298 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Oct. 20. 1855. 



mon in Cornwall, though I find no mention of the 

 custom in Ellis's Brand. 



We are now favoured with a call from the boy 

 with the pretty garland, gay with bright flowers, 

 and gaudily painted birds' eggs, who expects some 

 little gratuity for the sight. 



After maintaining a flickering existence for 

 several years, the better known portion of the 

 May ceremonial has died out among us ; and the 

 people of a neighbouring church town, some four 

 or five years ago, danced round their last May- 

 pole. 



It is a question how far it were possible, if de- 

 sirable, to preserve a picturesque old custom ren- 

 dered dear to us by the descriptions of a hundred 

 poets, before the remembrance of it is dead among 

 the peasantry. My own impression is, that it is 

 not possible. A marked change has taken place 

 in the relationship between the country gentle- 

 man and his tenantry ; the feudal devoted ness of 

 the latter has given place to a feeling more of 

 respect than love ; and the benevolence of the 

 former, which was never more active than at pre- 

 sent, is directed to other and more worthy ends. 

 The school fete^ the ploughing match, and the 

 horticultural show, have driven out May-poles 

 and Christmas qiisrule. Whereas, in former days, 

 the squire thought a day's merriment cheaply 

 purchased at the price of a sapling from his broad 

 plantations, and a small present to help to trick 

 out Friar Tuck and Maid Marian, the people can 

 now only obtain their May-pole surreptitiously. 

 This explains the decline and fall of this old En- 

 glish merry-making ; at least, as far as this neigh- 

 bourhood is concerned. 



Whitsuntide. — A holiday, chiefly remarkable for 

 a custom, still kept up by the young people, of 

 going in droves into the country to partake of 

 milk and cream. The old usage of collecting for 

 Whitsun ale has fallen into desuetude. 



Thomas Q. Couch. 



MS. INITIAL BOOK-NOTES. 



I am inclined to think there Is more in the fly- 

 leaf of a book than one would at first expect. If 

 one picks up at an old book-stall a relic " E llbrls 

 Job. Smith," it certainly is not a very great 

 treasure for its owner's sake ; but if the name be 

 not quite so common, if it be that of a great man, 

 or of a semi-great man, the volume commands a 

 higher price for the autograph. No doubt our 

 modern Sosii have no objection to this, but in the 

 eye of the buyer there is a greater value in it 

 than the mere £ s. d. can give. It may be, one 

 can judge of the man's character by his hand- 

 writing, after the manner of certain wizards of the 

 present day, or one regards it as an embalmed 

 personal relic which time has not destroyed ; at 



No. 312.] 



all events there Is a certain undefined pleasure in 

 the "possession of such remains. But the value 

 becomes increased if there be, besides the name, 

 an ink-note in the same hand, letting you know 

 some private feeling, or some little circumstance, 

 connected with the former possessor. If the 

 owner were not a great man, at least he will have 

 been a reading man ; and thus, if one does not 

 gain the pleasure of holding converse with a 

 master-spirit of the past, at any rate there Is 

 before him the type of a class by no means unin- 

 fluential In bygone days. He gains a nearer 

 insight into the every-day life of our ancestors, 

 and a minuter acquaintance with their habits. 



I was struck the other day, in looking through 

 an old library in the West Riding, to find such 

 notes and remarks at the beginning of several 

 books. This library was given to the school of 

 Worsborough, near Barnsley, by Dr. Obadiah 

 Walker, the Master of University College, Ox- 

 ford (temp. Charles II. and James II.), a man 

 not without influence in his day, and known to 

 posterity in more ways than one. The library 

 has had other benefactors, as the Edmundses of 

 Worsborough Hall, and seems to have had Incor- 

 porated with It one left in 1614 to the rectors of 

 Tankersley, a neighbouring parish, by " Ro. 

 Bouth, Armlger." On the fly-leaves of some of 

 these volumes are some curious mottoes ; for ex- 

 ample, in a Plautus, " Reverere teipsum, Obad. 

 Walker." Thesaurus, Philosophice Moralis, 1613, 

 Geneva, " Obad. Walker, iramwu Se ndxiffra aicrxvveo 

 o-ttVTov." In Claudius JElian, 1616, Geneva, is, — 

 " Harbert Elmhurst, his booke. 

 But never on it did he looke." 



And below this distich, " Obadiah Walker, Colllj 

 Unlverslt. apud Oxonienses magister." On the 

 fly-leaf of Disputatiuncularum Grammaticalium, 

 by Joannes Stockvvoodius, Is, — 



"Christo. Fiddis ) empt. Eboru. Anno 1617. 

 Patior ut potiar J Pretiu. 2s. 5d." 



I fear even the high-sounding title would not 

 realise the price now-a-days. In some instances 

 a little prosopopoeia is introduced ; a book which 

 appears to have had two masters at different times 

 sic loquitur, " Sum Tomsoni," and (but in a differ- 

 ent handwriting), — 



"Gulielmus Nuttus meus est dominus pretiu, 16d. 

 Aprilis 15, 1577." 



Another volume states, " Sum Johis , et ami- 



corum " — a common fate of one's books even in 

 the present day ! At the beginning of another 

 the possessor asserts that he is the true owner of 

 the work whereof " Joh. Jones, filius Joh. Jones," 

 of some very long-named place. Is witness. Tiiere 

 are many others in various hands, some of them, 

 perhaps, the only remaining compositions of their 

 authors. If valuable In no other light, they at 

 least show the " furor scribendi " and " versus fa- 



