46 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"'i S. No 55., Jan. 17. '57. 



But the enemies of tobacco will tell me that 

 these are exceptional cases, — men whose consti- 

 tutions have acquired by habit Mithridatic powers, 

 — like the aged Effendi mentioned by Mr. Wadd 

 in his amusing Commerds on Corpulency : 



"Whose back was bent like a bow, and who was in 

 the habit of taking four ounces of rice, thirty cups of 

 coffee, three drachms of opium, and besides smoking sixty 

 pipes of tobacco." — P. 159. 



William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



iHtnor ^atti. 



Posey of a Ring. — I used to possess a remark- 

 ably small gold wedding ring, that was dug up, in 

 1833, in Charterhouse Square. The inscription 

 in the interior was " not this bvt me." 



Henry T. Riley. 



The New Moon. — The very general idea that 

 the dim form of the full moon seen with the new 

 moon is a sign of rain, seems to be an old one ; 

 the appearance may also have predicted something 

 worse than storm, and have been considered 

 ominous by the sailors of the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries : 



" I saw the new moon late j^estreen 

 With the old moon in her arm, 

 And if we gang to sea, master, 

 I fear we'll come to harm." 



Sir Patrick Spens. 



T. H, Pattison. 



A Whale Fight. — The following story has 

 lately been going the round of the papers : — 



"A whale fight came off, a few weeks since, a mile and 

 a half from the shore, opposite the town of Nybster, in 

 Scotland, which was witnessed by many fishermen and 

 others. The two whales rushed against each other with 

 great velocity ; one would leap twenty or thirty feet in 

 the air, and fall upon his foe with crushing force ; the}' 

 beat each other with their tails with resounding thwacks, 

 and the sea around them, lashed into foam, soon exhibited 

 a bright red tinge. The battle lasted for three hours, 

 when one of the whales became motionless, and the other 

 swam slowly away. The body of the motionless whale, 

 which was found to be dead, was afterwards drawn ashore. 

 It measured sixty feet, was much bruised, and had its 

 upper jawbone broken." 



Threlkeld. 



Cambridge. 



Eminent Artists who have been Scene-painters. 

 — In addition to the well-known instances of 

 Messrs. Stanfield and Roberts may be mentioned 

 the names of David Cox, who, somehalf-a-century 

 since, was assistant scene-painter at the Birming- 

 ham Theatre, — and Thomas Sidney Cooper, who 

 •vas once " the youthful artist of a certain Theatre 

 Rural on the Sussex coast," and who, for the sake 

 of the recollections of that time, painted " an old 

 white horse, and black donkey," in the scene of the 

 Gipsy Encampment in Mr. Buckstone's drama of 



the Flowers of the Forest, produced at the Adelph i 

 Theatre, March 11, 1847. (See the Dedication to 

 the published version of the drama.) 



Cuthbert Bede, B.A. 



Addison^ s " Sir Roger de Coverley^ — In " an 

 Epithalamium," in Poems by George Butt, D.D., 

 vicar of Kidderminster, there is a poetical de- 

 scription of Abberley Lodge, the seat of the poet 

 Walsh, — "knowing Walsh," "the Muse's judge 

 and friend," (whose works were published by 

 Curll in 1736), and who often entertained as 

 guests the poets Pope, Dryden, and Addison. Of 

 the last-named poet. Dr. Butt says : 



" It is more than probable, that it was in this fitting 

 seat of the Muses where this amiable writer planned his 

 Worcestershire papers, and saw the original Sir Roger 

 de Coverley." — Note to p. 24., vol. i. 



This was written in the year 1776. 



Cuthbert Bede, B.A. 



MEANING OF ANGLO-SAXONS. 



May I, at the beginning of this new year, which, 

 is to inaugurate also a new era of brotherhood be- 

 tween the United States and England, take the 

 liberty of asking a question on a subject which 

 has often puzzled me ? It is probable that some 

 one of your readers on the other side of the At- 

 lantic may be able to explain my difficulty ; for I 

 believe the Americans were the first to use the 

 name which I cannot understand, in the sense 

 which seems to be gaining ground. My question 

 is, " What do they, and their English imitators, 

 mean by Anglo-Saxons ? " What did the United 

 States Consul mean, when, at the dinner lately 

 given to Captain Hartstein, after substituting 

 Turks and Russians for Dr. Watts' dogs and 

 bears and lions, in the well-known little gnomic 

 poem about " barking and biting," he continued : 



" But Anglo- Saxons should never let 

 Such angry passions rise ; 

 Their great big hands were never made 

 To tear each other's eyes ! " 



I am entirely at a loss to understand this name ; 

 and I wish some one would do me the favour to 

 explain what is really meant by it. I know some- 

 thing of a people who were called by it, a good 

 many centuries ago ; who founded, in short, by 

 slow degrees, a very powerful state in the largest 

 part of the British Islands ; and who, under the 

 general name of Anglo-Saxons, continued to exist 

 in England and Scotland for seven or eight hun- 

 dred years. I have, indeed, given myself unusual 

 pains to master their now extinct language, to re- 

 cover much of their lost history and law, and to 

 make the forms of their civilisation intelligible to 

 the people who now occupy the country which 



