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says: Bottles. The customary glass bottle
of wine or spirits should contain one-sixth of
a gallon = 26 2-3rd fluid ounces." I may per-
haps direct the attention of MR. DOUGLAS to a
somewhat interesting note of mine, written
about fifteen years ago (11S. x. 365). It con-
cerns the bottle, magnum, double magnum, PROBABLY
jeroboam, rehoboam, alias imperial.

The Library.

The Elizabethan Jig. By Charles Read Baskervill. (University of Chicago Press £1 2s. 6d. net).

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A captain bold in Halifax that dwelt in country quarters,

Deceived a maid who hanged herself one morning in her garters.

His wicked conscience smited him, he lost his stomach daily,

He took to drinking turpentine and thought upon Miss Bailey.

O Miss Bailey, unfortunate Miss Bailey, O Miss Bailey, unfortunate Miss Bailey. The first line of this is quoted (oddly enough) in the preface to an edition of Terence's comedies published about 1830, in my possession, as an example of a kind of Latin metre. Exactly the same tune appears on p. 36 of Songs of Ireland' (Boosey), with some words by Thomas Moore, singularly illsuited to the tune, as his 'Irish Melodies' (published 1807 and after) often were, under the title 'O! the Shamrock.' The original tune to which Moore wrote his words is called in brackets underneath 'Alley Croker.' Apparently Moore wrote his 'O! the Shamrock to the folk-tune 'Alley Croker' (of which the original words may or may not have disappeared by his time, but certainly have now), but his version evidently did not displace the more appropriate Captain bold in Halifax' version, as the latter was quoted in the 1830's in an edition of a classical author.

Cambridge.

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B. O'CONNOR.

A Captain bold of Halifax, who lived in is the first line of 'The country quarters Unfortunate Miss Bailey,' curiously described at the above reference as a soldier's song." The piece (one version, at any rate) is given in John Ashton's 'Collection of Street Ballads.' The line quoted must have been familiar to many a schoolboy as a parallel (mutatis mutandis) to the classical Iambic Tetrameter Catalectic.

Bad Wildungen.

EDWARD BENSLY.

clear

OROBABLY the only distinct association carried by "jig" in most people's minds is that of Mother Hubbard's dog. What exactly did his performance in "dancing a jig" consist of? Complete it could not be, in the nature of things, for the true jig is a combination of dance, song, and acting. Here is a pleasant and profitable field for research. When we have acquired a idea of what such a performance was among the folk of Elizabethan days-the tunes, the words, the steps, the subject-matter-we get, first, distinct and valuable increase of our understanding of the background of the Elizabethan stage. By comparison of that background with our own we are enabled to form fresh conjecture to explain Elizabethan superiority over us in the matter of drama. Companies who could enjoy performing jigs and seeing others perform them must have possessed to a degree much beyond that of our present people the two qualities of high spirits and unselfconsciousness: possibly these are more needful for great drama than has

usually been supposed. A plausible argument might be constructed to show that readingis destroying them in modern populations; and reading no doubt has destroyed or at least diminished the taste for games in the of impromptu entertainments, social dancing and singing, festival contests and like pastimes. It forms spectators rather than players.

sense

Again, the jig is a development from wellknown mediaeval forms of play-closely connected especially with the ballad and study of it completes the study of this side of mediaeval life.

The Elizabethan jig, however, has its direct importance for the theatre. Principally as farce and satire, and largely through the famous Dick Tarleton, the first of clowns, it established itself on the stage. It was a good vehicle for satire; it lent itself easily to variations of form, and Mr. Baskervill suggests that "in the long run it may have been responsible in no small measure for the complete triumph of English comic opera in the form of ballad opera." The text of most of the jigs have that special excellence. SO conspicuous in Gay's songs in the

Beggar's Opera,' of keeping exact time and

beat in the words with the music. One can hear in them not merely the song but also the dance.

Of the texts of jigs, which form Part II, about half are German, and it is through the German version that we know the words of Rowland.' the jig for four performers which the most popular of any in England. In general the poetical value of the verses is small, but 'the Souldiers Farewel to his love' is a pretty piece-written by some

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When Soll with his Beams,
Had guilded the streams,

And Nymphs and Young Shepherds

awakt from their Dreams:
I heard a Sad Moan

In a neighbouring Grove
from a Voice all alone.

Mr. Baskervill's scholarly and exhaustive discussion, which is a really impressive work not only for its handling but also for the huge amount of material collected and dealt with, is distributed into ten chapters. He sketches first a general background, and then outlines the scope of the jig particularly in satire, political, religious and personal. Next we have the stage jig, which brings us to Tarleton, and a general account of it after Tarleton's death. In the Aftermath of the Jig' we consider the relation of this minor dramatic form to other such forms which come into vogue in courtly circles-the masque and the opera. Various aspects of ballad

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jigs and farce jigs are treated in the next four chapters, and the concluding one is devoted to the dance. The book brings into something like final form series of investigations, some of which have already been published, and will certainly win the gratitude of the students, enriching as it does one's conception of the folk-element which furnished part of the essential stuff of Elizabethan drama.

