212 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



t2n4 S. X. Sept. 15, '60. 



Avith his bookes of nature, of Trees, plants, beasts, and 

 fishes mentioned 1 Kings iv. 32. and 33. 



The Epistle fathered upon Barnabas. Y° Revelation 

 of Peter. Y« doctrine called Y» Apostles mentioned in 

 Eusebius, Lib. iii. chap. 22." 



Can you inform me whether any in the above 

 list have ever been supposed to have been dis- 

 covered ? or can you give me any reference to 

 lists of MSS. preserved by the Greek Church ? 



The MS. from whence I take the above gives 

 the Epistle of St. Paul to the Laodiceans ver- 

 batim, with this addendum : — 



" This epistle of S'. raule to y» Laodiceans was found 

 in y oldest bible y* was printed at Wormes." 



Abkacadabba. 



Old Rbstokation Song. — Can anyone oblige 

 me with a copy of the song, of which one verse 

 runs thus : 



" Tho' for a time we see White'.Hall, 

 With cobwebs hung around the wall, 

 Yet Heaven will make amends for all 

 When the King shall have his own again." 



Has it been printed in any book ? 



Hebus Feateb. 



[The above quotation is a portion only of the third 

 stanza of the once highly popular ballad, " When the 

 King enjoys his own again." Ritson has included it in 

 his Collection of Ancient Songs, but was unaware of the 

 fact that it was from the prolific pen of Martin Parker, 

 who, in a contemporary tract (^Vox Borealis, 4to. 1641), 

 is described as " the Prelates' poet, who made many base 

 ballads against the Scots," for which he was " like to 

 have tasted of Justice Long's [i.e. the Long Parlia- 

 ment's] liberality, and hardly escaped the Powdering- 

 tub, which the vulgar call a prison." From internal 

 evidence, it would appear that " When the King enjoys 

 his own again " was written about the year 1643. Ritson 

 says, it did more to Support the failing spirits of the 

 Cavaliers, throughout their trials, than any other com- 

 position of the kind, and that it contributed in no small 

 measure to the restoration of Charles II. It continued to 

 be the favourite song of the Jacobites till the extinction 

 of the Stuart family. Mr. Chappell, in his Popular Music 

 of the Olden Time, has not only given the correct version 

 of this ballad, but also the air to which it was originally 

 set] 



The two Sides of a Riveb. — My hours of 

 study having of late been partly given to military 

 subjects, I observe that in the description of war- 

 like operations the two sides of a river are often 

 distinguished as left and right. How am I to un- 

 derstand this ? Which is the left bank, of a river, 

 which the right ? Does the distinction turn upon 

 any general rule or principle ? Kifeeman. 



[The rule or principle is general. In speaking of the 

 right and left bank of a river, it is supposed that a person 

 is looking down stream. Occupying this position, he will 

 have the "right bank" on his right hand, the "left 

 bank" on his left; so that in any case, in order to 

 know which is right bank, which is left, he has only .to 

 know which way the river runs, in flowing from its 



source to the sea. Thus, supposing him to stand on 

 Waterloo Bridge looking down the river towards the 

 Southwark Bridge, in that case he has on his right hand 

 the right bank of the Thames (Surrey side), and on his 

 left hand the left bank (Middlesex or London side). Or 

 to take another instance, — on that celebrated occasion 

 when the Duke won for himself the sobriquet of " Old 

 Douro," by which he was ever after known to our forces 

 in the Peninsula, he passed over his army, in the face of 

 the enemy, from the left side of the river to the riyht, i. e. 

 in that case from South to North, the Douro running 

 westward.] 



Snoeing of Owls. — A travelling party, whose 

 destination was an old English mansion, being de- 

 tained on the road, did not arrive tiH long after 

 the household had retired for tho night. On 

 reaching at length their journey's end, they pulled 

 up at the ancient gateway of the mansion, and for 

 a long time knocked, rang, and shouted, without 

 being able to rouse the inmates. What made their 

 detention the more annoying was the audible 

 snoring, as they thought, of some person or per- 

 sons fast asleep almost close at hand, in fact so 

 close that the sound seemed to proceed from im- 

 mediately over the portals at which the . party 

 sought admission. Admitted at length, they asked 

 with some impatience who were those obstinate 

 sleepers, that still snored and slumbered on, re- 

 gardless of such loud appeals from beniglited tra- 

 vellers. The reply was, that the snorers were 

 owls who built over the gateway, not humans. Do 

 owls snore ? I was not aware of the fact, and I 

 ought to know something about it. Hibou. 



[The snoring of owls is an article of popular belief ; 

 but we never enjoyed an opportunity of personally inves- 

 tigating this curious subject, till the present season. 

 Domiciled for a few weeks at a place called " The Hall," 

 which was once a splendid and lordly residence, we stood 

 after sunset in the porch on the evening of our arrival, 

 when our attention was roused by a sound which issued 

 from the trunk of a decayed but venerable elm not many 

 paces distant, and which did certainly bear some. resem- 

 blance to snoring. The sound was not indeed a snore, 

 strictly speaking, but might easily be mistaken for one. 

 Perhaps it rather resembled what in medical language is 

 called " stertorous breathing." Still, as it was regularly 

 repeated at short intervals, you would say that the party 

 from whom it proceeded, if not actually snoring, at any 

 rate would begin to snore ere long, and no mistake. And 

 coming as it did from an old elm in the still evening, and 

 in a remarkably secluded and silent spot with many 

 solemn and medieval surroundings and the churchyard 

 close at hand, the effect was very odd, and a little thril- 

 ling. We were informed on inquiry that a pair of owlg 

 had built in the elm, and that from them the sound pro- 

 ceeded. 



Now as owls after sunset are usually wide awake, one 

 had some difficulty in supposing that at such an hour 

 they would be caught snoring. On reflection, therefore, 

 we were led to think that the sounds which issued from 

 the elm, and which sub.sequently we often heard repeated, 

 were rather notes of menace, occasioned by our proximity 

 to the nest, and designed to repel intrusion. Wishing, 

 however, to obtain all the information we could, we at 

 length consulted a venerable inmate of " The Hall," who 

 confidently maintains that the snoring (as he calls it) 

 does not proceed from the owls at all, but from the owlets ; 



