Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 - Various 2 стр.

FOLK LORE

"Snail, Snail, come out of your Hole."In Surrey, and most probably in other counties where shell-snails abound, children amuse themselves by charming them with a chant to put forth their horns, of which I have only heard the following couplet, which is repeated until it has the desired effect, to the great amusement of the charmer.

It is pleasant to find that this charm is not peculiar to English children, but prevails in places as remote from each other as Naples and Silesia.

The Silesian rhyme is:

which may be thus paraphrased:

In that amusing Folk's-book of Neapolitan childish tales, the Pentamerone of the noble Count-Palatine Cavalier Giovan-Battista Basile, in the seventeenth tale, entitled "La Palomma," we have a similar rhyme:

of which the sense may probably be:

The Evil Eye.This superstition is still prevalent in this neighbourhood (Launceston). I have very recently been informed of the case of a young woman, in the village of Lifton, who is lying hopelessly ill of consumption, which her neighbours attribute to her having been "overlooked" (this is the local phrase by which they designate the baleful spell of the evil eye). An old woman in this town is supposed to have the power of "ill-wishing" or bewitching her neighbours and their cattle, and is looked on with much awe in consequence.

"Millery! Millery! Dousty-poll!" &c.I am told by a neighbour of a cruel custom among the children in Somersetshire, who, when they have caught a certain kind of large white moth, which they call a miller, chant over it this uncouth ditty:

And then, with boyish recklessness, put the poor creature to death for the imagined misdeeds of his human namesake.

"Nettle in, Dock out."Sometime since, turning over the leaves of Clarke's Chaucer, I stumbled on the following passage in "Troilus and Cressida," vol. ii. p. 104.:

I was delighted to find the charm for a nettle sting, so familiar to my childish ear, was as old as Chaucer's time, and exceedingly surprised to stumble on the following note:

"This appears to be a proverbial expression implying inconstancy; but the origin of the phrase is unknown to all the commentators on our poet."

If this be the case, Chaucer's commentators may as well be told that children in Northumberland use friction by a dock-leaf as the approved remedy for the sting of a nettle, or rather the approved charm; for the patient, while rubbing in the dock-juice, should keep repeating,

The meaning is therefore obvious. Troilus is indignant at being recommended to forget this Cressida for a new love, just as a child cures a nettle-sting by a dock-leaf. I know not whether you will deem this trifle worth a corner in your valuable and amusing "Notes."

THE SCALIGERS

The Scaligers are well known, not only as having held the lordship of Verona for some generations, but also as having been among the friends of Dante in his exile, no mean reputation in itself; and, at a later period, as taking very high rank among the first scholars of their day. To which of them the passage above properly belongswhether to Can Grande, or his brother Bartolommeo, or even his father Alberto, commentators are by no means agreed. The question is argued more largely than conclusively, both in the notes to Lombardi's edition, and also in Ugo Foscolo's Discorso nel testo di Dante.

Perhaps the following may be a contribution to the evidence in favour of Can Grande. After saying, in a letter, in which he professes to give the history and origin of his family,

"Prisca omnium familiarum Scaligeræ stirpis insignia sunt, aut Scala singularis, aut Canes utrinque scalæ innitentes."

Joseph Scaliger adds

"Denique principium Veronensium progenitores eadem habuerunt insignia: donec in eam familiam Alboinus et Canis Magnus Aquilam imperii cum Scala primum ab Henrico VIIo, deinde à Ludovico Bavaro acceptam nobis reliquerunt."

Alboinus, however, who received this grant upon being made a Lieutenant of the Empire, and having the Signory of Verona made hereditary in his family, only bore the eagle "in quadrante scuti."

"Sed Canis Magnus, cum eidem à Cæsare Ludovico Bavaro idem privilegium confirmatum esset, totum scutum Aquilâ occupavit, subjectâ Alitis pedibus Scalâ."

Can Grande, then, was surely the first who carried the "santo uccello" in su la Scala; and his epithet of Grande would also agree best with Dante's words, as neither his father nor brothers seem to have had the same claim to it.

