SM 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 136. 



to stand the strictest Examination, or to confirm 

 those Things which to some may seem doubtful." 



" Old Tom's " is still a right good chop-house 

 in the locality named ; and it would be interesting 

 to know if there is any contemporaneous note 

 ■existing of an evening with Robert Drury there. 

 But for the misfortune of living a century and a 

 quarter too late, I should doubtless often have 

 found myself in the same box with the mysterious 

 man, with his piles of books, and his maps of 

 Madagascar, invitingly displayed for the examin- 

 ation of the curious, and the satisfaction of the 

 sceptical. J- O. 



FOLK LORE. 



Gabriel Hounds. — Seeing that Mr. Yarrell, 

 the distinguished ornithologist, is a contributor to 

 *'N. & Q.," may I ask that gentleman, or any 

 other correspondent, what is the species of bird 

 ■whose peculiar yelping cry during its nocturnal 

 migrations, has given rise to the superstition of 

 the " Gabriel Hounds," so common in some rural 

 districts ? D. 



Weather Prophecy. — Can any of your corre- 

 spondents inform me as to the truth or falsehood 

 of a proverb I have heard, namely, that the dry- 

 ness or wetness of a summer may be prognosti- 

 cated by observing whether the oak or the ash 

 tree comes first into leaf? I cannot recollect 

 ■which denoted which ; but I should much like to 

 know whether there is such a proverb, and whe- 

 ther there is any truth in it. G. E. G. 



Oxford. 



Origin of Moles. — Meeting with an octoge- 

 narian molecatcher a few weeks since, in the 

 neighbourhood of Bridgwater, the old man vo- 

 lunteered the following account of the origin of 

 moles, or wards as they are sometimes called in 

 Somerset. " It was a proud woman, sir, too proud 

 to live on the face of the earth, and so God turned 

 her into a mole, and made her live under the earth ; 

 and that was the Jirst mole." My informant was 

 evidently much confirmed in his belief, by the 

 fact of " moles having (as he said) hands and feet 

 like Christians." W. A. J. 



Mistletoe. — The mistletoe grows upon the poplar 

 tree, near the railway station at Taunton, and 

 likewise at White-Lackington near Ilminster. I 

 have not seen any upon the oak. W. A. J. 



^tn0r ^atti, 



Syron^s " Siege of Corinth." — In the late Dr. 

 Moir's Lectures on the Poetical Literature of the 

 last Half Century, in commenting on Byron's Siege 

 of Corinth he mentions " the glorious moonlight 



scene in which Francesca and Alp part for the 

 last time, the one to die of a broken heart, the other 

 to perish in his apostacy." From this he evidently 

 considers that in this celebrated scene it is the still 

 living form of Francesca that visits her lover ; but 

 though Lord Byron has, according to his frequent 

 practice, left this unexplained, the whole passage 

 seems to me to show that his intention was, that 

 the visit should be considered as a supernatural 

 one. Space will not allow of my bringing forward 

 the proofs of this, but it can be easily verified by 

 any one who reads the passage in question atten- 

 tively. A singular mistake occurs in p. 8. of the 

 work above quoted. Could any one have sup- 

 posed that a poet, and a writer on poetical litera- 

 ture, should be ignorant of the best known poetical 

 name of the last century? Yet Mr. Moir talks of 

 " William" Pope. He might as well have talked 

 oi '■'■ Alexander" Shakspeare. J. S. Warden, 



Goldsmith's " Poetical Dictionary." — It has not 

 been noticed by any of Goldsmith's biographers 

 that, in addition to The Art of Poetry, in 2 vols. 

 12mo., 1762, published by Newbery, and The 

 Beauties of the English Poets, in 2 vols. 12 mo., 

 1767, published by Griffin, he also edited for New- 

 bery an useful work entitled A Poetical Diction- 

 ary, or the Beauties of the English Poets alpha~ 

 helically displayed, in 4 vols., 1761, 12mo. The 

 Preface is evidently written by Goldsmith, and 

 with his usual elegance and spirit, and the selec- 

 tion which follows is one of the best which has ever 

 yet been made. It certainly deserves more notice- 

 than it seems hitherto to have received; and were 

 it only that it contains Goldsmith's favourite pas- 

 sages, and may possibly have been a preparation 

 and incentive to the composition of the Traveller 

 and the Deserted Village, it ought not to be for- 

 gotten in the list of his compilations. In examin- 

 ing it I have frequently been struck by the appear- 

 ance of lines and passages, and sometimes epithets, 

 which were evidently in Goldsmith's mind when 

 he wrote his two beautiful poems. Some, but not 

 all, have been quoted as parallel passages by his 

 editors. James Crossley. 



Corrupted Names. — In Vol. i., pp. 215. and 299., 

 are some notes on the ordinary corruptions ot 

 Christian names. One came once in my way 

 which, as the name corrupted is not by any means 

 an ordinary one, may not have occurred to many 

 of your readers. I was called on to baptize a child 

 by the name Nucky : fortunately it is my practice 

 to ascertain the sponsor's intention in the vestry, 

 before proceeding to the font ; and I was able^ 

 with much difficulty, to make out that the name 

 meant was Ursula, of which Nucky was their 

 ordinary corruption. Passing from names of 

 persons to those of places, I would add two cor- 

 ruptions to those named in your current volume : 

 Wiveliscombe, pronounced Willscombe; Mine- 



