112 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 196. 



The poem follows, containing the lines which led 

 to the first inquiry on this subject. 



It was having read the Memoir in The Irish 

 Quarterly which enabled me so promptly to re- 

 member where the lines were to be found ; but I 

 had long before heard, and never doubted, that the 

 clever parody was composed by Dr. Maginn. 



A. B. R. 



Belmont. 



Mitigation of Capital Punishment (Vol. viii., 

 p. 42 ). — I am sorry Mb. Gatty takes the phrase 

 " mythic accompaniments " as an imputation on 

 himself. I did not intend it for one, having no 

 doubt that he repeated the story as he heard it. 

 In it were two statements of the highest degree of 

 improbability. One I showed (Vol. v., p. 434.) to 

 be contrary to penal, the other to forensic practice. 

 One Mr. Gatty found to have been only a report, 

 the other to have occurred at a different place and 

 under different circumstances. Had these been 

 stated in the first version, I should not have dis- 

 puted them. Whittington was thrice Lord Mayor 

 of London — that is history, to which the pro- 

 phecy of Bow-bells and the exportation of the cat 

 are "mythic accompaniments." 



A word as to " disclosing only initials." I think 

 you, as a means of authentification, should have 

 the name and address of every correspondent. 

 You have mine, and may give them to any one 

 who pays me the compliment of asking ; but I do 

 not seek farther publicity. H. B. C. 



Oxford. 



The Man with the Iron Mask (Vol. vii., pp. 234. 

 344.). — I think that Mr. James, in his Life and 

 Times of Louis XIV., has, to say the least, shown 

 strong grounds for doubting the theory which 

 identifies this person with Mathioli ; and since 

 then several writers have been inclined to fall 

 back, in the want of any more probable explana- 

 tion, on the old idea that the captive was a twin 

 brother of Louis. What has become of the letter 

 from M. de St. Mars, said to have been discovered 

 some years ago, confirming this last hypothesis ? 

 Has any such letter been published, and, if so, 

 what is the opinion of its genuineness ? 



J. S. "Warden. 



Gentleman executed for Murder of a Slave 

 (Vol. vii., p. 107.) — Sometime between 1800 and 

 1805, Lord Seaforth being Governor of Barbadoes, 

 a slaveowner, having killed one of his own slaves, 

 was tried for the murder and acquitted, the law 

 considering that such an act was not murder. 

 Thereupon Lord Seaforth came to England, ob- 

 tained an act of parliament declaring the killing of 

 a slave to be murder, and returned to Barbadoes 

 to resume his official duties. Soon afterwards 

 another slave was killed by his owner, who was 

 tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged for 



murder under the new act of parliament. At the 

 time appointed the prisoner was brought out for 

 execution, but so strong was public feeling, that- 

 the ordinary executioner was not forthcoming; 

 and on the governor requiring the sheriff to per- 

 form his office either in person or by deputy, after 

 some excuses he absolutely refused. The go- 

 vernor then addressed the guard of soldiers, de- 

 siring a volunteer for executioner, adding, " who- 

 ever would volunteer should be subsequently 

 protected as well as rewarded then." One pre- 

 sented himself, and it thenceforth became as dan- 

 gerous to kill a slave as a freeman in Barbadoes. 



G. M. E. C. 



Jahris Jahrhxich (Vol. viii., p. 34.). — Permit 

 me to inform your correspondent E. C. that there 

 is a copy of Jahn's Jahrhilcher filr Philologie und 

 PcidagGgik in the librai'y of Sir Robert Taylor's 

 Institution, Oxford. Although this library is for 

 the use of members of the university, I am sure 

 the curators of the institution will give their ])er- 

 mission to consult the books in it, to any gentle- 

 man who is properly recommended to them. 



J. Macbat. 



Oxford. 



Character of the Song of the Nightingale 

 (Vol. vii., p. 397.). — I imagine that many of the 

 writers quoted by your correspondent lived in 

 places too far removed to the north or west (as is 

 my own case) ever to have heard the niglitingale, 

 and are, in consequence, not competent authorities 

 as to a song they can only have described at 

 second hand ; but that Shelley was not far wrong 

 in styling it voluptuous, and placing it amidst the 

 luxurious bowers of Daphne, may receive some 

 confirmation from an anecdote told by Nimrod 

 (" Life and Times," Fraser's Magazine, vol. xxv. 

 p. 301 .) of the sad effects produced both on morals 

 and parish rates by the visit of a nightingale one 

 summer to the groves of Erthig, near Wrexham. 



J. S. Warden. 



I accidently met with a scrap of evidence on 

 this point lately, as I was driving at midnight on 

 a sudden call to visit a dying man. The nightin- 

 gales were singing in full choir, when my servant, 

 an intelligent young man from the covintry, re- 

 marked, " A cheerful little bird the nightingale, 

 Sir. It is beautiful to hear them singing when one 

 is walking alone on a dark night." 



Unsophisticated judgment of this sort, when 

 met with unsought, seems to be of real value in a 

 question depending for its decision so much upon 

 the faithful record of impressions. Oxoniensis. 



Walthamstow. 



Mr. Cuthbebt Bede gives, in his list of 

 epithets of the nightingale, "solemn," as used 

 by Milton, Otway, Graingle. How the last two 

 employ the term I do not know, perhaps they 



