Aug. 7. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



123 



with two or three minor differences. Here you 

 have it : 



" Quant ung cordant 



Veult corder une corde, 



En cordant trois cordons 



En une corde accorde. 



Et si lung des cordons 



De la corde descorde, 



Le cordon qui descorde 



Fait descorder la corde." 



• The reader who would refer to Alain Chartier's 

 compositions, will find the above lines in the edi- 

 tion of Galliot du Tre, 1529, small 8vo., fo. 340. 

 verso. GusTAVE Masson. 



PARALLEL PASSAGES. 



I. 



" And many an ante-natal tomb 

 Where butterflies dream of the life to come." 

 Shelley's Sensitive Plant. 



" The sense of flying in our sleep might, he thought, 

 probably be the anticipation or forefeeling of an im- 

 evolved power, like an Aurelia's dream of butterfly 

 motion." — Southey, The Doctor, vi. 158. 



II. 



" E'en from out thy slime 

 The monsters of the deep are form'd." 



Byron (to the Ocean), Childe Harold. 



" Yet monsters from thy large increase we find, 

 Engender'd in the slime thou leav'st behind." 



Dryden, The Medal. 



III. 



*' Her lips are like roses, and her mouth much the same, 

 Like a dish of fresh strawberries sinother'd in cream." 

 " The Boys of Kilkenny," Songs of Ireland. 

 DuflTy, 1846. 



" Sylla's a mulberry covered with meal." 



Quoted (as far as the quoter could recollect) 

 from Mrs. H. Gray's Etruria. 



IV. 



Things not to be trusted : 

 " A bright sky, 

 A smiling master, 

 The cry of a dog, 

 A harlot's sorrow." 

 Howitt's Literature and Romance of NoHhern 

 Europe. 



" Grant I may never be so fond 

 To trust man in his oath or bond, 

 Or a harlot for her weeping, 

 Or a dog that seems a-sleeping." 



Apemantus' Grace. Timon of Athens. 



The collocation of dogs and harlots in both pas- 

 sages is remarkable. 



V. 

 " Thou must either soar or stoop, 

 Fall or triumph, stand or droop ; 



Thou must either serve or govern, 

 Must be slave or must be sovereign ; 

 Must, in fine, be block or wedge. 

 Must be anvil or be sledge." 

 Extracted from a Magazine (Fraser's?) before 1838. 

 " In this world a man must be either anvil or hammer." 

 Longfellow's Hyperion, b. iv. c. vi. 

 Habey Leboy Temple. 



rOLK LOBE. 



Hertfordshire Folk Lore. — Hertfordshire, not- 

 withstanding its proximity to the metropolis, still 

 contains some localities where as yet the school- 

 master is known by tradition only. Consequently, 

 whilst there may be much ignorance to deplore, 

 there is also in those sequestered nooks as trusting 

 a belief in many harmless scientific heresies as 

 Primate Cullen himself could well desire. 



For instance ; from as true an example of un- 

 sophisticated humanity as one might hope to meet 

 with in this prosaic age, a good-natured, garrulous 

 old Benedick, I gathered a fact not perhaps known 

 to every gardener. I was admiring what seemed 

 to me to be a very fine specimen of a herb, with 

 which I was cockney enough not to be very fa- 

 miliar. " That be rosemary, sir," said the worthy 

 cottager; "and they do say that it only grows 

 where the missis is master, and it do grow here 

 like wildfire." 



Strolling in the garden of another villager, I 

 saw a mouse, not one of the little devouring ani- 

 mals so abhorred by clean and careful housewives, 

 but u pretty taper-snouted out-door resident, 

 quite as destructive in his habits, lying dead upon 

 one of the paths. No marks of violence were 

 visible upon it, and I was earnestly assured that 

 these mice, whenever they attempt to cross a foot- 

 path, always die in the effort. Putting a credu- 

 lous face upon this piece of information, I was met 

 by the reply, "Ah! you Lunnuners doant know 

 everything ; why I've found 'em dead upon the 

 paths scores o' times, and I know they can't get 

 across alive." 



During a short visit on Easter Sunday in last 

 year at the house of an aged relative, a widow 

 farmer, close upon her eightieth year, the rain fell 

 copiously for some hours ; remarking upon which, 

 the old dame exclaimed, "They do say in these 

 parts 



" 'A good deal of rain on Easter-day 



Gives a crop of good grass, but little good hay;' 



and Pm much afear'd it'll be so to-year." 



Parallels to the above may have a place in the 

 recollection of some of your correspondents in 

 other parts of England. Henry Campkin. 



Reform Club. 



