Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/71

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10 s. vii. JAX. 19, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


55


name or pronunciation of German o Jarman was discussed. From its Latin form, Germanus became, with the French Germain, with the feminine Germaine, anc is identical with Jermyn, which became in England a surname written Germyn in ' The Paston Letters,' i. 160. Can anj correspondent suggest the reason for its first use as a name in the family of Pole o Radbourne ?

German de la Pole b. 1482 (?), d. 1552/3 of Radbourne, Esq. (great-grandfather o the aforesaid knight), was the first so named and one of his daughters, Jane, married hei father's fourth cousin German Pole, of Wake bridge, co. Derby, Esq., who died in 1588 -aged seventy-five, without surviving issue. R. E. E. CHAMBERS. Pill House, Bishop's Tawton, Barnstaple.

FAIRY-HAUNTED KENSINGTON : TICKELL AND THE DROOPING LILY (10 S. vii. 1). A notice of Tickell's poetry without reference to his ballad of ' Colin and Lucy ' is incom- plete. In it are well-known lines : I hear a voice you cannot hear Which says I must not stay: I see a form you cannot see Which beckons me away. In it also are the following lines : Oh J have you seen a lily pale

When beating rains descend ? So drooped the slow-consuming maid,

Her life now near the end. This is obviously the original of Lady Anne Lindsay's verse :

She drooped like a lily beat down by the hail. But there are similar thoughts in classical and English poetry : ' Iliad,' book viii. 11. 306-8 ; ' ^Eneid,' book ix. 11. 435-7 ;

  • Metamorphoses,' book x. 11. 190-95. Ovid

seems to have been the first to mention the lily as the drooping flower. I subjoin a few English parallel passages :

I hang the head As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with

storms. ' Titus Andronicus.'

Like a fair flower, surcharged with dew, she weeps.

Milton, ' Samson Agonistes. As lilies, overcharged with rain, they bend 'Their beauteous heads.

Waller, 'To my Lord Admiral.' Keightley in his ' Fairy Mythology ' makes, I think, a somewhat foolish remark :

"With the 'Kensington Gardens' of Tickell our fairy-poetry may be said to have terminated. Some attempts to revive it have been made in the present century. But vain are such efforts. The belief is gone. And, divested of it, such poetry can produce 110 effect."

The belief is not gone. A few years ago an Irish peasant who had lost his way was


found dead 1 with his coat turned. He evidently thought that the fairies had misled him. Keightley's own book shows abundantly that there existed quite up to his time the belief in fairies amongst the lower orders. I do not think that it ever reached much higher. Shakspeare and Milton, though they wrote about fairies, did not believe in them. E. YARD LEY.

BELL INSCRIPTIONS AT SIRESA (10 S. vi. 465). MR. DODGSON'S first inscription re- calls the inscription on the Vatican Obelisk : " Ecce Crux Domini Fugite partes ad- verse Vicit Leo de tribu Juda," the last clause of which is a quotation from the Apocalypse (v. 5). This obelisk was ori- ginally brought from Heliopolis by Caligula, who set it up " inter duas metas " (i.e., in the middle of the spina) of the circus on the Vatican, which he built, and Nero finished. Near this obelisk St. Peter was martyred about 67 A.D. It remained in situ till it was removed by Sixtus V. to its present position. The inscription dates from this removal in 1586, on which occa- sion the round ball at the top which in the Middle Ages was, without any historical foundation, supposed to contain the ashes of Julius Caesar was replaced by the pre- sent cross, in which a relic of the True Cross is enclosed. JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.

MACAULAY'S LETTERS TO RANDALL (10 S. vi. 507). These letters have not been added to any of the English editions of Sir G. O. Trevelyan's ' Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay.' " W. H. PEET.

39, Paternoster How, E.G.

ADMIRAL BENBOW'S DEATH (10 S. vii. 7). The words of ' Admiral Benbow ' are inter- esting, showing several variations from those printed by Halliwell in ' Early Naval Ballads of England ' and also from those printed in Chappell's ' Popular Music of the 31den Time.' The latter took his version, words and music, from a broadside pub- ished early in the eighteenth century ; it ncludes one more stanza than appears on D. 7, ante.

Benbow, son of Col. John Benbow, of Shropshire, commenced his career as a ailor before the mast, and rose to the rank >f admiral. His portrait may be seen in Hampton Court Palace and in Shrewsbury- Town Hall. WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS.

For a version of the words and tune of his song, with exhaustive notes and refer- nces, see the Journal of the Folk-Song iociety, vol. ii. part ix. p. 236. If the tune