126 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 85.^ Aug. 15, '57. 



And he thinks 'twill be very wet weather ; 

 So my friends and good fellows, 

 As you've brought no Umbrellas, 



You had best get home dry altogether. 



" For, great Mandarin, 

 Were you wet to the skin. 



As you look very sallow and sickly, 

 Our Physician Chit Quong 

 Thinks you would not live long, 



So advises a change of air quickly. 



" This hint we confess 



We had rather suppress, 

 As strictly 'tis not diplomatic ; 



But then you'll remember 



Your Month of November, 

 Which we call ' Hum Jung,' is rheumatic. 



" The request of your Traders, 

 Those scurvy Invaders, 



Was impudent, and we refuse it ; 

 To the King of the Isles 

 We dismiss you with smiles. 



And as for the Joke, we'll excuse it." 



J.J. 



Mixvax ftaiti, 



Lawrence Sterne. — The following cbaracteristic 

 letter from the author of Tristram Shandy may 

 not be unwelcome to your readers : — 



" Coxwould, Sept. 3. '67. 

 « Dear Sir, 



" I shall take it as a favour if you will send a porter 

 with the Inclosed to the Direction, when it comes to y' 

 hand. 



" I don't see when I shall have any Occasion for money, 

 so it may lay safe where it is, till I do. But I 8h<i be 

 obliged to you, if you will settle the little Ace* betwixt 

 us from the time the last was ballanced — and I will draw 

 for that Summ, to leave all straight betwixt us, to the 

 300 p"i' — wi" I hope I shall want not much of till Winter. 

 Mj' SentimentalJourney goes on well — and some Geniuss 

 in the North declare it an Original work, and likely to 

 take in all Kinds of Readers — the proof of the pudding 

 is in the eating. 



« I am faithfully Y", 

 "L. Sterne. 



" Do not forget to send the letter to day." 



The letter was addressed to Mr. Becket shortly 

 before the publication of the Sentimental Journey, 

 and little more than six months before the author's 

 death. Edward Foss. 



Damage earned to Boohs of Plates hy the Tissue 

 Paper. — Having noticed many years since, and 

 again lately, the injury caused to magnificent 

 books of plates by the flimsy wire-marked tissue 

 paper used, I beg, through "N. & Q.," to make 

 the same known. The books I remember to have 

 seen injured are The Musee Napoleon, Egypt, and 

 other large works of the Empii-e ; also, I think, 

 some English books of the period, for instance, the 

 Stafford Gallery, — the plates becoming spotted 

 from some chemical action from the silver paper 

 and slight damp, resembling iron-mould. Such 

 paper ought to be removed. The best plate- 



paper to place between type and engravings 

 ought to be highly " milled," and not too thin ; 

 being able to stand in the volume without falling 

 into the back, rumpling, or protruding at the fore- 

 edge. If tissue paper be not of the best quality, 

 a volume is better without it, after the ink is 

 once dry. Luke Limneb, F.S.A. 



Manchester. 



A Grandmother at twenty-nine years of age. — 

 A paragraph with the above heading appeared 

 some short time since in a morning contemporary, 

 which I beg to oflTer for insertion as a " memento " 

 of the same in" N. & Q. : " 



"A woman was recently brought before the magis- 

 trates at Wigan for assault, which affords a striking in- 

 stance of recklessly early marriages. She was married 

 before she was 14 years old, and was mother at 14 years 

 and 7 months. Since then she has had 11 other children. 

 The eldest girl (15 years old) is mother of 2 children, 

 the eldest of whom is nearly 2 years old, having married 

 earlier in life than her mother, who is therefore, at 29 

 years of age, mother of 12 and grandmother of 2 chil- 

 dren." 



Heney W. S. Taylor. 



The first printed Pooh and printing Press in 

 America. — The title was the Bay Psalm Book, 

 and printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 

 same town in which the first printing press was 

 set up and " worked " in 1629. W. W. 



Malta. 



Door Inscription, ^c. — On the gates of Ban- 

 don : 



" Jew, Turk, or Atheist 

 May enter here, but not a Papist." 



On Standard-hill House, near Ninfield, Sussex : 



" God's providence is my inheritance. 

 Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain 



that build it. 

 Here we have [1659] no abidence." 



On the East Well, Hastings : 



" Waste not, want not." 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



Revision of the Booh of Common Prayer. — A 

 correction should be made in ascribing the prayer, 

 which concludes the Morning and Evening Service, 

 to St. Basil, instead of Chrysostom. The latter 

 adopted the liturgy of St. Basil as the basis of his 

 own, and, with much other matter, appropriated 

 also that "nobilissima oratio" (Bunsen's Hippoly- 

 tus, vol. iv. p. 389.). Should any doubt now exist 

 as to the author of this prayer, the arena of " N. 

 & Q." would afford verge enough to settle the 

 point. T. J. BccKTON. 



Lichfield. 



Old Recipes. — The following receipt for the 

 " Morpheus " (a cutaneous eruption), copied from 

 a manuscript in the handwriting of the time of 



