2'xi S. VII. June 25. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



520 



Oeorge, Count de Browne (2°* S. vii. 4ff5.) — 

 Some notices of this Governor-General of Livonia, 

 as well as of Ulysses Maximilian, Count Brown, 

 are preserved in my Illustrations Historical and 

 Genealogical of the families members of whom 

 held commissions in King James's service in the 

 war of the Revolution, p. 637, &c. This work, 

 ^published in 1855, has been two years out of print, 

 but a second, and considerably enlarged edition, 

 lies before me ready for the press. 



John D' Alton. 



48. Snmmer Hill, Dublin. 



Hope in Death (2°* S. vii. 498.) — Th^ qriginal 

 of the lines, " Als du bei der Geburt," &c., is 

 Arabic: thus translated by J. D. Carlyle, Chan- 

 cellor of Carlisle, and Professor of Arabic at 

 Cambridge, 1810: — 



" When born, in tears we saw thee drowned, 

 While thine assembled friends around, 



With smiles their joy confessed ; 

 So live that at thy parting hour, 

 They may the flood of sorrow pour. 

 And thou in smiles be dressed ! " 



Louisa Julia Nokman. 



Ancient School Custom (2"^ S. vii. 392.) — A 

 custom in several particulars similar to that nar- 

 rated by E. H. long prevailed in the public schools 

 of the West of Scotland in what -vvere called 

 " Candlemas Offerings." At this term a d^y was 

 set apart by the teacher for receiving any sum of 

 money which might be given him by the pupils, 

 and boys and girls vied with each other in the 

 largeness of the present. The cereqiiony, as I 

 recollect from having bepn a boyish actor in it, 

 was conducted as follows : — The teacher that 

 morning, with a very well-pleased countenance, 

 seated at his desk, announced the business on 

 hand. Each boy then stepped forward, and with 

 his best bow tendered his gift, the girls jn like 

 manner theirs with a curtsey. At each deposit of 

 the sum, its amount and the name of the pupil 

 were made known by the teacher, who, from an 

 abundant stock of oranges, raisins, confections, 

 &c., distributed them amongst the donors in pro- 

 portion to their liberality. Next, in the order of 

 proceedings, the boy of the largest offeriufc was 

 nominated " King " and the girl " Queen," who 

 both in honour were carried shoulder high (or as 

 it was termed " Cocks-carry ") around the room, 

 amid the noisy applauses and congratulations of 

 all the other scholars. As may be expected, the 

 teacher was in humour to grant the remaining 

 hours of the day as a holiday. 



About 1823 this mean custom was severely at- 

 tacked, and I think shortly afterwards totally 

 abolished, and very properly so, as creating an un- 

 seemly pecuniary rivalry among the children, and 

 leading to distinctions between those of the more 

 and less affluent families. Before it could be finally 

 broken up there was considerable opposition by 



some of the teachers, who reckoned on these of- 

 ferings as part of their emoluments. To compen- 

 sate, however, for the loss of them, I believe it 

 was generally conceded by parents that a slight 

 additional fee should be quarterly charged for the 

 education afforded. All the newspaper letters, 

 and divers fugitive pieces pro and con which 

 passed at this time on the subject require only to 

 be noticed as the " Curiosities of Literature," a 

 number of them certainly having been amusing. 



G. N". 



Oil Bias (2°'* S. v. 515.) — I find in a note in 

 Cubi i Soler's Spanish Translator the following : — r 



" Those who may be anxious to enter fully into this 

 literary problem are referred to the North American 

 Review, No. xlvii. p. 278., and the works mentioned 

 therein." 



This review I]have not seen ; but it is probably 

 the same as the one mentioned in a notp on p. 268. 

 of vol. iii. of Ticknor's History of Spanish Lite- 

 rature (New York edition, 1849), as having been 

 written by Mr. H. A. Everitt, when minister of 

 the United States in Spain. 



I also find in the New York Albion of 9th June, 

 1832, republished from the Monthly Magazine, a 

 very able essay, under the heading " Who wrote 

 Gil Bias? 



In the review and essay, with the text in Tick- 

 nor from p. 266. to p. 270., Uneda will probably 

 find all that ever will be knovvn of "the foundatiop 

 for the opinion that Gil Bias was originally writ- 

 ten by a Spaniard." Query, who wrote the essay? 

 Note : In the essay, the description of Doctor 

 Sangrado is said to be " a faithful picture of £V 

 Doctor Hecquet, a physician of Paris, of great cele- 

 brity in the time of Le Sage," while in the Vie de 

 Le Sage prefixed to his CEuvres Choisies, pub- 

 lished at Paris in 1810 (2i;d edit.), p. xxiii., his 

 biographer says, " Tout Paris savoit que le Doc- 

 teur Sangrado n'etoit autre que le fameux Hehe- 

 tius ;" meaning, I presume, Dr. Jean Claude 

 Adrien Helvetius, author of Idee Generale de 

 VEconomie Animale, and Principia-Physica-Me- 

 dica, and brother of the more celebrated Claude 

 Adrian Helvetius, who died in 1771. Eric. 



Ville-Marie, Canada, June 6, 1869. 



Monster Gun : Queen Elizabeth's Pocket-pistol at 

 Dover (2"^ S. iv. 409. ; vii. 71.) — The editors of 

 the Navorscher communicate what follows (vol. i? . 

 p. 113.):- 



" A finely engraved representation of the monster gun 

 was sent to us by Cornelius Lixa, £>nd on it the inscrip- 

 tion reads : — 



" ♦ Beeeck scuret al muke ende wal 



Bin ic geheten. 



Doer Berch en dal boert minen bal 



Van mi gesmeten.' " 



The Dover Navorschers do not yet seem to 

 have been admitted into Dover Castle. Perhaps 



