Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850   By: Various

A MEDIUM OF INTER COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of." CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

No. 47.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850 [Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4d.

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CONTENTS.

NOTES: Old Songs. 257 "Junius Identified." by J. Taylor. 258 Folk Lore: Spiders a Cure for Ague Funeral Superstition Folk Lore Rhymes. 259 On a Passage in the Tempest, by S.W. Singer. 259 Punishment of Death of Burning. 260 Note on Morganatic Marriages. 261 Minor Notes: Alderman Beckford Frozen Horn Inscription translated Parallel Passages Note on George Herbert's Poems "Crede quod habes" Grant to Earl of Sussex First Woman formed from a Rib Beau Brummell's Ancestry. 262

QUERIES: Gray's Elegy and Dodsley's Poems. 264 Hugh Holland and his Works, by E.F. Rimbault, L.L.D. 265 Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood. 266 Minor Queries: Bernardus Patricius Meaning of Hanger Cat and Bagpipes Andrew Becket Laurence Minot Modena Family Bamboozle Butcher's Blue Dress Hatchment and Atchievement "Te colui Virtutem" "Illa suavissima Vita" Christianity, Early Influence of Meaning of Wraxen Saint, Legend of a Land Holland Farewell Stepony Ale "Regis ad Exemplar" La Caronacquerie Rev. T. Tailer Mistletoe as a Christmas Evergreen Poor Robin's Almanacks Sirloin Thompson of Esholt. 266

REPLIES: Replies to Minor Queries: Pension Execution of Charles I. Paper Hangings Black guard Pilgrims' Road Combs buried with the Dead Aërostation St. Thomas of Lancaster Smoke Money Robert Herrich Guildhalls Abbé Strickland Long Conkin Havock Becket's Mother Watching the Sepulchre Portraits of Charles I. Joachim, the French Ambassador. 269

MISCELLANEOUS: Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 271 Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 271 Notices to Correspondents. 271 Advertisements. 272

NOTES.

OLD SONGS.

I heard, "in other days," a father singing a comic old song to one of his children, who was sitting on his knee. This was in Yorkshire: and yet it could hardly be a Yorkshire song, as the scene was laid in another county. It commenced with

"Randle O'Shay has sold his mare For nineteen groats at Warrin'ton fair,"

and goes on to show how the simpleton was cheated out of his money.

I find in Hasted's History of Kent (vol. i. p. 468., 2nd edit.) mention made of the family of Shaw, who held the manor of Eltham, &c., and who "derive themselves from the county palatine of Chester." It is further stated that Randal de Shaw , his son, was settled at Haslington Hall in that county.

All, indeed, that this proves is, the probability of the hero of the song being also a native of Cheshire, or one of the adjacent counties; and that the legend is a truth, even as to names as well as general facts. The song is worthy of recovery and preservation, as a remnant of English character and manners; and I have only referred to Hasted to point out the probable district in which it will be found.

There are many other characteristics of the manners of the humbler classes to be found in songs that had great local popularity within the period of living memory; for instance, the Wednesbury Cocking amongst the colliers of Staffordshire and Rotherham Status amongst the cutlers of Sheffield. Their language, it is true, is not always very delicate perhaps was not even at the time these songs were composed, as they picture rather the exuberant freaks of a half civilised people than the better phases of their character. Yet even these form "part and parcel" of the history of "the true born Englishman."