30
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JAN. 12, 1907.
portraits of Miss Greville and her brother
as Cupid and Psyche, and states that one
was then in the possession of Mr. C. Long,
and the other in that of Mr. S. Rogers.
Can any one inform me where these pictures
are now ? H. W.
BOUND ABIES AND HUMOROUS INCIDENTS. Can any readers help me with curious places through which the boundary lines of parishes, counties, and even countries run, and with any humorous incidents which have been caused by them ? Mr. W. S. Gilbert, it will be remembered, made use of such a fact in * Engaged.' RUDOLPH DE CORDOVA.
COSLETT. Can any reader help me to the derivation of this surname ? It is not uncommon in South-East Glamorgan. I can derive no assistance from books.
ARTHUR MEE.
Cardiff.
- ARMY LIST,' 1642. There is a copy of
the 1642 " Roundhead " Army List in the British Museum. Is it the same copy as that mentioned by MR. HAYES, 10 S. vi. 342 ? The " Cavalier " Army List of 1642 is also in the same library. 1 have not seen MR. HAYES'S communication in The Book- worm for 1891. M. J. D. COCKLE.
Walton-on-Thames.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY CHANCELLOR, 1842. Would any of your readers who possess, or can obtain access to, a Cambridge University Calendar for 1843, inform me who was installed Chancellor in July, 1842 ? Family letters show me that a Chancellor was installed then. A post card addressed as below would be quite sufficient.
W. K. W. CHAFY.
Rous Lench Court, Evesham.
QUEEN VICTORIA OF SPAIN : NAME-DAY. In the papers of 24 December last it was mentioned that Queen Victoria of Spain had been present at a banquet on " her name-day." As she has abjured the faith in which she was born, it cannot have been her baptismal day as an infant ; nor is it the anniversary of her reception into the Roman Church. Is it the day of St. Vic- toria ? or in what way can it have been her " name-day " ? HELGA.
BARBADOES : BARBYDOYS. In the Cata- logue of Ancient Deeds at the P.R.O. I notice (p. 66), 18 Ed. IV., mention of the manors of Little Carleton alias Barbydoys in Carleton (co. Cambridge). Is the asso- nance with Barbadoes merely accidental ?
E. L.-W.
'THE CHRISTMAS BOYS.'
(10 S. vi. 481.)
THIS old mumming play, which MR. D. A. CHART finds surviving in the Isle of Wight, and which LADY RUSSELL states (10 S. v. 155) is still rendered in Berkshire, is not by any means confined to the south of England. Five-and-twenty years ago a mangled version of it used to be performed in the villages of south-west Lancashire ; and it is still to be met with in Cumberland, and I believe in parts of rural Yorkshire. But in Cumberland at least there is this important difference : it is an Easter play, and is known as the " pace " or " peace egg "- this name, of course, being a corruption of the paschal egg.
It is well known that the Easter custom of distributing eggs is much older than Christianity, and is really symbolical of creation or the re-creation of spring : a season celebrated in all times and all countries with ceremonies that, from once being of a religious character like midsummer and harvest time now survive only in the form of rollicking games and village mummeries. The Dionysian dramas of ancient Greece celebrated the same season, and were con- nected with the worship of the god of vege- tation or generation.
One of the oldest of the old mystery plays of this country is that of ' St. George and the Dragon,' which was probably grafted on to some earlier village drama celebrating the coming of spring. Eastern characters were probably introduced in the days of the Crusades ; and in later times all sorts of heterogeneous characters Bonaparte, Nel- son, and the like have been added, accord- ing to taste and circumstances.
I have three versions of this " Pace egg " play, which were written out for me by schoolchildren in Cumberland during 1895 i and considering that there is, so far as I know, no properly transcribed " book of the words," but that it is handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, it is not a little remarkable to find how closely these Cumberland versions resemble that quoted by MR. CHART from the Isle of Wight.
The dramatis personse are King (or St.) George ; the Black King of Morocco ; Molly Masket, his mother ; Bold Slasher (the Noble Captain of the Isle of Wight version, and probably another of the Seven
