Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/123

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11 S. I. FEB. 5, 1910.]


NOTES AND QUERIES.


115


Meineke's ' Frag. Com. Graec.,' vol. i Mr. F. St. John Thackeray includes then: with a note, in his ' Anthologia Graeca.'

The first two lines are quoted as Susarion' by Diomedes Scholasticus, and are to b found elsewhere. Suidas gives them ir two places (col. 2756 and col. 3596, Gaisford

  • is a proverb. EDWAKD BENSLY.

No. 7 is attributed to Susarion (fl. 580-6< B.C.), and is said to be the oldest extan fragment of Greek comedy. Meineke, ' Com Vet. Fragm.'- (Didot, 1894), gives

Aew' Sowapiwi/ Aeyei raSe,


KO.KOV yvvaiKcs' dAA.' o/xcos, to

OVK CVTIV OLKtlV OlKiaV OLV6V KO.KOV

[KCU yap TO yvjfiaL /ecu TO /XT) yijfjiai KCIKOI/].

From Tzetzes apud Cramerum, " Anecd Oxon.,' J vol. iii. p. 336. Susarion's wife having left him, he came into the theatre and delivered the above manifesto. The last line is not given by Tzetzes, but founc in Stobaeus, ' Flor.' 69, 2. Meineke did no 1 - think that it properly belongs here.

H. K. ST. J. S.

The "well-known popular song" sought by J. R. C. H. (ante, p. 68) is ' Billy Taylor, and is in "The Universal Songster; or, Museum of Mirth. With Woodcuts by George and Robert Cruikshank " (1825). This song is illustrated by George. The last two verses are as follows :

Forthwith she call'd for sword and pistol,

Which did come at her command,

And she shot her Billy Taylor,

With his fair one in his hand.

When the Captain com'd for to hear on't

He werry much applauded her for what she'd

done,

And quickly made her first lieutenant Of the gallant ...... THUNDKR-BOMB.

At 6 S. ii. 368 (6 Nov., 1880) the late MB. BRANDEB MATTHEWS inquired about ' Billy Taylor was a Gay Young Fellow,' and referred to The Illustrated London News of 2 Oct., 1880, in which Mr. G. A. Sala states, in ' Echoes of the Week,' that this song was written by Sheridan. The following is what Mr. Sala says on the subject :

" In the prefatory remarks by ']).(!.' to the late Mr. J. B. Buckstone's Nautical Burlesque Burletta ot 'Billy Taylor, or the Gay Young Fellow,' first produced at the Adelphi Theatre on Nov. 9, 1829 allusion is made to the ' Billy Taylor' of Sheridan i whimsy thrown off in one of those joyous moments winch gladdened the heart of that eccentric genius.' 'D. G.' obscurely hints that Sheridan might have owed his inspiration to some such long obsolete lyrics as 'Constant Betty's


Garland,' ' The Young Man's Resolution to go to Sea by reason of his False Love,' or * The Politic Sailor, or the London Miss Outwitted.' There is a theatrical tradition that the sublime Sarah Siddons was very fond of singing 'Billy Taylor.' "

See also 3 S. v. 172, 223, as to Latin trans- lations of this and other comic songs.

" D. G." is George Daniel, who reversed his initials and usually signed " D. G. n

HABBY B. POLAND.

Inner Temple.

The lines are from the last stanza of the ballad of ' Billee Taylor.* In ' Dublin Translations (Longmans, 1890) is a version of this ballad with a rendering in Latin elegiacs by Prof. R. Y. Tyrrell. A weaker variant is given in ' Modern Street Ballads,'- by J. Ashton (Chatto & Windus, 1888), in which the girl's name is Sarah Naylor of Lichfield. H. K. ST. J. S.

The lines quoted occur in the last verse of the one-time famous comic song ' Billy Taylor.' When I was a lad, in the fifties of last century, this was emphatically the most popular song of the day, helped as it was by a catchy tune and a " tol-de-rol " chorus. The words are printed in ' The Universal Songster ; or, Museum of Mirth * (Routledge, n.d.), vol. i. p. 65, with a cha- racteristic cut by George Cruikshank, repre- senting the captain bestowing upon the maiden the reward about which J. R. C. H. inquires. It appears also in ' The Cyclo- paedia of Popular Songs l (Tegg, n.d.), vol. iL p. 194. RICHABD WELFOBD.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The words are from the song of ' Billy

Taylor,' which was sung with some success

>y Sam Cowell in the fifties. He also wrote

he music of ' The Ratcatcher's Daughter,*

he words of ' Alonzo the Brave,* and

numerous other songs much in vogue at that

eriod, and probably w^rote this.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

[H. I. B M ELLO, MR. H. W. GRKKNK. MAY, COL. AKKY T. H. R., and SENEX also thanked for eplies.]

BUCKLE'S ' HISTOBY OF CIVILIZATION * 10 S. xii. 328, 414). Critical articles on his work appeared in The Quarterly of July, 858, and July, 1861 ; and in The Edin- urgh of April, 1858, and July, 1861. Froude n a lecture at the Royal Institution in 1864, hough disagreeing with Buckle as an xponent of the " science of history," paid

high tribute to him as an historian and as n extempore lecturer, N. W. HILL.

New York.