the word punch occurs. When I first learnt the song, some fifty years ago, the word was not punch, but brandy. WALTER W. SKEAT. I am inclined, trusting a very distant memory, to say that the song, or a portion of it, appeared in an early volume of Punch, perhaps about 1843. A small illustration represented the postboys carousing. It was accompanied by a Latin version, one line of which was : Tres hilares pueri soliti vexare caballos. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. [S. B., MR. A. F. CURWEN, and H. P. L. agree with PROF. SKEAT that brandy cures the gout, &c. C. L. S. is also thanked for a reply.] NELSON'S SIGNAL (10th S. iv. 321, 370, 411, 471). PROF. LAUGHTON, by his reply, which contains nothing more than a confident reassertion of what he began with, makes my answer to it easy; As he produces nothing new, it becomes clear that what he told us about logbooks, and their recording signals "in some instances," was scarcely ingenuous. It counts for absolutely nothing, if this, the great signal, stands unrecorded after all in any of them. Who is right, or who is wrong, matters little; to establish the actual words was what I began hoping to achieve, and that is what I still desire. Even now it is possible, though I fear not very likely. The matter, however, lies in a nutshell. PROF. LAUGHTON puts forward the assertion of Pasco that it was he who hoisted the signal and suggested a change of form. I produce Browne's assertion. He, too, says he hoisted the signal and suggested change. Pasco's tale is to me unlikely, awkward, and ungrammatical (how PROF. LAUGHTON can defend the grammar of it I cannot see, but simply request him to turn up the word confide in Johnson's old 'Dictionary,' which settles it). Browne's tale reads like candour itself, is consistent, and asks for no explanation at all. The admiral himself commended it, with "Right, Browne! that's better." Up to this point one unhappy thing only stands out as conclusive, for in plain terms one or other of the men must lie. Pasco's tale for me is that of the lamed duck that can neither walk nor fly freely. So much for the signal itself. PROF. LAUGHTON I judge to be a man who grinds his transparent prejudices into pebbleglasses for his own spectacles. This idiosyncrasy leads him here to step quite out of his record, and to tell me that, as I have not read the Nelson Despatches,' I am incom petent to offer an opinion "on what Nelson might or might not write." This has nothing to do with what we are talking about, for I have not said a syllable about Nelson's It is manifest from PROF. LAUGHTON's own showing that the writing anything. Despatches' do not touch upon the signal in any way. I observe in the booklet announcing Lloyd's International Library" the following paragraph: 16 The words that Nelson signalled, England expects every man to do his duty,' have only recently been disputed. Nevertheless those were his actual words, which, before being sent up, had been altered twice at the suggestion of two of his officers. His intended message and the full account are given in the Library." The assertion that the words of the signal were twice altered at the suggestion of officers is surely a thing quite impossible. When the Daily Mail improvised its picture to illustrate PROF. LAUGHTON'S version of the event, it made emphatic the very fiasco that it was my object to have prevented. I furnished it, as I have said once before, with the Thompson particulars (that 'N. &Q. has found a home for), in ample time for due inquiry to have been made. I see that in the account of Nelson in the 'Penny' as also in the 'English' Cyclopædias the signal is given as it ought to be: " England expects every man to do his duty." But further than that, I now find that 'N. & Q. is also on my side in an interesting paper, signed S., on Marine Flag Signalling (6th S. x. 417). This system was invented by Sir Home Popham when a midshipman under a Capt. Thompson, commodore on the Guinea Coast. These signals appear to have been the literal signals that preceded those that at Trafalgar shot up the ever memorable words that England is now pleased to blunder over; so incapable has she become of rising to C. A. WARD. them. Allow me to refer your readers to 6th S. ix. 261, 283, containing a graphic and wellwritten description of the battle of Trafalgar by William Pryce Cumby, who was first lieutenant of the Bellerophon, and took the command