206 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 72. 



1846 ; and, at all events, attention was called to these 

 passages in the Alheiiteum of the 12th September in 

 that year, No. 985.] 



Soul sepai-ates from the Body. — In Vol. ii., 

 p. 506., is an allusion to au ancient supefstition, 

 that the human soul sometimes leaves the body of 

 a sleejjing person and takes another form ; allow 

 me to mention that I remember, some forty years 

 ago, heariiirr a servant from Lincolnshire relate 

 a story of two travellers who laid down by the 

 road-side to rest, and one fell asleep. The other, 

 seeing- a bee settle on a neighbouring w.all and go 

 into a little hole, put tlie end of his staft'in the hole, 

 and so imprisoned the bee. Wishing to pursue 

 his journey, he endeavoured to awaken his com- 

 panion, but was unable to do so, till, resuming his 

 stick, the bee flew to the sleeping man and went 

 into his ear. His companion then awoke him, 

 remarking how soundly he liad been sleeping, and 

 asked what had he been dreaming of? "Oh!" 

 said he, " I dreamt (hat you shut me up in a dark 

 cave, and I could not awake till you let me out." 

 The person who told me the story firmly believed 

 that the man's soul was in the bee. F. S. 



Ladys Trees. — In some parts of Cornwall, small 

 branches of sea-weed, dried and fitstened in turned 

 wooden stands, .are set up as ornaments on the 

 chimney-piece, &c. The poor people suppose 

 that they preserve the house from fire, and they 

 are known by the name of " Ladys trees," in 

 honour, I presume, of the Virgin Mary. 



II. G. T. 



Launceston. 



Norfolk Folk Lore Rhymes. — I have met with 

 the rhymes following, whicli may not bo unin- 

 teresting to some of your readers as Folk Lore, 

 Norfolk : — 



" Rising was, Lynn is, and Downhani shall be. 

 The greatest seaport of the three.' 

 Another version of the same runs thus : 

 " Rising was a seaport town, 

 And Lyntt it was a wash, 

 But now Lynn is a seaport Lynn, ' 

 And Rising fares the worst." 

 Also another satirical tradition in rhyme : 

 " That nasty stinking sink -hole of sin. 



Which the map of the county denominates Lynn." 

 Also : 



" Caistor was a city ere Norwich was none,^ 

 And Norwich v.'as built of Caistor stone." 



John jSJukse Chadwick. 

 King's Lynn. 



iMtitar ^ate^. 



Note for the Topographers of Ancient London, 

 and for the JMonasticon. — 



" Walter Grendon, Prior of the hospital of S' John 



of Jerusalem, acknowledges to have received, by the 

 hands of Robert Upgate and Ralph Halstede, — from 

 Margaret, widow of S"^ John Pl>ilippot K*, — Thomas 

 Goodlak and their partners, — 4 pounds in full pay- 

 ment of arrears of all the rent due to us from their 

 tenement called Jesoreshall in the city of London. 

 " Dated 1. December, 1406." 



From the oriainal in the Surrcndcn collection. 



L. B. L. 



Gray and Burns. — 



" Authors, before they write, should read." 

 So thought Slattliew Prior ; and if that rule had 

 been attended to, neither would Lord Byron have 

 deemed it worth notice that " the knell of parting 

 day," in Gray's Elegy, " was adopted from Dante;" 

 nor would Mr. Gary have remarked upon " this 

 plagiarism," if indeed he used the term. (I refer 

 to " Notes and Queries," Vol. iii., p. 35.) The 

 truth is, that in every good edition of Gray's 

 Works, there is a note to the line in question, by 

 the poet himself, expressly stating that the passage 

 is "a/i imitation of the quotation from Dante" thus 

 brought forward, 



I eoidd furnish you with various notes on Gray, 

 pointing out remarkable coincidences of sentiment 

 and ex])ression between himself and other writers; 

 but I cannot allow Gray to be a plagiary, any 

 more thnu I can allow Burns to lie so designated, 

 in the following instances : — 



At the end of the poem called The Vision, we 

 find — 



" And like a passing thought she fled." 



In Hesiod we huve — 



" 'O 8' eiTTaTO aiare vorifia." — Sc«t. Here. 222. 

 Again, few persons are unacquainted with 

 Burns's lines — 



" Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, 

 An' then she made," &c. 



In an old play, CupicFs Whirligig (4to. 1607), 

 we read — 



" Man was made when Nature was but an appren- 

 tice, but woman when she was a skilful mistress of her 

 art." 



Pliny, in his Natural History, has the pretty 

 notion that 



" Nature, in karnlng to form a lily, turned out a 

 convolvulus." 



Vabro. 



Richard III., Traditional Notice of. — I have 

 an aunt, now eighty-nine years of age, who in early 

 life knew one who was in the habit of saying : 



" I knew a man, who knew a man, who knew a man 

 who danced at court in the days of Richard III." 



Thus there have been but three links between one 

 who knew llichard III. and one now alive. 



My aunt's acquaintance could name his three 

 predecessors, who were members of his own family ; 



