100 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 93. 



" I mentioned the refrain of the firemen. Now as a 

 particular one is almost invariably sung by Negroes 

 wiicn they have anything to do with or about a fire; 

 whether it be while working at a New Orleans fire- 

 engine, or crowding wood into the furnaces of a steam- 

 boat ; whether they desire to make an extra racket at 

 leaving, or evince their joy at returning to a port, it 

 may be worth recording ; and here it is : 

 ' Fire on the quarter-deck, 

 Fire on the bow, 

 Fire on the gun-deck. 

 Fire down below ! ' 

 The last line is given by all hands with great vim 

 {sic) and volume ; and as for the chorus itself, you will 

 never meet or pass a boat, you will never behold the 

 departure or arrival of one, and you will never witness 

 a New Orleans fire, without hearing it." 



The writer says nothing about the origin of this 

 Negro melody, and therefore lie is, I presume, 

 unaware of it. But many of your readers will at 

 once recognise the spirited lines, which when once 

 they are read in Walter Scott's Pirate, have some- 

 how a strange pertinacity in ringing in one's ears, 

 and creep into a nook of the memory, from which 

 they ever and anon insist on emerging to the lips. 

 The passage occurs at the end of the fifth chapter 

 of the third volume, where the jiirates recapture 

 their runaway captain : — 



" They gained their boat in safety, and jumped into 

 it, carrying along with them Cleveland, to whom cir- 

 cumstances seemed to olfer no other refuge, and pushed 

 oiF for their vessel, singing in chorus to their oars an 

 old dilly, of which the natives of Kirkwall could only 

 hear the first stanza : 



' Thus said the Rover 

 To his gallant crew, 

 Up with the black flag, 

 Down with the blue! 

 Fire on the main-top, 



Fire on the bow. 

 Fire on the gun-deck, 

 Fire down below I' " 



So run the lines in the original cd't'o'i, but in 

 the revised one of the collected novels in forty- 

 eight volumes, and in all the si'bsequent ones, the 

 first two stand thus : 



" Robin Rover 



Said to his crew." 



This alteration strikes one as anything but an 

 improvement, and it has suggested a doubt, which 

 I beg to apply to the numerous and well-informed 

 body of your readers to solve. Are these lines 

 the production of Walter Scott, as they are gene- 

 rally supposed to be ; or are they really the fragment 

 of an old ditty? The alteration at tlie commence- 

 ment does not seem one that would have found 

 favour in the eyes of an author, but rather the 

 effect of a prompting of memory. I believe, in- 

 deed, the lines are inserted in the volume called 

 The Poetry of the Author of the Waverleij Novels 



(which I saw some years ago, but cannot refer to 

 at this moment), but that is not decisive. 



There is a case in point, which is worth quoting 

 on its own account. In Peveril of the Peak, in 

 the celebrated scene of the interview between 

 Buckingham and Fenella, where Fenella leaps 

 from the window, and Buckingham hesitates to 

 follow, there is this passage ; 



" From a neighbouring thicket of shrubs, amongst 

 which his visitor Iiad disappeared, he heard her chant a 

 verse of a comic song, then much in fashion, concerning 

 a despairing lover who had recourse to a precipice. 

 ' But when he came near, 



Beholding how steep 

 The sides did appear. 



And the bottom how deep ; 

 Though his suit was rejected 

 He sadly reflected, 

 That a lover forsaken 



A new Ijvc may get ; 

 But a neck that's once broken 

 Can never be set.' " 

 This verse, also, if I mistake not, appears in 

 The Poetry of the Author of Waverley, and is cer- 

 tainly set down by almost every reader as the 

 production of Sir AValter. But in the sixth 

 volume of Anderson's Poets of Great Britain, at 

 page 574. in the works of Walsh, occurs a song 

 called " The Desj^airing Lover," in which we are 

 told that — 



" Distracted with care 

 For Phyllis the fair, 

 Since nothing could move her, 

 Poor Damon, her lover, 

 Resolves in despair 

 No longer to languish, 

 Nor bear so much anguish ; 

 But, mad with his love, 

 To a precipice goes. 

 Where a leap from above 

 Would soon finish his woes. 



When in rage he came there, 



Beholding how steep 

 The sides did appear. 



And the bottom how deep, 

 His torments projecting. 

 And sadly reflecting 

 That a lover forsaken," 



&c. &c. &c. 



In this instance it is sliown that Sir Walter was 

 not indebted for the comic song to his wonderful 

 genius, but to his stupendous memory ; and it is 

 just possible that it may be so in the other, in 

 which case one woidd be very glad to see the re- 

 mainder of the " old ditty." T. W. 



56. Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar ? — 

 I have long been very curious to know whether 

 Milton was an Anslo-Saxon scholar. He com- 



