Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/483

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

9" s. vii. JUNE is, 1901.) NOTES AND QUERIES.


475


grapher, Bishop of Chi Chester, not Chester. The 1713 edition, of which I have a copy, is dedicated to Sir William Dawes, Bishop of Chester, afterwards Archbishop of York. It is embellished with the frontispiece mentioned by DR. SIMPSON, a portrait of " George- Lewis, King of Great Britain," &c. (which shows that the book could not have been bound up before 1714), and fifty-five " Historical Cuts," by Sturt and others. Some of them have con- siderable merit, others are very poor. An early owner has written in a beautiful hand on the fly-leaf the following lines : Ad librum Precum Communium. Qui fueras Patrum decus et tutela raeorum,

Laetitise pariter tristitiaeque comes, Qui mini jam puero suasor monitorque fuisti,

Nee juvenem recta passus abire via, Solamen fias idem columenque senectae,

Quo duce supremum carpere fas sit iter ; Te versem studio vivus vatidusque diurno,

" Te teneam moriens deficiente manu," Supremis madeat lacrymis tua pagina nostris, Oscula sint chartis ultima juncta tuis.

F. K.

The following English version may be ac- cepted as a fair equivalent :

Thou, who wast once my fathers' pride and safe- guard,

Sharer alike of all their joys and griefs Who in my boyhood urged and warned me wisely,

Nor let my steps in youth miss the right way Be still through age my prop and consolation.

Under thy guidance may I close this track, In my hale life con thee with daily study,

Still hold thee when my hand falls slack in

death. Be thy page moistened with my latest weeping,

And on thy leaves may my last kiss be pressed.

It might be desired that some son of the Church of England who now shares the venerating affection displayed in these lines would make and publish a careful comparison between the various Latin versions of our "incomparable Liturgy." This does not appear to have been undertaken yet at all thoroughly. Messrs. C. and W. W. Marshall's valuable account of Dean Durel's version, to which DR. SPARROW SIMPSON calls attention, is fairly exhaustive on the Catechism ; but a good deal of valuable space is taken up with somewhat polemical discussions, and they practically "hold a brief" for Durel. My own copy of this version is dated 1691, and this edition seems hitherto to have escaped notice. All the earlier versions are remark- ably scarce, considering that several editions of each (excepting Aless's) appeared. Probably the issues generally were limited:

CECIL DEEDES.

ROOD WELL, EDINBURGH (9 th S. vii. 207). The site of the old u Rude well " is a matter of


conjecture. It has been suggested that about the year 1251 its name was changed to St. Margaret's. Some remarks on the subject are to be found in the fifth volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and a summary of them is given in Mackinlay's 'Folk-lore of Scottish Lochs and Springs,' p. 18. Mackay, in his * History of the Burgh of Canon gate,' quotes Bellen- den's translation of Boece's narrative, from which I extract the following sentence : " The hart fled away with great voilence, and evanist in the same place quhare now springis the Rude well."

The land on which St. Margaret's Well was situated was acquired by the North British Railway Company, and a private station was constructed there, which, being near Holy rood Palace, was frequently used by Queen Vic- toria when visiting Edinburgh. Soon after the well came into the possession of the rail- way company the water disappeared, having found another channel. W. S.

BYRON'S POEM ON GREECE (9 th S. vii. 328). The following are the lines inquired for by W. F. L. :-

Know'st thou the land of the hardy green thistle, Where oft o'er the mountain the shepherd's shrill

whistle

Is heard in the gloamin' so sweetly to sound, Where the red blooming heather and hare-bell

abound ?

Know'st thou the land of the mountain and flood, Where the pine of the forest for ages hath stood, Where the eagle comes forth on the wings of the

storm, And the young ones are rock d on the high

Cairngorm ?

Know'st thou the land where the cold Celtic wave Encircles the hills which its blue waters lave ; Where the virgins are pure as the gems of the sea, And their spirits are light as their actions are free ?

'Tis the land of my sires, 'tis the land of my youth, Where first my young heart glow'd with honour

and truth, Where the wild fire of genius nrst caught my young

soul, And my feet and my fancy roam'd free from

control.

And is there no charm in our own native earth ? Does no talisman rest on the place of our birth 7 Are the blue hills of Albyn not worthy our note ? Shall her sons' deeds in war, shall her fair, be

forgot? Then strike the wild lyre, let it swell with the

strain ;

Let the mighty in arms live and conquer again ; Their past deeds of valour shall we not rehearse, And the charms of our maidens resound in our

verse ?

I regret that in my copies of the above poem the author's name is not given ; probably