of the ship when the captain (Cooke) was killed at the beginning of the action." This is his account of the signal verbatim : "A Quarter past eleven [i.e. A.M.] Lord Nelson made the Telegraphic Signal ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY, which you may believe produced the most animating and inspiriting effect on the whole fleet." Appended is a letter addressed to ViceAdmiral Collingwood, dated 30 October, 1805, mentioning his having taken the command Gray eventually made. There is not one word in this connexion about O'Connell or the body of Repealers, nor is there a suggestion that Dr. Sirr expressed a belief that leaders, or indeed any one, lent countenance to acts of assassination. The narrative refers to Dr. Sirr as the good parson," and states that he "playfully" addressed Sir John made that he had a fixed belief about Irish as "You Rebel Repealer." The suggestion now TRAFALGAR (10th S. iv. 385, 431, 471).-MR. JAS. PLATT is doubtless right in his opinion that the pronunciation Trafalgar is due to the English tendency to stress a long penulti-malcontents is purely imaginary, but the effect is to create an impression that he had mate, and the instance of Aladdin is very extreme political animosity. There is not much to the point. It is not, however, the slightest proof of such a thing. Fitzstrictly correct to say that Aladdin and Saladin were in Arabic Ala-al-din and Salah- patrick's note testifies to Dr. Sirr's compasal-din, except to the eye, because the letter sion, and his extreme anxiety that his father's lām, by the process known as the euphonic Dublin) should not be the means of exposing papers (now in Trinity College Library, teshdid, is passed over in pronunciation and assimilated to the following consonant, any one to public indignation. when that consonant happens to be one of the fourteen solar letters. The two names in question are in Arabic 'Alàu-'d-din and Salāhu-'d-din. Why the common English spelling should differ in the two cases, I cannot say. Trafalgar is of course Tarafu'l-ghar, which means the place of the cave. In ordinary Arabic, a cave is mughāra. The Moors have a habit of eliding the first short vowel in a word, hence Traf for Taraf, Spahi for Sipahi, &c. W. F. PRIDEAUX. SARAH CURRAN, ROBERT EMMET, AND MAJOR SIRR'S PAPERS (10th S. iii. 303, 413, 470; iv. 52, 111, 310).—I cannot help expressing astonishment that FRANCESCA should seriously write (ante, p. 112), on the testimony of the late Sir John Grey, that the Rev. D'Arcy Sirr had a fixed belief that all Irish malcontents were favourable to assassination, even O'Connell and the Repealers (Fitzpatrick's 'Sham Squire,' pp. 273-6)." The reference is to a long memorandum made, in August, 1858, by Fitzpatrick, purporting to give details received from Sir John Gray of a visit to Dr. Sirr's rectory at Kilcoleman (in 1842), where he spent the day, and found the rector sorting Major Sirr's papers. A discovery was made from the papers that a personage then living (to Dr. Sirr's astonishment) had been an informer in 1798. Sirr extracted a promise from Gray that he would not make this known, urging that "the papers before him showed him that the fate of detected informers in '98 was death." He was not aware of safeguards, even in 1843, and knew what might have been the consequence if the man in question, who was then posing as a Repealer, had been exposed. He was assuredly right, with strong argument to help him, in extracting the promise which Let me now call attention to the catalogue entry of Major Sirr's papers :— "Major Henry C. Sirr's Papers, relating chiefly to the Rebellion, 1798 to 1804, 9 vols. fol., with portfolio. also other papers concerning matters of police of 'Including letters, informations, warrants, &c., various dates up to 1831. The portfolio contains the Declaration of Catholics of Ireland,' 1792, as sent to Dublin from different localities; some copies on parchment, some on paper, with all the original signatures." As the portfolio was in Major Sirr's keeping, no surprise need be expressed that he also had the correspondence which passed between Sarah Curran and Robert Emmet. MR. MACDONAGH does not realize that during Major Sirr's tenure, which extended_over several administrations, the office of Town Major of the Garrison of Dublin was a very active and confidential one. Sometimes it has been affirmed with exaggeration that Major Sirr was "omnipotent" at the