I would offer a farther remark about this same title or epithet Can Grande, and the origin of the scala or ladder as a charge upon the shield or coat of this family. Cane would at first sight appear to be a designation borrowed from the animal of that name. There would be parallels enough in Italy and elsewhere, as the Ursini, Lewis the Lion (VIII. of France), our own Cœur de Lion, and Harold Harefoot. Dante, too, refers to him under the name "Il Veltro," Inferno, canto 1. l. 101. But Joseph Scaliger, in the letter to which I referred before, gives the following account of it:

"Nomen illi fuerat Franscisco, à sacro lavacro, Cani à gentilitate, Magno à merito rerum gestarum. Neque enim Canis ab illo latranti animali dictus est, ut recte monet Jovius, sed quod linguâ Windorum, unde principes Veronenses oriundos vult, Cahan idem est, quod linguâ Serviana Kral, id est Rex, aut Princeps. Nam in gente nostrâ multi fuerunt Canes, Mastini, Visulphi Guelphi."P. 17.

"Nomen illi fuerat Franscisco, à sacro lavacro, Cani à gentilitate, Magno à merito rerum gestarum. Neque enim Canis ab illo latranti animali dictus est, ut recte monet Jovius, sed quod linguâ Windorum, unde principes Veronenses oriundos vult, Cahan idem est, quod linguâ Serviana Kral, id est Rex, aut Princeps. Nam in gente nostrâ multi fuerunt Canes, Mastini, Visulphi Guelphi."P. 17.

This letter consists of about 58 pages, and stands first in the edition of 1627. It is addressed "ad Janum Dousam," and was written to vindicate his family from certain indignities which he conceived had been put upon it. Sansovino and Villani, it appears, had referred its origin to Mastin II., "qui," to use Scaliger's version of the matter,

"Qui primus dictator populi Veronensis perpetuus creatus est, quem et auctorem nobilitatis Scaligeræ et Scalarum antea fabrum impudentissime nugantur hostes virtutis majorum nostrorum."

It was bad enough to ascribe their origin to so recent a date, but to derive it from a mere mechanic was more than our author's patience could endure. Accordingly he is not sparing of invective against those who so disparage his race.

Vappa, nebulo, and similar terms, are freely applied to their characters; invidia, κακοθεια, &c., to their motives. The following is a specimen of the way he handles them:

"Dantes Poëta illustrissimum Christianissimorum Regum Franciæ genus à laniis Parisiensibus deducit, utique tam vere, quam ille tenebrio nostrum à scalarum fabro: quas mirum, ni auctor generis in suspendium eorum parabat, quos vaticinabatur illustri nobilitate suæ obtrectaturos."

Now the charge of a ladder upon their shield was certainly borne by the several branches of this family long before any of them became masters of Verona; and I should suggest that it originated in some brilliant escalade of one of the first members of it. Thus, of course, it would remind us all of perhaps the earliest thing of the kindI mean the shield and bearings of Eteoclus before Thebes:

Hn, Jan. 28. 1851.

INEDITED BALLAD ON TRUTH

I send you herewith a copy of an ancient ballad which I found this day while in search of other matters. I have endeavoured to explain away the strange orthography, and I have conjecturally supplied the last line. The ballad is unhappily imperfect. I trust that abler antiquaries than myself will give their attention to this fragmentary poem.

I would fill up the lacuna

Perhaps, I repeat, some more able antiquaries will give their attention to this, and satisfy me on the points of punctuation, date, &c.

Minor Notes

Ayot St. Lawrence Church (Vol. iii., pp. 39. 102.). Ayot St. Lawrence, Herts, is another deserted church, like that of Landwade,in fact a ruin, with its monuments disgracefully exposed. I was so astonished at seeing it in 1850, that I would now ask the reason of its having been allowed to fall into such distress, and how any one could have had the power to build the present Greek one, instead of restoring its early Decorated neighbour. I did not observe the 2 ft. 3 in. effigy alluded to in Arch. Journ. iii. 239., but particularly noted the elegant sculpture on the chancel arch capital.

I would suggest to Mr. Kelke, that the incumbents of parishes should keep a separate register, recording all monuments, &c. as they are put up, as existing, or as found in MS. church notes, or published in county histories. In the majority of parishes the trouble of so doing would be trifling, and to many a pleasant occupation.

Johannes SecundusParnelDr. Johnson.In Dr. Johnson's Life of Parnel we find the following passage:

"I would add that the description of Barrenness, in his verses to Pope, was borrowed from Secundus; but lately searching for the passage which I had formerly read, I could not find it."

I will first extract Parnel's description, and then the passage of Secundus; to which, I suppose, Dr. Johnson referred.

Secundus in his first epistle of his first book (edit. Paris, p. 103.), thus writes: