Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/62

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. JULY 17, 1009.


SPURIOUS COINS AND MEDALS. Should any of your readers visit the church of San Juan de los Reyes, outside the walls of Toledo the church on the outside of which still hang the chains worn by Christian prisoners in Granada when the Moors were in power let them beware of dealing with the custodian or sacristan. In 1904 he victimized me with an antique-looking medal, about three inches in diameter. On the obverse is the upper part of a mailed .nd helmeted man ; on the reverse, a spread eagle holding a key in each claw. Many spurious antiques of a similar character are sold in Scotland and elsewhere. The strange part of it is (as the British Museum authori- ties tell me) that these things are not often duplicated, though I cannot see how it can pay to make them separately.

RICHARD H. THORNTON. 36, Upper Bedford Place, W.C.

ROBERT SOUTHS Y. In The Lady's Maga- zine for May, 1799, there is a curious outrage on two of Robert Southey's best-known poems. One begins thus :

Father Dennis's Comforts, and how he

procured them.

  • ' You are old, father Dennis," the young man said,

, Your locks that are left are quite grey : You are hale, father Dennis, a hearty old man ; -Now tell me the reason, I pray ?" '/In the days of my youth," father Dennis replied,

I remember'd that youth would fly fast ; -And abus'd not my health nor my vigour at first, That I never might want them at last."

The editor must have been a cool hand thus to transform " Father William " into " Father Dennis " throughout the six verses. It is perhaps to escape detection that in giving ' The Well of St. Keyne ' on the same page he omits the author's name.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

CAPT. EDWARD THOMPSON'S POEMS. The ' D.N.B.' is inaccurate with regard to the dates of the publication of these works. ' The Meretriciad ' was first published in September, 1761, by C. Moran, "under the Great Piazza, Co vent Garden " ; see Public Advertiser, 24 Sept., 1761. It was followed in January, 1766, by ' The Demi-rep ' ; see Public Advertiser, 17 Jan., 1766. The copy of the latter poem in the British Museum, which is the second edition, bears the date 1756 ; but the context shows unmistakably that this is a misprint, and a foot-note to one of the verses quotes Dodsley's ' Annual Register ' for 1764. From advertisements in the newspapers it would appear that The Courtesan ' was published in May, 1765. All these poems were collected in


one volume in 1770, under the title of ' The Court of Cupid,' printed, as before, for C. Moran, who at this time had removed to Tavistock Row, Covent Garden.

HORACE BLEACKLBY.

" AND HE WAS A SAMARITAN " : DR. E. E. HALE. The death of the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, the distinguished Bostonian preacher and litterateur, brings to mind some lines which I have always attributed to his versatile pen. In concluding an article in The Scotsman in 1896 on ' The Joint Hymnal for the Scotch Presbyterian Churches,' A. K. H. B. wrote as follows :

" There is a quaint hymn which will never be

in any hymnal. Though it brings the tears to one's eyes, it is quite too unconventional, and the lan- guage is what some call A murrikan. As the reader

will never see it elsewhere, let him read it here. Mozart's beautiful music, beginning the famous mass, will go to it. I prefix a suitable text' And he was a Samaritan.' "

Dr. Everett Hale edited for a time Old and New and Lend-a-Hand Record, and possibly A. K. H. B.'s hymn appeared in the latter. The excellent sentiment as well as precept of the " quaint hymn " will henceforth have a wider appeal when enshrined in the pages of ' N. & Q.,' some reader of which may be able to determine the question of author- ship :

W'en you see a man in woe,

Walk right up and say "Hullo !

Say " Hullo I* and " How d'ye do ?"

" How's the world a-usiri' you ? "

Slap the fellow on his back,

Bring yer han' down with a whack ;

Waltz right up, an' don't go slow,

Grin an' shake an' say " Hullo ! "

Is he clothed in rags ? sho !

Walk right up an' say " Hullo ! "

Rags is but a cotton roll

Jest for wrapphi' up a soul ;

An' a soul is worth a true

Hale and hearty " How d'ye do? '

Don't wait for the crowd to go ;

Walk right up and say " Hullo ! "

W'en big vessels meet, they say,

They saloot an' sail away,

Jest the same are you an' me

Lonesome ships upon a sea,

Each one sailing his own jog

For a port beyond the fog,

Let yer speak in' trumpet blow,

Lift yer horn an' cry " Hullo ! "

Say " Hullo ! " an' " How d 'ye do ? "

Other folks are good as you.

Wen ye leave yer house of clay,

Wanderin' in the Far-Away,

W'en you travel through the strange

Country t'other side the range,

Then the souls you 've cheered will know

Who ye be, an' say " Hullo ! "

J. GRIGOB. 14, Crofton Road, Camberwell.