Castle. Correspondence of Russell, Emmet's associate, formed part of the "Sirr Papers" made over to the library of Trinity College, Dublin, by the Rev. Joseph D'Arcy Sirr, D.D., when his friend Dr. Todd (vide 'D.N.B.) was librarian. The catalogue entry is : letters deliberately consumed, but he also gives the reason. I need not go far afield to show how hazy information about Miss Sarah Curran appears to be; for the pages of N. & Q.' a few years ago will prove it. It was then demonstrated that a tradition was without foundation which attributed to her the later of the only genuine portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley extant; the 'D.N.B.,' under Shelley, vol. lii. p. 39, proves this. I have noticed that one of his Majesty's ministers referred to Miss Curran as a pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft (or that she appeared to be a true pupil). As Shelley married Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter, this may possibly account for the confusion of Miss Sarah Curran with another Miss Curran who painted Shelley's portrait in Rome in 1819, when Sarah Curran had been dead many years. H. SIRR. 50, Twisden Road, Highgate. I accept ONLOOKER's deserved rebuke for giving information at second hand which I could not verify. All through the present discussion I have had no desire to misrepresent the actions of Major Sirr or his son, and I am equally innocent of any desire to "foster idolization" of Robert Emmet or Sarah Curran. My interest in the men and women of 1803 is purely historical. I know Madden and Fitzpatrick are partisans, but there is unfortunately little history written in Ireland except by partisans. I quoted from 'The Sham Squire' simply because Sir J. Greg's narrative seemed to offer a natural and not offensive explanation of how the Rev. J. D. Sirr came to pen the note he did. those about 1803 in the Home Office furnished absolutely new material. The tender consideration shown by all the authorities to Sarah Curran surely offers little countenance to the alleged nature of some of her letters, and it is to be remembered that the letters must have been read at Dublin Castle; yet in the secret confidential correspondence of the Lord Lieutenant and other officials no hint is given of any atrocious sentiments in them, though comment is freely made on the characters and sentiments of persons implicated in the insurrection. FRANCESCA. [FATHER W. SIRR, a nephew of Dr. D'Arcy Sirr, also sends us a long letter, but we regret that our space will not permit us to insert more on this subject.] TOBY'S DOG (10th S. iv. 508).—I suppose that the preacher took for his_text_Tobit, v. 16: "The young man's dog [went] with them." For the " young man was named Tobias, or, in modern English, Toby. WALTER W. SKEAT. The allusion is, of course, to the well-known story in the Apocrypha. T. D. T. ་ THE AUTHOR OF WHITEFRIARS' (10th S. iv. 447).-In reply to MR. NIELD I can say that the boldness of the cataloguers of the British Museum is fully justified. Notwithstanding that they make some 4,000 corrections in their Catalogue annually, I should say they are generally right, as they are in this instance. Since 1868 (when her name did not appear in the Catalogue) there has been no doubt about the author of this novel of the "Harrison Ainsworth breed," to repeat Allibone's quotation. For myself I need hardly make any excuse, as my book, quoted by MR. NIELD, was the first essay of the kind in English literature but I fear I am responsible for "Jane." Halkett and Laing copied me; Cushing copied them. * I still think the note of J. D. S. was unnecessary and unwarrantable. All the witnesses were dead, and the correspondence had either been destroyed or had disap. peared; certainly it could not be referred to for confirmation or refutation. This is the view taken by Dr. Madden (United Irishmen,' iii. 514), and I think most unprejudiced persons will agree with him. MR. SIRR is mistaken when he states, "I believe Dr. Sirr's note about Miss Curran's and Emmet's correspondence never appeared in print until I sent it to 'N. and Q..'" for this note was printed in Madden's life of Emmet, forty-five years ago, to which I have already referred. Dr. Madden strangely omitted from this note the words " upon my father's visit," and so wasted time in guesses *A person who gets novels published for her and about "J. D. S.," all wide of the mark. makes money by them is