Springtime and Other Essays Part 20

He recommends (p. 452) that frets should be added to the Double Ba.s.s, which would "give clearness to many rapid pa.s.sages which at present only make a rumbling noise."

{77b} On Mace's t.i.tle-page he describes himself as "one of the Clerks of Trinity Colledge in the University of Cambridge."

{85} See my book, _Rustic Sounds_, 1917, where the pipe and tabor are more fully treated.

{87} A curious rustic shawm which survived in Oxfords.h.i.+re until modern times is the Whithorn or May Horn. It was made by a strip of bark twisted into a conical tube fixed together with hawthorn p.r.i.c.kles and sounded by a reed made of the green bark of the young willow. The instruments were made every year for the Whit Monday hunt which took place in the forest.

{88} They were also known as wayte pipes, after the watchmen (waytes) who played on them.

{89a} It is believed to have given its name to the well-known dance.

{89b} Galpin, p. 172.

{90} A straight horn, however, existed.

{91} So spelled, in order to distinguish it from the cornet a piston, once so popular.

{92} Mr Dolmetsch, _op. cit._, p. 459, says that the serpent "was still common in French churches about the middle of the nineteenth century; and although, as a rule, the players had no great skill, those who have heard its tone combined with deep men's voices in plain-song melodies, know that no other wind or string instrument has efficiently replaced it."

{94a} No specimen of the true portative is known to be in existence (Galpin, p. 228).

{94b} _Rustic Sounds_, p. 197.

{96a} Page 244.

{96b} Page 249.

{96c} The old name for the kettle-drum was _nakers_, a word of Arabic or Saracenic origin.

{96d} The larger of the kettle-drums has a range of five notes from the ba.s.s F, immediately below the line. The smaller drum's range (also of five notes) is from the B flat, just below the highest note of the bigger drum (p. 253).

{97} The earliest use of the name kettle-drum is in 1551 (Galpin, p.

251).

{100a} The name, however, is apparently not as old as the ceremonies.

It is said by Britten and Holland (_Dictionary of Plant-names_) to have been invented by Gerard (1597).

{100b} Prior, _The Popular Names of British Plants_, ed. iii., 1879, p.

89.

{100c} Blomefield (formerly Jenyns) was a contemporary of my father's at Cambridge, and was remarkable for wide knowledge, and especially for the minute accuracy of his work. He kept for many years a diary of the dates of flowering of plants and of other phenomena, which the Cambridge University Press republished in 1903 as _A Naturalist's Calendar_.

{106} _Guy Mannering_, vol. ii., ch. xxiv.

{107} Britten and Holland.

{114} Bentham, _Ill.u.s.trations of the British Flora_, 5th ed., 1901, p.

68.

{115a} _Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker_, _O.M._, _G.C.S.I._, by Leonard Huxley, 2 vols. John Murray, 1918.

{115b} The only obvious exception seems to be that too much s.p.a.ce has been given to Sir Joseph's letters to Mr La Touche, inasmuch as they are not especially interesting. It is not clear why Sir Joseph corresponded so much with Mr La Touche. Can it be that he wished to placate him as being his son's schoolmaster?

{116} i., p. 5.

{122a} Hooker's son Brian was named after him.

{122b} Hooker's _Himalayan Journals_ was published in 1854, and dedicated to Charles Darwin by "his affectionate friend."

{123} As a further instance of the treatment Hooker received from the Indian authorities, I cannot resist quoting from vol. ii., p. 145: "The Court of Directors snubbed him before he set out, refusing him a.s.sistance and official letters of introduction to India, and even a pa.s.sage out. . . .

It was Hooker who surveyed and mapped the whole province of Sikkim, and opened up the resources of Darjiling at the cost of captivity . . .

and the consequent loss of all his instruments and part of his notes and collections. Yet the India Board actually sold on Government behalf the presents the Rajah made him after his release," though they owed to his energy the Government sites of the tea and cinchona cultivation.

{124} "On the Reception of the Origin of Species," _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, ii., p. 197.

{125} _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, ii., p. 241.

{127a} _More Letters_, i., p. 117.

{127b} _Life of Hooker_, i., p. 536.

{128a} And finally, after Hooker's retirement, Director.

{128b} ii., p. 139.

{128c} ii., p. 142.

{131} In 1882 Hooker had written to Darwin:-"The First Commissioner (one of your d---d liberals) wrote a characteristically illiberal and ill-bred minute . . . in effect warning me against your putting the Board to any expense! . . . I flared up at this, and told the Secretary . . . that the F. C., rather than send me such a minute, should have written a letter of thanks to you."

{133} That is to say, to a great-grandson of Josiah Wedgwood.

{137a} The _History of St Bartholomew's Hospital_, by Norman Moore, M.D., London. C. Arthur Pearson, Limited, 1918.

{137b} Sir Norman Moore expresses his thanks to Mr Thomas Hayes, the present Clerk of the Hospital, for his courtesy on innumerable occasions during the progress of the author's researches.

{141} It is curious that, although the Christian names of men occurring in the history are quite ordinary, the women's names are often unfamiliar, _e.g._, G.o.dena, Sabelina, Hawisia, Lecia, Auina, Hersent, Wakerilda.

{142} Doubtless Dr Moore himself.

{144} William may have come from the village of Ba.s.singbourne, near Cambridge.

{145} See _Henry IV._, Part ii., Act v., Scene v.

{150} In 1561 a new seal was made which is still in use.

{154} Here and elsewhere I have fallen a victim to Dr Moore's pleasant gift of narrative, for I cannot pretend that either Paulus Jovius or Robert Browning are connected with the hospital.

{161} _Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy_, edited by Wilfrid Airy. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1896.