Oct. 23. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



385 



with the old copperplates of the title-pages, and 

 sold. The purchaser, as I believe, had the old 

 date erased from the copper, and reissued copies to 

 the trade without a date : and there is an end of a 

 mystery, and, as I believe, of the " first edition" of 

 Pbakciscus. L. J. 



NOTES ON NEWSPAPERS. 



I occasionally see literary and other paragraphs 

 in the newspapers which, though of more than 

 passing interest, are soon utterly lost and for- 

 gotten in those trackless seas of print. One such 

 I send herewith as a specimen, and would suggest 

 whether it might not be made compatible with 

 editorial duties to collect and give permanent life 

 to these interesting " waifs and strays." Your 

 readers might also be requested to assist, especially 

 from the provincial papers. J. Md. 



" The following passage from the memoirs of the 

 late General v. Muffling, written by himself, under 

 the title of Aus meinem Lehen, will perhaps at this 

 niomenf be read with some interest. Miiffliag was 

 the agent of all communications between the head- 

 quarters of Blucher and the Duke of Wellington 

 during the march of the allies on Paris, after the 

 return of Napoleon from Elba : 



" ' During the march (after the battle of Waterloo) 

 Blucher had once a chance of taking Napoleon pri- 

 soner, which he was very anxious to do; from the 

 French Commissioners who were sent to him to pro- 

 pose an armistice, he demanded the delivery of Na- 

 poleon to him as the first condition of the negociations. 

 I was charged by Marshal Blucher to represent to 

 .the Duke of Wellington that the Congress of Vienna 

 had declared Napoleon outlawed, and that he was de- 

 termined to have him shot the moment he fell into his 

 hands. Yet he wished to know from tlie Duke what 

 he thought of the matter ; for if he (the Duke) liad 

 the same intentions, the Marshal was willing to act 

 with him in carrying them into effect. 



" ' The Duke looked at me rather astonished, and 

 began to dispute the correctness of the Marshal's in- 

 terpretation of the proclamation of Vienna, which was 

 not at all intended to authorise or incite to the murder 

 of Napoleon ; he believed, therefore, that no right to 

 shoot him in case he should be made prisoner of war 

 could be founded on this document, and he thought 

 the position both of himself and the Marshal towards 

 Napoleon, since the victory had been won, was too 

 high to permit such an act to be committed. I had 

 felt all the force of the Duke's arguments before I de- 

 livered the message I had very unwillingly undertaken, 

 and was therefore not inclined to oppose them. " I 

 therefore," continued the Duke, " wish ray friend and 

 colleague to see this matter in tlie light I do ; such an 

 act would give our names to history stained by a 

 crime, and posterity would say of us, they were not 

 worthy to be his conquerors ; the more so, as such a 

 deed is useless, and can have no object." Of these ex- 

 pressions, I only used enough to dissuade Blucher 

 £iom his intention.' 



" There are three despatches given by Muffling in 

 the appendix to his memoirs, in which the execution 

 of Napoleon is urged on the Duke of Wellington by 

 Blucher; they are signed by Gneisenau, and leave no 

 doubt of the determination to revenge the bloodshed of 

 the war on the cause of it, had he fallen into the hands 

 of the Prussian commander. Blucher's fixed idea was 

 that the Emperor should be executed on the very spot 

 where the Due d'Enghien was put to death. The la.st 

 despatch yields an unwilling assent to the Duke of 

 Wellington's remonstrances, and calls his interference 

 ' dramatic magnanimity,' which the Prussian head- 

 quarters did not at all comprehend. Probably but 

 few Frenchmen are aware of the existence of this cor- 

 respondence, or that it is an historical fact Napoleon's 

 life was saved by his rival, whom it cost no small ex- 

 ertion to save it." — From The Times of Oct. 4, 1852, 

 under the general heading of " Prussia. From our 

 own Correspondent, Berlin, Sept. 29." 



Christmas-day on a Thursday. — In an old 

 poem preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the 

 British Museum, occurs the following superstition 

 connected with the falling of Christmas-day on a 

 Thursday : 



" If Christmas-day on Thursday be, 

 A windy winter you shall see ; 

 Windy weather in each week. 

 And hard tempests, strong and thick : 

 The summer shall be good and dry, 

 Corn and beasts shall multiply ; 

 That year is good for lands to till. 

 Kings and Princes shall die by skill ; 

 If a child that day born should be. 

 It shall happen right well for thee. 

 Of deeds he shall be good and stable. 

 Wise of speech and reasonable. 

 Whoso that day goes thieving about, 

 He shall be punished without doubt ; 

 And if sickness that day betide, 

 It shall quickly from thee glide." 



The prophecy regarding the first six lines has 

 been fulfilled ; it remains to be seen whether the 

 rest will be so or not. W. 



Chronogram. — On a bell at Clifton-on-Teme, 

 Worcestershire, is this inscription : 



" henrICVs Ieffreyes 

 keneLMo DeVoVIt." 



The large capitals were a quaint device to re- 

 present, in Eoman numerals, the year in which the 

 recasting of the bell took place, 1668. J. Noake. 

 Worcester. 



Cheshire Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings. — 

 From a collection I have seen, it would appear 

 that Cheshire is famed for its proverbs and pro- 

 verbial sayings, which to a stranger in that county 



