

" A Mr. Mackenzie who came with Lord Gran- ville will take this. He was to have been with the army to send information from thence, but as un- fortunately he can be no longer useful he is going back."

The writer of the article says that the words quoted are " the most important " in the letter, and he adds that :

" From this it seems that Dr. Rose was mistaken when he wrote that Mackenzie left for London immediately after June 25,"

which was the day on which the Emperors met on the raft. HARRY B. POLAND.

Inner Temple.

DICKENS AND THE LAMPLIGHTER'S LADDER (10 S. ix. 389, 430, 471). I remember seeing a lamplighter carrying the ladder to light his lamps, in 1882, at Burnham (Somerset). He assured my father that he could do his work quicker in that way than with the torch. A. MORLEY DAVIES.

Amersham, Bucks.

The rime quoted at the second reference by MR. RATCLIFFE as sung in the North resembles to some extent one which the children of country villages in the Isle of Wight sing in their counting-out, games. If it is unknown elsewhere, it may be worthy of preservation in your pages. It runs thus :

Keeper, peeper, chimney-sweeper, Had a wife and couldn t keep her. Had another, couldn't love her. OUT spells "out."

Y. T.

" IDLE "= MISCHIEVOUS (10 S. ix. 350). Had it not always this meaning, to a greater or less extent ? " Idle " certainly does not mean the same as " lazy." One is an active quality, the others a passive.


There is a well-known tale (in Aikin's

  • Evenings at Home,' I think it is) of an

idle boy and a lazy boy. The former will not do the work set him, but will do every- thing else that comes to hand, good, bad, or indifferent. The latter simply does nothing. The active mental condition of the former will, indeed, inevitably lead, sooner or later, to some mischievous diver- sion, unless the mind is constantly engaged in more profitable employment ; so that the terms may be considered virtually synonymous, or at least inseparable. This sequence is well illustrated by Dr. Watts' s well-known lines :

For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.

J. FOSTER PALMER. 8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

May not Dr. Watts's lines be accountable for the difference ? URLLAD.

ARCHBISHOP SANDS (10 S. ix. 289, 357).- Mr. H. S. Cowper, F.S.A., the historian of Hawkshead, Lancashire, writes :

" And but a few days ago we found it stated in a new edition of Black's 'Guide' that Archbishop Sandys was born here. He was, however, born at Esthwaite Hall."' Hawkshead, its History,' &c., 1899, p. 23, foot-note.

Hawkshead Hall and Esthwaite Hall are quite a mile apart. This is mentioned lest the former be taken as, say, the centre of a village, which it is not. S. L. PETTY.

In the north transept of Southwell Minster is an alabaster effigy of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York. The effigy is of interest as it represents the Archbishop vested in alb and chasuble, although the date of his death is July, 1588, thirty years after Queen Elizabeth's accession. Not- tinghamshire, in which Southwell is situated, formed part of the diocese of York from the seventh century to 1840 (' Southwell Minster,' pamphlet, 6 pp., Chesterfield : Edmunds, reprint from Derbyshire Times of 12 Jan./ 1884).

About twenty years since, when I visited Southwell Minster, the effigy was in the position above described.

H. T. POLLARD.

"HER's" (10 S. ix. 406). I have re- marked with surprise that in * The Pocket Service-Book,' printed at the University Press, Oxford, " her's " is so rendered in the Lectionary (see Job xxxix. 16), and that " your's " disfigures many a page : we have, e.g., " my spirit and your's "