given a pension; but a ONLOOKER and MR. SIRR do not seem to person who devotes many years of life to a biblioknow how well the Sirr papers were ran-informed that bibliography is an officially unknown graphy, and has to spend 500l. in publishing it, is sacked, whereas the Hardwicke papers and and unrecognizable quantity. On 19 June, 1862, Miss Emma Robinson was given a Civil List pension of 75l. a year, and according to the return to the House of Commons she was still taking it in 1889. I have never heard of her death. There was also in the same list a Mrs. Emma Robinson taking a pension. My eldest sister, who knew Miss Emma Robinson in 1850, told me she was born about 1813, and that her father was a bookseller. In The Standard of 14 Feb., 1870, is a letter "Emma Robinson, author of Whitesigned friars,' &c.," addressed from 15, South Bank, Regent's Park, complaining that Mr. H. T. Craven had taken his play of Philomel' (then being played at the Globe) from her romance 'Which Wins?' I have a letter from her father, from the same address, dated 26 Sept., 1873, referring to his daughter. The handwriting looks like that of a very old man. The Publishers' Circular, 1859, p. 715, STAINES BRIDGE (10th S. iv. 469).-What is the span of the arches of this bridge? Nine feet is quite a respectable thickness for piers. L. L. K. PIG SWINE: HOG (10th S. iv. 407, 449, 510) -Once more, at p. 512, we are told that "Swine [is] the plural of sow.' But the A.-S. swin, a neuter noun, has the same form for the singular and the plural, so that modern English likewise has swine, pl. swine. And the plural of sow is sows. Examples: "Boares have great fangs, Sowes much lesse" (Bacon, 'Nat. Hist.,' § 852. "How like a swine he lies" ("Tam. Shrew,' Induction, 34). It was Dr. Johnson who perpetrated this extraordinarily bad guess. At least, I find it in Todd's edition of his dictionary, s.v. sow: "Perhaps from sow might come sowen, swen, swine; but see Swine." So that even he was doubtful about it; and it is needless to add that sowen never occurs as the pl. of sow, that the contraction of sowen to swen is obviously impossible, as the e would perish rather than the 0, and that no one ever heard of -en turning into ine. He was thinking of cow, old plural ky, with the double plural ky-en, whence kine. WALTER W. SKEAT. 'THE MORNING STAR' (10th S. iv. 464).— There was a Morning Star published in London, 1832, of which the B.M. has fifteen numbers (P.P. 5358). The title was also used by monthly periodicals in 1840 and 1844. In 1805 The Star was being issued. The Bodleian_ has a broken run from 1789 to 1808. I have press cuttings extending the latter date to 1810. Perhaps The Observer advertisement refers to a proposed morning issue of this journal, which it is to be supposed was an afternoon or evening publication. The Morning Star first issued 17 March, 1856, distributed on 5 March a four-page "gratis" issue (11 in. by 8 in.) containing a history of Covent Garden Theatre and a full report of its destruction by fire between 5 and 10 AM. The remaining space utilized for a prospectus of the "New London Daily Papers, The Morning Star—The Evening Star.' ALECK ABRAHAMS. 39, Hillmarton Road. was DORSET PLACE NAME: RYME INTRINSECA (10th S. iv. 89). Of course MR. BARRON has seen Hutchins's (History of Dorset,' vol. iv. p. 491) derivation of this place: "Ryme Intrinseca - In - Ryme (so called in contradiction to the outlying manor of Ryme Extrinseca in Longbridy)." And under the heading of Long-Bridy (vol. ii. p. 188) the Dorset historian speaks of a place called "Dowerfield, or Halling's Manor," as being then only a farm, though styled in records the manor of Long-Bridy, belonging to the manor of "Out-Ryme, or Ryme Extrinsecus." Perhaps the rector of Long Bredy may know it better by either of these first-mentioned names. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A. Antigua, W.I. TAILOR IN DRESDEN CHINA (10th S. iv. 469). -The title of this query should be 'Tailor riding on a Goat.' This is, or was some thirty years ago, the usual way of representing a tailor in Austria-Hungary. Boys on seeing a member of the craft would-in those days, anyhow-immediately imitate the voice of a goat or place their hand under the chin and wag it to imitate a goat's beard, and run away without waiting for developments. A great many years ago I saw in a confectioner's shop in Budapest a masterpiece in sweetstuffs. It represented a pair of scales. In one dish, low, near the ground, sat a goat wearing spectacles and beaming with smiles; on the other side, high up in the air, the dish was crowded with tailors with their flat irons; members of the craft were clinging to the edge and swarming up the ropes too. This was in allusion to the light weight of tailors. I forget how many tailors are said to go to the weight of a goat. I have never heard an explanation of what the origin of the tale of the tailor and the goat may be. L. L. K. BAINES FAMILY (10th S. iv. 69, 330).