Springtime and Other Essays Part 19

{5} I was led to examine them by a writer in _The Times_ (6th February 1918), who describes the buds as being as blue "as wood-smoke from cottage chimneys."

{6} Ludwig has seen creatures, which run on the surface of the water, carry away duckweed pollen. These fertilisers belong to the families Hydrometridae, Corisidae, and Naucoridae.

{7} This, and part of what follows, is from unpublished notes of lectures given at Cambridge.

{11} The present discussion is partly taken from my introduction to Blomefield's _Naturalist's Calendar_, 1903.

{12a} _Observations in Natural History_, p. 334.

{12b} Earliest date noted, 21st April; latest, 8th May.

{12c} Earliest date, 21st March; latest, 7th May (fifteen years'

observation).

{12d} Quoted in Prior's _Popular Names of British Plants_, 3rd ed., 1879, p. 59.

{15} Reprinted from the _Cornhill Magazine_, June 1919.

{16} Though, I confess, I only guess at some of them.

{17a} Fogle means a silk handkerchief, according to Farmer and Henley's _Dictionary of Slang_, 1905, and may perhaps suggest the picking of pockets. Its connection with Bandanna is obvious.

{17b} The appropriateness of Burke is sufficiently obvious. The trial of Thurtell by Judge Park was also a _cause celebre_. There was a ballad of the day in which the victim is described with some bloodthirsty detail which I omit:

"His name was Mr William Weare, He lived in Lyons Inn."

After the murder Thurtell drove back to London and had a hearty supper at an eating-house. Judge Park, who tried him, is said to have exclaimed: "Commit a murder and eat six pork chops! Good G.o.d, what dreams the man must have had." Catherine Hayes was also a well-known miscreant.

{18} A collocation preceding by half a dozen years Doyle's immortal travels of Brown, Jones, and Robinson.

{19} There is also a Mrs Glowry (chap. xxvi.), who speculates as to whether the Pope is to fall in 1836 or 1839.

{20} _The History of Pickwick_, 1891, pp. 14, 15.

{21} _The History of Pickwick_, 1891, p. 153.

{23} How much better is the name Madge Wildfire for a somewhat similar character in _The Heart of Midlothian_.

{25} The name of the ducal seat Gatherum Castle is utterly bad.

{26} Here referred to by his Christian name only. I think it was this eminent M.D. who was called in when Bishop Grantley was dying.

{29a} In two volumes: Oxford, 1857.

{29b} The book, according to the _Dictionary of National Biography_, was edited by Warton and Huddesford.

{30a} "Even when a Boy, he [T. H.] was observed to be continually poring over the Old Tomb-Stones in his own Church-yard, as soon almost as he was Master of the Alphabet."

{30b} The following description is taken from _Reliquiae Hearnianae_, vol.

ii., p. 904. Hearne wrote:-

5_th Feb._ 1729.-"My best friend, Mr Francis Cherry, was a very handsome man, particularly when young. His hands were delicately white. He was a man of great parts, and one of the finest gentlemen in England. K. James II., seeing him on horseback in Windsor forest, when his majesty was hunting, asked who it was, and . . . said he never saw any one sit a horse better in his life.

"Mr Cherry was educated at the free school at Bray. . . . He was gentleman commoner at Edem-hall anno 1682. . . . The hall was then very full, particularly there were then a great many gentlemen commoners there."

{30c} To this school he went daily on foot, three miles there and three back.

{31} Transcriber's note: reproduced as printed.

{39} The close of the parenthesis is wanting in the original.

{41} 10_th Feb._ 17212.-"Whereas the university deputations on Ash Wednesday should begin exactly at one o'clock, they did not begin this year till two or after, which is owing to several colleges having altered their hour of dining from eleven to twelve, occasioned from people's lying in bed longer than they used to do."

{46a} The word _heartick_ does not occur in the New Oxford Dictionary.

{46b} Of Lord Baltimore's family.

{56a} _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, i., p. 138.

{56b} As described in _Rustic Sounds_, p. 2.

{60} _Pickwick_, chap. xliv.

{62} The "scorers were prepared to notch the runs" (_Pickwick_, chap.

vii.).

{63} He was afterwards Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford: he died in 1893.

{67} _Rustic Sounds_, p. 92.

{68a} During my life in London as a medical student I had the happiness of living with my uncle, Erasmus Darwin, one beloved under the name of _Uncle Ras_ by all his nephews and nieces.

{68b} In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the _Origin of Species_.

{71} _Old English Instruments of Music_, by Francis W. Galpin, 1910.

{72} Modern harps, however, have pedals for raising the natural note of any string by a semi-tone.

{73a} It has also a greater compa.s.s than the rote.

{73b} In obedience to good authority I have here adopted the spelling Clairsech instead of Cla.r.s.ech. I presume that the spelling _Clarsy_ (p.

74) is intentionally phonetic.

{74a} We imagine the gittern to be laid flat on a table with strings uppermost.

{74b} Galpin, p. 21.

{77a} In Mr Dolmetsch's _The Interpretation of the Music of the XVIlth and XVIIIth Centuries_ (N.D.), the author also points out, p. 446, that the _frets_ of the viol give to the stopped notes the "_clear ring_" of the open strings. He claims also that in the viol "the manner of holding the bow and ordering its strokes . . . prevents the strong accents characteristic" of the violin, and facilitates "an even and sustained tone."