370 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 234. 



closed for 498?. 2s. 5d. If the instrument I sent 

 over should not be satisfactory, I will sign any 

 new deed which shall be sent me for the purpose. 



I have not much acquaintance w th Lord Nor- 

 thington ; but seeing him at St. James's the day 

 he took leave of the King, I wish'd him success 

 in his new government, and took the liberty to 

 mention your name to him as y e person in the 

 whole kingdom whose advice would be most be- 

 neficial to him. I told him I asked no favour of 

 him but one, which was to recollect what I then 

 said to him if he should have occasion to call upon 

 you for advice and assistance hereafter, when he 

 would find it for his great satisfaction to be well 

 founded. 



I am, my dear Lord, your most obliged and 

 faithful humble servant, 



Richard Rigbt. 



To the Rt. Honorable Lord Ch. 

 Justice Paterson, at Dublin. 



Free, R. Rigby. 



THE WATCDERING BEE. 



" High mountains closed the vale, 

 Bare, rocky mountains, to all living things 

 Inhospitable ; on whose sides no herb 

 Rooted, no insect fed, no bird awoke 

 Their echoes, save the eagle, strong of wing ; 



A lonely plunderer, that afar 



Sought in the vales his prey. 



" Thither towards those mountains Thalaba 

 Advanced, for well he ween'd that there had Fate 

 Destined the adventure's eud. 

 Up a wide vale, winding amid their depths, 

 A stony vale between receding heights 

 Of stone, he wound his way. 

 A cheerless place ! The solitary Bee, 

 Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, 

 Flew there on restless wing, 

 Seeking in vain one blossom, where to fix." 



Thalaba, book vi. 12, 13. 



This incident of the wandering bee, highly 

 poetical, seems at first sight very improbable, and 

 passes for one of the many strange creations of 

 this wild poem. But yet it is quite true to 

 nature, and was probably suggested to Southey, 

 an omnivorous reader, by some out-of-the-way 

 book of travels. 



In Hurton's Voyage to Lapland, vol. ii. p. 251., 

 published a few years since, he says that as he 

 stood on the verge of the North Cape, — 



" The only living creature that came near me was a 

 bee, which hummed merrily by. What did the busy 

 insect seek there? Not a blade of grass grew, and the 

 only vegetable matter on this point was a cluster of 

 withered moss at the very edge of the awful precipice, 



and it I gathered at considerable risk as a memorial of 

 my visit." 



So in Fremont's Exploring Expedition to the 

 Rocky Mountains, 1842, p. 69., he speaks of stand- 

 ing on the crest of the snow peak, 13,570 feet 

 above the Gulf of Mexico, and adds : 



" During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign 

 of animal life, except the small sparrow-like bird 

 already mentioned. A stillness the most profound, and 

 a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly on the 

 mind as the great features of the place. Here on the- 

 summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by 

 any sound, and the solitude complete, we thought our- 

 selves beyond the region of animated life : but while 

 we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (Bromus, the 

 humble bee) came winging his flight from the eastern 

 valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men. 



" It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest 

 peak of the Rocky Mountains, for a lover of warm 

 sunshine and flowers ; and we pleased ourselves with 

 the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the 

 mountain barrier, a solitary pioneer to foretell the ad- 

 vance of civilisation. I believe that a moment's thought 

 would have made us let him continue his way unharmed, 

 but we carried out the law of this country, where all 

 animated nature seems at war; and seizing him imme- 

 diately, put him in at least a fit place, in the leaves of 

 a large book, among the flowers we had collected on 

 our wav." 



A. B. 



Philadelphia. 



delator iSota*. 



Tippet. — The origin of words signifying ar- 

 ticles of dress would be a curious subject for in- 

 vestigation. Tippet is derived by Barclay from 

 the Saxon tappet; but I find the following pas- 

 sage in Captain Erskine's Journal of his recent 

 Cruise in the Western Pacific, p. 36. He is 

 writing of the dress of the women at the village of 

 Feleasan, in the Samoan Islands : 



" And occasionally a garment (tiputa) resembling a 

 small poncho, with "a slit for the head, hanging so as- 

 decently to conceal the bosom." 



May we not trace here both the article and the 

 name? W. T. M. 



Ridings and Chaffings. — A singular custom 

 prevails in South Nottinghamshire and North 

 Leicestershire. When a husband, forgetting his 

 solemn vow to love, honour, and keep his wife, 

 has had recourse to physical force and beaten her, 

 the rustics get up what is called " a riding." A 

 cart is drawn through the village, having in it two 

 persons dressed so as to resemble the woman and 

 her master. A dialogue, representing the quarrel^ 

 is carried on, and a supposed representation of 

 the beating is inflicted. This performance is 