Selections from Carlyle. Edited by A. H. R. Ball. (Cambridge University Press. 4s. net.)

A re-estimate of Carlyle is a good thing to

have. That which Mr. Ball gives in his introduction to these selections is both comprehensive and penetrating, and it is besides well-adjusted to the passages he invites the reader to consider. It strikes us as specially good and illuminating in the sections on Carlyle's philosophy and political philosophy, and in the initial paragraph on his history. For the passages chosen we would express in the main approval, though we would have given one or two from 'On Heroes' for another piece from the Life of Sterling.

We have received four new numbers of the Oxford Series of the World's Classics (2s. each); Noblekens and his Times; Joseph Andrews; Headlong Hall and Nightmare Abbey and Trollope's Cousin Henry. To the first Mr. Walter Sichel provides an Introduction a very pleasantly written and discriminating essay-and Mr. L. Rice-Oxley deals adequately and readably with the Fielding. The Oxford Press sends us also Joseph Haydn by D. G. A. Fox-a member of the Musical Pilgrim' series edited by Sir Arthur Somer. vell. After a short but fitting introduction

Mr. Fox analyses three symphonies (D major, B. flat major, and that in D major known as The Clock'); the Creation, and four String Quartets. We believe that the ever. increasing use of musical records is the beginning of a new development in the relation of music to everybody's daily life. Some thing, it is true, is to be gained by the per formance of musical works which cannot be otherwise gained; but in the multitude who can never hope to play anything adequately, nor can attend concerts often enough to become familiar with great music (and familiarity is of the essence of the deepest musical understanding) there is a capacity for music which exercised would make a vast difference to life. To provide them with guidance in listening is a most inspiring task, and here we have a good and well-conceived example of this guidance. Haydn, with the musical public which we believe to be growing up, should have a high place, and a happy influence.

new

From Oxford too, published for the British Academy, comes the volume of the Academy's Proceedings (£1 10s.) for 1926. This is a fine and varied collection of essays some of which have already been noticed in our columns. The year fell rather heavily on the Academy: here are obituary notices of Viscount Bryce of Dechmont (H. A. L. Fisher); James Ward (W. R. Sorley); Sir Thomas Erskine Holland (R. S. Conway); John Percival Postgate (Dr. (W. S. Holdsworth); Sir William Ridgeway S. G. Owen); Charles Lethbridge Kingsford (A. G. Little); B. P. Grenfell (Arthur S. Hunt). Written by men who had the right to do so, these biographies and appreciations are of main importance in the volume.

CORRIGENDUM.

At ante p. 445, col. 2, 1. 18, for "Sabonadisse " read Sabonadierc.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor, correspondents are requested to put in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of 'N. & Q.' to which the letter refers.

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It is proposed to compile a list of Libraries which possess a file of The Manager would be grateful if Librarians "Notes and Queries." would kindly inform him the extent of the file preserved in their library.

Printed and Published by The Bucks Free Press, Ltd., at their Offices, 20, High Street. High Wycombe, in the County of Bucks.

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QUERIES:-E. Monti, sculptor Evan EvansScott and Mary Ponsonby-A Border Ballad, 24 -The Rev. John Denne (1731-67)-Traditions of Judge Jeffreys-An unknown "Dr. Syntax" Eric Gill-Proscenium mottoes-Hebe and the Milky Way-Decimation-Jute at Dundee and Shoes at Northampton, 25-American punctuation-The Gibson vault: Sutton, Surrey: annual opening-Philately-London Streets paved with gold-Mallory: Ruggeley: Pell: Dixwell: Grenville, 26.

REPLIES:-The Monogram YHS-Gimbers: Wiver -Sunday fairs and markets, 27-Japanese borrowing of European words-Adoption and modification of arms: Grandison, de la Mare, Blount,

28-Potato-rings-Richard Davis-Aliases in the sixteenth century-Chloroform, 29 The Portland Vase: copies-William Jones Britannia as a Christian name-Synge Family of County Salop, 30-The Authorship of The Silver King '-Lamartine's wife-Margaret Nicholson, 31-Two Epitaphs by Dean Swift-The Fall-The Eagle in Heraldry. 32-Feast of St. Blasius-Hornchurch, Essex-Charies Wyall, M.P. for Sudbury-John Hort: Lord Dunkeron Bellringers' terms Click 'em Inn, 33-Crests: identification required -Poll Lists-Lord Leigh-Folk customs: blinds pulled down in house of death-Lists of doctors and attorneys wanted, 34.

