234
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. SEIT. 19, im
in which g gives place to ?/. Goethe and his
friend Behrisch played at games resembling
this, though from a logical rather than a
euphonic standpoint (see ' Dichtung und
Wahrheit,' c. 7). The following is from the
'Gesprache mit Eckermann,' 24 January, 1830 :
" Erfahrung aber 1st, dass man erfahrend erfiihrt,
was erfahren zu haben man nicht gern erfahren
haben mochte."
The griffin and Mephistopheles in the
- Classical Walpurgisnacht ' (' Faust,' II.) have
a snarling encounter in a string of tongue- twisters. Goethe tells Eckermann of the great pains he took in drilling youthful actors, and the ludicrous blunders into which they were sometimes trapped (' Gespriiche,' 5 May, 1824). FRANCIS P. MAKCHANT.
Brixton Hill.
With deference to MR. A. COLLINGWOOD LEE, I submit the following as more correct : " Un anier dit, ' Je ne suis pas ce que je suis. Car si j'etais ce que je suis je ne serais pas ce que je suis.'" Su-is represents "follow" throughout, except where it first and last occurs. MISTLETOE.
As examples of alliteration, one of which it may be a little difficult to pronounce "trip- pingly on the tongue " without tripping, the following may be adduced :
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
' Midsummer Night's Dream,' V. i. Approach, ye Furies fell ! Fates, come, come, Cut thread and thrum ; Quail, crush, conclude, and quell IIbid. The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty
pleasing pricket : Some say a sore ; but not a sore, till now made
sore with shooting. The dogs did yell : put L to sore, then sorel iunim
from thicket ; Or pricket sore, or else sorel ; the people fall
a-hooting. If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one
sorel.
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L. * Love's Labour a Lost,' IV. ii.
ADRIAN WHEELER.
LONG LEASE (9 th S. xii. 25, 134, 193). I re- member hearing a learned gentleman in the House of Commons bemoaning the ill fate of a man who should have had to turn out of a leasehold property at the end of ninety-nine years. Some members irreverently laughed ; but no one thought it necessary to explain that it was the common lot, and that the learned member, those who heard him, and the rest of the world, would have to turn out from their houses, whatever the tenure, at the end of ninety-nine years if not sooner saving the case of Lady Glentworth and
occasional centenarians like her. Nor did
any one think it worth while to point out
that the unhappy victim of eviction had
known perfectly well what he was about, and
had agreed to' pay a certain price for his
ninety -nine years' holding, namely, the cost of
the house which he covenanted to build, and
ninety-nine yearly payments. Or if he were
not the original builder, but the inheritor or
purchaser of the remainder of a lease, still
he knew precisely what he was buying or
inheriting; and if he lamented his lot he
might, perhaps, claim in extenuation that
he would not be the first person who had
coveted his neighbour's goods.
Looking through title -deeds relating to the parish of Clifton Hampden in the county of Oxford, I find many ninety-nine years' leases, but they are all leases for lives, with a small annual rent and a sum down on grant or renewal ; no building leases and a general system of renewals. Nor could there have been any practical hardship in the longer leases, nor, indeed, any practical difference between them and sales. I find, for instance, a lease for 999 years granted in 1661, and a recital in 1738 of a different lease for the same term, with a mortgage for a term of 500 years. Another deed (1723) refers to a lease formerly granted for a term of 1,000 years ; arid another (1769) refers to the residue of a lease for 1,000 years at a yearly rental of one penny when legally demanded, the 999 years' lease of 1661 prescribing " a peppercorn rent." The longest term I find is one of 1657 for a term of 2,000 years at the rental of one penny sterling.
This last lease does not cause me the same apprehension and the same searchings of heart as to what will happen when the term expires as the ninety-nine years' lease did to my learned friend in the House of Commons, both because the termination is somewhat more remote, and because I represent the original grantor as well as the original grantee, as I do also in the other leases here mentioned. ALDENHAM.
Aldenham House.
t PRIMROSE SUPERSTITION (9 th S. xi. 448 ; xii. 33). This superstition is, or was a generation ago, also current in Dorsetshire. F. J. C.
John Dent, my father's gardener, told me when I was a very little boy that if primroses were planted the wrong way up, the flowers would come red. I was sceptical about it, and mentioned the subject to several other people, who all confirmed his statement ; but I do not remember that any one of them had ever tried the process and been successful.
