124
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. xn. AUG. w, 1915.
Sir Walter Scott in his ' Life of Napoleon
Bonaparte,' chap, xxviii., writes : " In the
well-known words of Fouche, the duke's
execution was worse than a moral crime it-
was a political blunder." An editorial foot-
note (1850 edition, p. 361) quotes the English
translation of Fouche, substituting " politi-
cal blunder" for "political fault."
ROBERT PIERPOINT.
"LA GARDE MEURT, MAIS NE SE REND PAS " (11 S. xii. 7). There is a point in the saying as given above which perhaps strengthens MR. PAYEN PAYNE'S contention " that it was a phrase already familiar " before the battle of Waterloo. As far as I can find out, the true form of the saying was : " La garde meurt et ne se rend pas." This would be translated into English : " The Guard dies, but does not surrender." Re- translated by an Englishman into French, " mais " would not unnaturally be substi- tuted for the original " et."
ROBERT PIERPOINT.
LACEY AS A PLACE-NAME (11 S. xii. 50). This is the record of the surname of a some- time owner of the place. De Lassis more than one came over with the Conqueror, and a member of the family held no less than a hundred manors in five counties of our land. There is a place called Lassy in the arrondissement of Vire. See the chapter on the ' Roll of Battle Abbey ' in Baring- Gould's ' Family Names and their Story ' (p. 226). ST. SWITHIN.
Lacey as a place-name is reminiscent of the great Norman family and their posses- sions. Walter de Lacy, first Baron Lacy by tenure (died 1085), sprung from a family settled at Lassy in the arrondissement of Vire in Normandy, was ancestor of the Irish branch of the family, and a relation of Ilbert de Lacy,, ancestor of the Earls of Lincoln, which title became extinct in 1348, on the death of Alice de Lacy, Countess of Lincoln and Salisbury.
A. R, *BAYLEY.
V REVELATIONS OF PETER BROWN' (11 S. xii. 30, 77). Perhaps the following may be of interest to MR. RAYNER. It is taken from The Dublin University Magazine for March, 1874, s.v. " Our Portrait Gallery," Second Series, No. 2 : ' John Francis Waller, LL.D.,' &c. :
" It was in January, 1833, that a few distin- guished literary Irishmen launched The Dublin University Magazine, which was destined to a career so distinguished and long-lived. Imme- diately on his return to Dublin, Waller at once
joined the corps, contributing his first article to
it in its third number. From that period he has,
with rare intervals, been a constant and prolific
writer in its pages. . . . A series of papers by him
under the pseudonym of Jonathan Freke Slingsby,
somewhat after the manner of, yet in many ways
totally diverse from, the ' Noctes ? of Wilson,
attracted great notice and became highly popular.
. . . .A few of these were subsequently collected in
a small volume, entitled ' The Slingsby Papers.' "
In the list of works given in the article the
date appended to ' The Revelations of
Peter Brown ' is 1870.
I may add that Dr. Waller was for many years editor of The Dublin University Maga- zine. He died at his residence, Wind Hill, Bishop's Stortford, in his 85th year, on 19 Jan., 1894. JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
EASTER HARE (11 S. xi. 320, 407). At 10 S. v. 292, MR. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL wrote :
" The circumstance of Easter Day being always the first Sunday after the first full moon which happens on or next after 21 March, and of the hare being associated with both Easter and the moon, renders it probable that the hare, so far as Northern mythology is concerned, became identi- fied with the Easter moon through the Druidica worship of Eostre."
In Cox's ' An Introduction to Folk-lore/ 1895, p. 102, we read :
" Now the name of this Christian festival is derived from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess, whose worship was celebrated at this season. The hare may have been sacred to Eostre ; at any rate it ' probably played a very important part at the Spring Festival of the prehistoric inhabi- tants of this island.' The hare may have been worshipped as a tribal totem '.or god."
There are several peoples e.g., Chinese, Mongols, Indians, Mexicans, Namaquas, &c. who have associated the hare with the moon (' Yuen-kien-lui-han,' 1703, torn. iii. ; Gubernatis, ' Zoological Mythology,' 1872, vol. ii. p. 79 ; Bar ing- Gould, ' Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,' 1884, p. 203 ; Cox, op. cit., p. 250 ; Tylor, ' Primitive Culture, 2nd ed., vol. i. p. 355). But my scanty acquaintance with the mythology of the Northern peoples disqualifies me from say- ing whether they were ever associated in it, as was conjectured by MR. MACMICHAEL.
On the other hand, Dr. Budge's ' The Gods of the Egyptians,' 1904, vol. i. p. 427, has this passage :
" At Dendra a hare-headed god is seen wrapped in mummy swathings, with his hands in such a position that they suggest his identification with Osiris, and an attempt has been made [see Renouf in Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. ix. pp. 281- 294] to show in connexion with this representation that the hare-headed god was called Un ; that this name appears in the compound name ' Un-neter,
