General Books

NOTES. ROBERD THE ROBBER. In the Vision of Piers Ploughman are two remarkable passages in which mention is made of "Roberd the robber," and of "Roberdes knaves." "Roberd the robbere, On Reddite loked, And for ther was noght wherof He wepte swithe soore." Wright's ed., vol. i. p. 105. "In glotonye, God woot, Go thei to bedde, And risen with ribaudie, The Roberdes... more...

NOTES. A NOTE ON "SMALL WORDS." "And ten small words creep on in one dull line." Most ingenious! most felicitous! but let no man despise little words, despite of the little man of Twickenham. He himself knew better, but there was no resisting the temptation of such a line as that. Small words he says, in plain prosaic criticism, are generally "stiff and languishing, but they may be... more...

NOTES. STRAY NOTES ON CUNNINGHAM'S LONDON. The following notes are so trivial, that I should have scrupled to send them on any other ground than that so well-conceived and labouriously-executed a work should have its most minute and unimportant details as correct as possible. This, in such a work, can only be effected by each reader pointing out the circumstances that he has reason to believe are... more...

NOTES. RIOTS OF LONDON. Seventy years having passed away since the riots of London, there cannot be many living who remember them, and still fewer who were personally in contact with the tumultuous throng. Under such circumstances, I venture to offer for introduction into your useful and entertaining miscellany some incidents connected with that event in which I was either personally an actor or... more...

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... more...

NOTES. THE MEANING OF "DRINK UP EISELL" IN HAMLET. Few passages have been more discussed than this wild challenge of Hamlet to Laertes at the grave of Ophelia: "Ham. I lov'd Ophelia! forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? —Zounds! show me what thou'lt do? Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast?... more...

NOTES. FOLK LORE. The First Mole in Cornwall; a Morality from the Stowe of Morwenna, in the Rocky Land.—A lonely life for the dark and silent mole! She glides along her narrow vaults, unconscious of the glad and glorious scenes of earth, and air, and sea! She was born, as it were, in a grave, and in one long living sepulchre she dwells and dies! Is not existence to her a kind of doom? Wherefore is... more...

NOTES GRAVESEND BOATS. While so much has been said of coaches, in the early numbers of "Notes and Queries" and elsewhere, very little notice has been taken of another mode of conveyance which has now become very important. I think it may amuse some of your readers to compare a modern Gravesend boat and passage with the account given by Daniel Defoe, in the year 1724: and as it is contained in... more...

NOTES NOTES AND QUERIES The history of books and periodicals of a similar character ought to be the object of interest to the readers of this work. The number of works in which answers have been given to proposed questions is not small. Not to mention the Spectator and its imitators, nor the class of almanacs which give riddles and problems, nor mathematical periodicals of a more extensive... more...

NOTES ALFRED'S OROSIUS. The two exceedingly valuable elucidations which the geography of King Alfred relating to Germany (intercalated in the royal author's translation of Orosius), has received from your learned contributors MR. R.T. HAMPSON (Vol. i., p. 257.) and MR. S.W. SINGER (Vol. i., p. 313.) induce me to offer some new views on the same subject. From my having passed a long series of... more...