-John Baines, of Layham, in Suffolk, died in 1776. By his will, made in 1753, he leaves to his eldest son John 1s., he having been provided for already; and to his wife property in Layham, Boxford, Little Cornard, and Polding [sic], in Suffolk and Essex, for life, and at her death to his younger children not named. James Johnson, Bishop of Gloucester, his brother-in-law, and Sarah Johnson, his sister-in-law, are trustees should his wife die before the youngest child is twenty four years old. His wife Elizabeth survived him, and proved his will as sole executrix; she was born in 1711. A John Baines was born in or about Langham, in Essex, between 1703 and 1707; he was the son of William, the grandson of Robert, and the great nephew of John Baines, all of Langham. By a will made in 1722 his great-uncle John left him property in Great Cornard, Little Cornard, Newton, Copdock, Belstead, and the manor of Heyses, in Suffolk, and 1,2007. in money, all at twenty-one years of age, and made him one of his executors. The same testator, who was for that time a very wealthy man, also left a mortgage on property in Polden and Colchester to another great-nephew. I think there can be no reasonable doubt that the John Baines born at Langham about 1705 was the John Baines who died at Layham in 1776. I find that John Baines, of Melford, who was mixed up in the rector of Melford's lawsuits, died without issue, in 1729, having been a Fellow of Peterhouse since 1689; he also was an Essex man. References: Brit. Mus. Davy's MSS. under Babergh and Cosford Hundreds, and pedigrees, Johnson of Melford. Wills: Prerogative Court. John Baines of Melford, 328 Abbott. John Baines of Layham, 53 Bellas. John Baines of Langham, 3 Bolton.-Commissary of London for Essex and Herts. Robert Bains of Langham, 392 Rickett. William Baines of Langham, 251 Backhouse. Ealing, W. MARK W. BULLEN. ELIOT YORKE (10th S. iv. 488).-I think that this will be found to have been the Hon. Eliot Yorke, son of the Earl of Hardwicke of c. 1850. WM. H. PEET. DOG TRAINING (10th S. iv. 488).-I know not what may be the custom nowadays, but in former times the rôle of Toby in "the great drama of Punch "was invariably sustained by a male comedian. Cf. 'The Old Curiosity Shop,' chap. xvii., near the end: "Here he is,' said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his pocket. He was once a Toby of yours, warn't he? MISTIGRIS. with the title Dogs in War' appeared in The 'CHEVY CHASE' (10th S. iv. 89, 155).-Judging from COL. PRIDEAUX'S and MR. E. YARDLEY's replies, I gather that nothing more is actually known about the date of "the more modern ballad of Chevy Chase" than was known to Percy when he published his 'Reliques of Antique English Poetry 'in 1765. In the introduction to the original poem he said : "Addison has given an excellent critique on this very popular ballad, but is mistaken with regard to the antiquity of the common received copy; for older than the time of Elizabeth. I flatter myself I this, if one may judge from the style, cannot be have here recovered the genuine antique poem, the true original song...... Whoever considers the style and orthography of this old poem will not be inclined to place it lower than the time of Hen. VI.: as, on the other hand, the mention of James, the bids us to assign it an earlier date." Scottish King, with one or two anachronisms, for With regard to the “ more modern ballad" Percy wrote: "When I call the present admired ballad modern I only mean that it is comparatively so; for that it could not be writ much later than the time of Queen Elizabeth, I think may be made appear; nor yet does it seem to be older than the beginning of the last [seventeenth] century.......That it could not be much later than that time, appears from the phrase, 'doleful dumps'; which in that age carried no ill sound with it, but to the next generation became ridiculous." |