Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/512

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506


NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. 11. DEC. 23, wie.


stage gives no particulars. There appears to be no collection of playbills of the Opera. In this particular instance, however, the Appendix to the ' Reminiscences of Michael Kelly ' (vol. ii. 394) supplies the deficiency, from which we learn that in the season of 1760 " Signora Angiola Calori " was " second woman," and performed " the serious parts in the burlettas." Xo further information about her is given, but there seems no reason to doubt that she continued to perform at the Opera-House until Casa- nova's visit to England in June, 1763. The King's Theatre or Opera-House (Vanburgh's theatre), of course, occupied the site of the present Carlton Hotel and His Majasty's 'Theatre. HORACE BLEACKLEY.

' THE TRAGEDY OF CJESAR'S REVENGE ' : ADDITIONAL XOTE. (See ante, pp. 305, 325.) My notes on this play have brought me a kind letter from DR. HENRY BRADLEY. I venture to send you his valuable criticisms on some of the points I raised :

I. 24. " Haught " seems hardly possible : a compound appears to be required. I do not know

whether " high-rang'd " would do.

II. 150-51. The emendation seems to yield no very good sense. I incline to think the text can

stand.

[1. 1462. This note should be deleted.]

1. 1586. " Fiendish " seems to have been a very rare word, and I am not sure that it would be quite in place here. Perhaps the text is right " finish " in the sense " carry to the end."

1. 1971. Can " Mirapont " represent some form of " Negropont " ( =Euripus) ? [This sug- gestion had also occurred to me.]

1. 2121. I do not think " mound " had the required sense so early. Perhaps the text will stand. I have an impression that " woundes ' in the sense of Lat. ccedes could be paralleled.

1. 2199. ,"f JErastus " = " Adrastus." [A bad slip on my part.]

1. 2375. The emendation is not necessary, ^though " soyld " is equally possible with " foyld."

Sheffield. G - c - MOORE SMITH.

"DONKEY'S YEARS "=A VERY LONG TIME. This piece of punning slang, the allusion in which is obvious, has come recently and rapidly into London use Possibly through the original medium of a ' gag " in some popular musical farce. ] do not find it in either Camden Hotten' ' Slang Dictionary ' or Farmer and Henley'_ ^Dictionary of Slang,' though the latter has " Donkey 's-ears " in an altogether different sense ; while it is of sufficiently twentieth century use not to be included in Ware' "' Passing English of the Victorian Era.'

A. F. R,


" ROSALIE " = BAYONET. Somewhere lave I seen in print the assertion that French soldiers speak of a bayonet as " Rosalie," Because St. Rosalie is the patron of Bayonne, he place from which the weapon derives ts dictionary name. Elsewhere it was as- serted that " Rosalie " came of the ruddy lue acquired by the spike in doing its work ; and this theory is encouraged by Th. Botrel's song ' A la gloire de la terrible baionnette tranaioe,' of which I quote two verses :

Toute blanche elle est partie, Mais, a la fin d' la partie,

Verse a boire ! Elle est couleur vermilion,

Buvons done !

Si vermeille et si rosee

  • Que nous 1'avons baptisee,

Verse a boire ! " Rosalie " a 1'unisson

Buvons done !

I get this from ' Les Chansons de la Guerre,' p. 48 {Librairie Militaire Berger-Levrault).

ST. SWITHIN.

POPULAR SPEECH : " RELICS. The young wife of a soldier, describing humorously the proceedings in the payment of her allowance, said to me the other day :

"I am always having to show my marriage certificate, and they do all sorts of things with it stick pins in it, and stick it on to other papers, and fold it : in fact, it is now all in relics."

J. H. H.


WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.


EDWABD ALLEYN, FOUNDER OF DULWICH COLLEGE. In Walford's ' Old and Xew London,' vi. 296 (ed. c. 1884), this famous actor and friend of Shakespeare is described as having been Lord Mayor of London. Xo date is given, and the statement is apparently a mistake. The name does not occur in the published list of Lord Mayors at or about his date, nor is there any mention in the ' D.N.B.' of Alleyn's ever having held any high office in the Corporation of London, as might have been expected if the statement were correct. And yef, curiously enough, the name of Edward Allen is found as one of the Sheriffs of London in 1620, just six years before the actor's death. Ben Jonson and others of his contemporaries frequently spelt Alleyn as Allen in his lifetime, and that spelling is now firmly established as correct