Reference wanted Author

THE LIBRARY: - 'The Decline of the Age of Louis XIV' German Influence in Danish Literature in the Eighteenth Century '-' Bibliography of the Poetics of Aristotle' Bookseller's Catalogue.

ELEVENTH SERIES (1910-1915). Bound cloth. Price 21/-; postage 6d.

TWELFTH SERIES (1916-1923)

cloth. Price 21/-; postage 6d.

T

INDEX TO VOL. CLV.

Bound

THE TITLE PAGE and SUBJECT INDEX for VOLUME CLV (July-December, 1928) is now available. Orders, accompanied by a remittance, should be sent to "NOTES AND QUERIES," 20, High Street, High Wycombe, Bucks, England. The Index is also on sale at our London Office, 14, Burleigh Street, London, W.C.2.

Price: 2s. 7d. post free.

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NOTES JOTES AND QUERIES is published every Friday, at 20, High Street, High Wycombe, Bucks (Telephone: Wycombe 306). Subscriptions (£2 2s. a year, U.S.A. $10.23, including postage, two half-yearly indexes and two cloth binding cases, or 4d. a year, U.S.A. $8.61 without binding cases) should be sent to the Manager. The London Office is at 14, Burleigh Street, W.C.2 (Telephone: Temple Bar 7576), where the current issue is on sale. Orders for back numbers, indexes and bound volumes

should be sent either to London or to Wycombe;

letters for the Editor to the London Office.

Memorabilia.

WE have read with pleasure Mr. E. Clive

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Rouse's article on the Mural Paintings in Chalfont St. Giles Church, contributed to the Records of Buckinghamshire (the Journal of the Architectural and Archæological Society of that County). Mr. Rouse gives a description in detail of the paintings which have been uncovered, and this includes some better explanation of certain groups than had been possible when less of the painting was visible. Thus scheme of brickwork," which had been interpreted as the oven of Purgatory," is now seen to be part of the conventional rendering of a house, and crowned figure, which had not very felicitously been supposed to be part of a memorial of a business transaction is found to be St. Catherine. In the South aisle mural tablets interfere with the pictures of subjects from Genesis, and it is satisfactory to learn that, as soon as funds permit, a faculty will be obtained for moving them away. Recent work has completed and rendered more impressive the already well-known Crucifixion and Resurrection and the St. John Baptist frescoes, and the fuller the discoveries, the more astonishing and the more grievous appear the doings of Street, who "restoring

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the church in the 'sixties, covered the walls and their treasure with dull-grey cement. Professor Tristram's services both in interpreting and in making cartoons of the frescoes have, of course, been invaluable.

It

is now thought that the subjects may have been chosen from the Golden Legend; the work was probably done by a guild of artists,

established perhaps in London, and not by the ordinary itinerant artist. It is certainly not local. Itinerant artist or monk," Mr. Rouse says: but have we not been a little too ready to picture to ourselves monks as artists?

IN the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Professor A. F. Pollard begins a series of 'Tudor Gleanings' with a discussion of the "De Facto" Act of Henry VII. The article deals, of course, with one of the key principles of sixteenth and seventeenth century political doctrine. The force of the Act (which does not itself contain the phrases de facto and de jure) was to prevent the attainting or molesting of any persons who had served the King of this land for the time being," the King de facto, that is. The political doctrine involved that the King de facto fully superseded the King de jure-grew to its academic proportions, however, without any legal or practical tests of its validity. Professor Pollard draws his article to the

interesting conclusion that it required a

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Revolution to commend the theory that, by Henry VII's Act, jurisdiction under usurper was legally valid; and he epigrammatically tells us that the theory of the process, strategically sound but historically false, by which the Whigs invented a medieval constitution in order to prove that the Stuarts broke it."

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THE third instalment of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's letters to her sister, from Florence, which are now appearing in the Cornhill, gives us letters x to xiv. Again there comes up the interesting contrast between life in the England of the eighteenforties and contemporary life abroad. Mr. Justice Mackinnon, in an interesting paper on the High Sheriff, has some remarks on the well-known pricking." This, which has all the look of an old custom, he found to go back no further than Elizabeth. In the Sheriff Rolls-a fragment from that of Henry VI, and those of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary-at the Record Office, the name of the selected sheriff has a black dot against it. The writer mentions a suggestion by the Provost of Eton that the pricking may have begun by the roll being brought to Elizabeth one day when at needlework, who, in her impatience, would not wait for the standish, but pricked holes with her needle where the black dots would have been made, and so started the custom. The bodkin now used by the King for pricking the Sheriffs is believed to have been made for Queen Victoria when she came to

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